The Reel World

“Are you a believer in order?”

The natural order of things during the summer movie season is to be pummeled by one would-be blockbuster after another, each aiming to be louder and more extravagant than the last. So debuting A Little Chaos — a 2014 British period drama about a seemingly esoteric chapter of French faux-history — amidst all this noise is a curious decision. While the film certainly nails the “extravagant” part and largely adheres to costume drama conventions, there's just enough here to make it a thoroughly pleasing alternative to the typical multiplex fare.

The original Ted movie gave us the answer to what would happen if a beloved toy came to life. I know what you are thinking; Toy Story provided us with the same answer, except Ted went a step further and revealed what happens when the little boy and the beloved toy grow up. Ted was a hard-drinking and drug-taking movie that was beloved by many. When it came to that movie I was thoroughly satisfied, and I did not believe that it could be improved upon, so when I heard the announcement of the sequel, I had reservations. In my opinion, the sequel was clear money grab that was going to ruin all that the original accomplished. I told you that to tell you this: I stand corrected. As it turns out, there was more story to tell, and I am glad that I got to experience it.

The story picks up some years later, Ted is set to marry his girlfriend Tammy-Lynn (yes, it is the original girl from the first one, so it earns points for bringing back most of the original cast) while his best friend John (Mark Wahlberg) is recovering from his recent divorce from Laurie. Fast forward a year later. For Ted and Tammy-Lynn the honeymoon is over, and the day-to-day work of marriage has the two at each other’s throats. Looking for a way to solve their marital problems, Ted decides the two need to have a child (yeah, because that solves everything). After hilarious hijinks involving finding a sperm donor, the two opt for adoption, only to discover that their application was denied because in the eyes of the law Ted is not a real person.

I should say right up front, it seems like everyone loves this film but me. That is pretty much true of all Pixar films. They seem to be above reproach, regret and retribution. I love some Pixar films very much, but many I find to be overpraised. In the case of the new film Inside Out, it is not so much bad as disturbing. It is well made but suffers from two problems. It is not overwhelmingly profound while being somewhat bewildering. Some people might say it is a film for kids, so I should give it a pass, but I disagree. It raises many interesting questions, but it not only doesn't answer them but gives deliberately wrong answers. I need to take an extreme viewpoint here, because I honestly believe most critics are not doing their jobs. This film tries to tackle a fairly complicated subject for a kid's film and then blasts us all with a flurry of confusing concepts and an excessively frightening tidal wave of misinformation. Some bloggers are mentioning that the film bears some resemblance to the 90's sitcom Herman's Head. One could even say it might have gotten some inspiration from Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex, But Were Afraid To Ask.

Inside Out is a look inside the brain of an 11-year-old girl called Reily. Her brain's central control is run by five animated characters, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). That is a simplistic view of the brain, but the film gets way more complicated than that. It also gets confusing and mystifying.

"We need more teeth."

That's the problem with sequels, isn't it? There's always the belief that you have to go bigger and stronger than you did before. It's an ideal that is also reflected quite literally in the story of Jurassic World. You know what kills worse than dinosaurs? Expectations. It is those expectations that will turn what is a pretty solid action movie into a disappointment for so many. No doubt, Jurassic World is a fun and entertaining movie. But it's not Jurassic Park, and the truth is it never could be. If you go to this movie hoping to recapture what you felt the first time you heard the words "Welcome to Jurassic Park", it's never going to happen here. Thank God that you will always have the original. It's even out there in an impressive 3D conversion. You can watch it whenever you want. You have to approach Jurassic World as something almost totally different. If you can, there is fun to be had.

I don't enjoy writing negative reviews. It's a struggle when the film experience was joyless and then to have to go back and relive that. I also don't enjoy reading reviews by other critics that get everything completely wrong. It's even worse when almost all the critics get it wrong. Even worse than that is when I see critics dumping on a film that's actually good, but that's a story for a different day. How can I say Spy is so bad? Because I had to sit through the movie. I can get some enjoyment out of even the worst movies, and that's true here, but I would not recommend it to unsuspecting viewers. I do imagine a lot of people will enjoy the movie despite themselves if they are paying for babysitters, etc. Again, I do think every movie has some entertainment value. I will try to find it in the new movie Spy. The first good thing I can say is that Spy is a chick flick that lets chicks save the day. They don't look great doing it, but they save the day. That's one of the problems. Almost no one looks good in this film.

The film has a great cast. Melissa McCarthy is the big star, but she shares billing with Jason Statham, Jude Law, and Rose Byrne. You can also throw in sturdy supporting players like Allison Janney and Bobby Cannavale. There are plenty more, but those are the names. I will say that the person who comes off the best is Rose Byrne. She plays a super-bitch super-villain who you truly believe doesn't like anyone. She dispatches people with the unpleasant venom of someone who doesn't like the service she is receiving at a restaurant. Jason Statham has the thankless job of making fun of himself. He seems game, but he doesn't really pull it off. He gets some of the funniest material but almost flubs most of his lines with his mush-mouth delivery. Jude Law gets the part of the perfect James Bond-type spy, but you get the hint of embarrassment in his facial mannerisms like he's trying too hard to spoof the trope.

“If you call out to one of the dead, all of them can hear you.”

This lesson is very familiar to anyone who has seen either of the first two Insidious films, a pair of old-fashioned (no sex, no gore), highly-profitable chillers. Of course, a potential problem for this third installment was that the characters in these movies really should have learned that lesson by now too. The makers of Insidious: Chapter 3 smartly sidestep that issue by turning back the clock on the franchise. I just wish the rest of the film had more of that ingenuity and fewer blatant, unearned jump scares.

“We'll get hit again...and it's going to be a bigger monster.”

The character who utters these words in San Andreas is referring to an impending earthquake that could literally rip California apart. But he could just as easily be talking about the summer movie season, when audiences who have just been rocked by a catastrophic quake have to deal with something called “Indominus Rex” a mere two weeks later. San Andreas almost certainly won't end up as the biggest bully on the Hollywood block, but it's a big, dumb, fun disaster flick the whole family can enjoy.

We all love underdogs. Even if we think we're the greatest thing since chipped beef on toast, secretly we think we're the underdog.  No matter how great our life is, we don't think it's good enough, and everyone's out to get us. Pitch Perfect was a movie about underdogs, and it was an underdog itself. It was a movie about women, nerds and dorks. Just in case you think I'm being insulting, I actually think all three of those things are great, but they are not always given the respect they deserve. The first movie was thrown out in the marketplace with the expectation that it would starve and die. Instead it did very respectable business which only grew when it went to the home viewing audience. Pitch Perfect made $65 million, and now Pitch Perfect 2 has made over $70 million in it's first weekend. The sequel only cost $29 million to make. The characters in the movie are still underdogs, but clearly the producers of the movie are not.

So what's all the excitement about? Nothing much. Just an underdog story about a bunch of girls and their sometimes dopey boyfriends. They are an a capella singing group in college that fought their way to a championship only to lose it in the beginning of the second movie with a massive fail wardrobe malfunction. The story isn't too much different than the first. Just more of the same. They have to fight their way back from disgrace and failure. We can all identify with that.

It is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer and another subject in the category of can Tom Hardy do no wrong? Mad Max: Fury Road is the reimagining of the iconic film that helped launch Mel Gibson’s career decades earlier. This is not new territory in Hollywood by any stretch of the imagination; remakes have happened so often in recent years that they have practically become their own genre. However, I would like to point out something that will hopefully set this film aside in the eyes of the audience: how often do you see a remake that is overseen by the creator of the original film that you know and love?

OK, OK, perhaps this is not entirely new territory as well, except I am certain that Mad Max fans all over the world leaped for joy when news broke that the architect of the originals, George Miller, had decided to helm the remake as well. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that is the underlining reason that many of you folks intend to see the movie. And it is in that spirit that I would like to impart a piece advice upon the future audience: put the past out of your mind when you are watching this. It is not a continuation, it is an origin story. Yes, I know that it seems like a simple concept, and maybe I am rehashing thoughts you have already had, but for argument’s sake, just do what I ask, and I promise you will have a far better experience.

by Dustin P. Anderson

The entirety of this movie is shot from the perspective of our main protagonist’s (Blaire) computer screen. Her friends start a video conference, and they are soon haunted by the memory of their friend who committed suicide due to cyber bullying (and I guess some regular bullying too). Her friends start dying from forced suicide (or suicide from being possessed by a spirit), and they must play this spirit's game in order to survive. I was pretty excited to see if this movie could accomplish being scary from a bold new way of filmmaking. The budget on this wasn’t very high for a major release title, and in an age where hundreds of millions of dollars is par for the course to spend on a film, that is pretty impressive; however, only impressive if it works. Luckily, this movie works.