The Reel World

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?

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.

"It's called The Ultron Program."

Remember when you were a kid and one of your friends would come over and ask if you could come out and play? You would head for the door with a grin from ear to ear, because you knew you were about to have a blast. You might not have had any idea what it was you were going to do. Often you made it up as you went along. It didn't matter. You just knew fun times were on the other side of your front door. That's exactly how I felt going to catch The Avengers: Age Of Ultron. It was as if Joss Whedon had come to my house and asked me to come out and play.

"The following is kind of based on a true story, a little bit." 

In 2005 British folk singer/songwriter Steve Tilston found out something amazing had happened to him but he never knew it. John Lennon had written a letter to him in 1971 providing him with some career encouragement and his home phone number. It was after an interview with the musician in ZigZag Magazine revealed that Lennon was one of Tilston's idols that got the attention of the former Beatle

Most true life stories are remarkable in some way. If you can get to the truth of real-life history, it almost always unearths treasures of understanding. Art is the process of revealing hidden truth and beauty in real life. Woman In Gold is the story of a painting that was sold for $135,000,000 in 2006 to an heir of Estee Lauder. It was the highest price for a painting at the time. There is a remarkable story that takes place around the painting. It involves the Nazi theft of art in World War II. A previous film, Monuments Men, tackled the subject a couple of years ago.

When Divergent ended, it planted the seed for the sequels that would follow.  I really enjoyed the first installment and our introduction into the factions that supported this society.  What I enjoyed most after revisiting the film is how the film handles the budding relationship between Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James), never too sappy but being a couple we could root for since they were both outsiders to their community.  Now that the factions and the characters have all been set up, and with the rebellion beginning to take shape at the end of the first film, Insurgent wastes no time in jumping into the story and delivering one of the better sequels in some time.

“Have courage and be kind.”

Those words — repeated many times in this newest version of Cinderella — serve as both the title character’s mantra and the film’s unofficial tagline. The message is elegant in its simplicity in a way that mirrors this refreshingly old-fashioned adaptation, which resists the prevailing urge to modernize and/or revise a classic story.

“Tell everyone to get ready.  Jimmy is coming.” 

If someone were to tell me while walking out of Schindler’s List that 20 years later Liam Neeson would be an action star, I would have thought they were out of their mind.  Between the trio of Taken films and numerous films that seem to be cut from the same ilk, Liam Neeson seems to be walking in the same footsteps as Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood as being the go-to everyman that just so happens to be a badass with or without a gun.

Unfinished Business starring Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, James Marsden and Nick Frost is a raunchy comedy. I say that because it is the most important thing I can say that would make people want to see this movie. It is raunchy, but it is mixed with so many other issues and tones that the raunchiness and comedy sometimes get lost in the mix. The film is really more about anxiety and failure. There are so many elements mixed in that this emotional rollercoaster of a movie is so full of strange turns that it is difficult to enjoy the ride.