The Reel World

A jittery, strikingly blue eye is shown in extreme close-up. It belongs to a woman named Christine, who finds herself naked in bed with a strange man’s arm draped around her waist. She stumbles to a nearby bathroom, where she finds clues about her identity taped to a wall. The man appears shortly after and introduces himself as Christine’s husband. It’s an effective little opening that succeeds in making the viewer feel as disoriented as Christine. The problem with Before I Go To Sleep is that — even as the truth is unpacked — the disorientation turns into disengagement and (worst of all) disinterest. In other words, this is a thriller that isn’t particularly thrilling.

“On TV it looks so real.”

When I first walked out from the theater after watching Nightcrawler, the thing that stuck with me the most is how great Jake Gyllenhaal was in this film.  This isn’t the first performance he’s caught my attention in; he’s an actor who pretty much any time I see him in a film he’s one of the most memorable aspects of the film.

Whiplash has gotten so many raves that I want to make sure I address the things that are bad as well as the things that are good about the film. First thing I will say is that the movie is implausible, and I had a hard time to totally buy into it for different reasons. The film is about a young jazz drummer at a prestigious music academy who gets to play in the band of the top instructor at the school. It becomes apparent early on that the instructor is crazy. He browbeats and actually beats his students into compliance without a hint of mercy.

Wow! OMG! WTH! This is a towering achievement in every way. It is staggering. It is literally staggering; you will leave the theater drained because all your adrenaline will have been used up. Fragmentary, flowing, electric, and it shows the disintegrating of a man's mind in a vibrant phantasmagoria. Any director in the world who sees this will slap himself in the face and say, “Why didn't I do this!” It is a technical tour de force, and everyone in it delivers at full throttle. It is breathless and exhilarating and your mind will be blown.

"Ideals are peaceful. History is violent."

David Ayer doesn't have a huge resume of films to his credit. In his 15 years as a director he's only given us five films. Add just another three as a writer. What he has done as a writer and/or director appears to explore some of the same themes of machismo under heavy fire that are splattered all about Fury along with the blood and gore that is the natural byproduct of war. He's the kind of filmmaker who doesn't appear to tackle a project unless he finds he has something to say. In the past that voice hasn't always been terribly original.

The internet is destroying everything. It seems crazy, but it's true, and most people know it. I mean that so many businesses have been destroyed by the tumorous growth of the internet and its insidious and unchecked influence. The newspaper business, music business, broadcast business and probably the movie business have been fundamentally and permanently altered. Men,Women and Children addresses how it affects each and every one of us on a daily basis. We're all aware of this. It's our lives now, and it wasn't 10 years ago.

"Did that just happen?"

I have to confess that I entered The Judge expecting a different kind of film than I actually saw. After seeing the trailer I was reminded of some of the classic courtroom dramas I'd seen over the years from 12 Angry Men through ...And Justice For All. On the ride to the screening I found my mind was swimming with the "closing arguments" Al Pacino delivered in ...And Justice For All and was trying to image how Robert Downey, Jr. was going to try and top that. In the end Downey didn't top that wonderful monologue. In the end The Judge simply wasn't that kind of a movie after all.

It’s October, which means there’s probably a new, spine-tingling offering coming at you every day. (That’s certainly the case here at UpcomingDiscs.) Kill the Messenger — a thoroughly compelling, true-life drama that channels the crusading spirit of All the President’s Men and The Insider — is no one’s idea of a horror movie. Unless you’re like me, and you happen to be a newspaper reporter.

With the Marvel universe taking off and scoring at the box office for many years now, studios are digging for franchises they can start up or reboot to cash in on the craze.  Warner Brothers is stumbling a bit with DC comics, but Universal has remained quiet, that is until someone in the creative department realized they own the properties to the greatest horror characters of all time.  When Dracula, The Wolfman, and The Mummy were in their heyday, actors like Karloff and Lugosi became instant icons of cinema.

"I like your dolls."

The Conjuring was one of the best horror movies to come along in years. Why? Because it was a good scare with a story that didn't totally insult our intelligence or leave us scratching our heads too many times. The movie also dealt with its own red herring of sorts in a possessed doll kept under wraps by that film's hero couple. We're treated to a tease of her story before we move on to other matters.