The Reel World

Let me say something about myself. I have a saying. Atheists are stupid and agnostics are smart. The reason agnostics are smart is because they know they don't know. Faith is belief. The problem is that this is a cynical age. There are so many people who are atheists because they can cite facts about the universe and science. I always think it's absurd to hear an atheist talk, because they are so insulting to anyone who doesn't agree with them. So am I an agnostic?

"Hi, little guys."

There was a time, decades ago when Walt Disney Studios was doing quality documentaries on a pretty regular schedule. Many of them appeared on the television show The Wonderful World Of Disney, and more than a few were released as feature films. And while that tradition has continued somewhat, it's been a while since I was truly impressed by a Disney documentary. That all changes with the release of Bears.

Just about any project that Christopher Nolan has any attachment to is going to get my attention.  And from the first glimpses of the film in the early teasers, Transcendence always felt like a film Nolan would seem right at home making.  Instead taking the helm for the first time as director is Wally Pfister.  Though this may be his first time in the director’s chair, Pfister is no stranger to working on pictures of large scale; after all, he’s been Nolan’s director of photography since Memento back in 2000.  So how does Pfister do with his first at bat?  Well, it could be a lot worse…

When I saw the trailer for this film a while back, I was intrigued by what I saw.  Sure, we’ve seen the haunted mirror film before, but that doesn’t bother me; I actually enjoy the notion of haunted mirrors and the notion that what we see in the reflection may not necessarily be real.  With Oculus they take the idea of altered perception and play with us the viewer, and I have to admit I liked everything that this film had to offer; unfortunately what the film actually delivers is something entirely different.

When I first experienced The Raid it was a film that simply put my jaw to the floor in awe of the action spectacle.  The Raid was everything I could have wanted in an action film, fun gun play and intense bare-knuckle martial arts brutality just about from start to finish.  This is the kind of film that after you see it you simply have to tell your friends about it and simply gush over simply how awesome and cool this movie is.  So when I first heard about a sequel in the works, already I was excited.  And when the first trailer dropped for the sequel, it teased us with visuals that promised not just an escalation of action but a film that was on a much larger scale. 

“There’s no such thing as a sure thing.”

That’s the mantra used by the people tasked with evaluating “can’t-miss” college prospects each year. But there’s no surer thing in sports right now than this: if the NFL puts something on TV, people are going to watch it. Regular season games on Thursday night? Sign us up! College prospects running and jumping? Tune in to the NFL Scouting Combine! Even the friggin’ Pro Bowl gets massive ratings, which proves the product doesn’t necessarily have to be worth watching to draw eyeballs. And that brings us to Draft Day.

“Who cares about a bunch of birds?”

Well, judging by the fact that the original Rio grossed $484 million worldwide, it seems more than a few people are invested. The avian adventure from Blue Sky Studios may not have soared as high as Disney/Pixar or DreamWorks Animation’s best efforts — or even Blue Sky’s own Ice Age juggernaut — but it proved to be a dazzling, lucrative diversion in the spring of 2011. This charming sequel, which arrives almost three years to the day later, retains the disposable, toe-tapping charm of its predecessor.

"It's called compartmentalization. No one spills the secrets because no one knows them all."

I was lucky enough to grow up during Marvel's wonderful rebirth of the 1960's and 1970's. Of all of the comics they produced during that time, I was always least impressed with Captain America. I don't think I ever read an issue of any of his mags with the notable exception of The Avengers. So how can it be possible that after dozens of Marvel films, and I'm including the Fox and other-studio-produced stuff, that Captain America: The Winter Soldier can end up being my favorite?

Wes Anderson is not quite a real person. He is more of a concept. He is more of a myth or an approximation of reality, much like Citizen Kane was an approximation of the infamous newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Anderson is real, but has built up a kind of fantasy world around himself. It is full of precisely detailed artifice. His films all have the meticulous perfection of an alternate reality. If the average uninitiated person were exposed to all of Anderson's films, they wouldn't quite know what to make of it

Jason Bateman was born in 1969. He was working as an actor in 1982 on Little House on the Prairie. Then he went on to Silver Spoons and The Hogan Family (also known as Valerie). His sister, Justine, was doing well on Family Ties. Jason went on to become an adult. He grew up and became well liked on Arrested Development. That is always the hard part in the career of a child actor; making the transition to becoming a successful adult actor. He has been careful with his career