The Reel World

You know exactly what's going on here. It's Rocky Balboa vs. Joe La Motta, and they're not exactly in their prime. For reasons of property rights, of course, this really isn't Rocky or La Motta, but you and I know it is. The film takes great pains to remind us of each of these iconic characters. Sly's character tries to take a shot at some hanging meat after drinking a glass of raw eggs. De Niro's character is found telling boxing jokes in his own club, just as the real-life La Motta did after his fighting days were over. Both of these actors played iconic fighters in their day. It's safe to say that both the characters and the actors themselves are beyond their physical prime. Sly is just three years shy of 70, while De Niro reached that milestone back in August. And that's what makes Grudge Match a better film as a comedy.

It's been 30 years since Pittsburg's greatest fighters Henry "Razor" Sharp (Stallone) and Billy "The Kid" McDonnen left the fight game. They faced each other twice in their careers, splitting the victories. For each, the other was their only loss. A rubber match was going to happen, but Rocky Razor decided to retire before the fight. Since then, La Motta The Kid has not been able to let it go. He wanted to show the world he was best. It doesn't help that they had an issue out of the ring.

“Some of this actually happened.”

 It’s the quote that opens a film that I don’t just consider the most enjoyable experience on the big screen this year, but one of the best films to be released in years.  It’s a comedy, it’s a love story, it’s all a giant con wrapped in the world of the mid 70’s that David O. Russell captures with flare and detail and often at times feels as though it could be a sister film to Goodfellas.  By no means is this a gangster film (although the mob is present), but this is a film about characters who are all trying to do the right thing only the method by which they go about accomplishing the task is morally questionable.

You already know Mary Poppins is one of the most beloved movie musicals of all time. But did you know it also holds the record for most Oscar nominations (13) and wins (5) for a movie released by Walt Disney Studios? Audiences...critics...everybody loves Mary Poppins, right? Well, unless you follow movie history pretty closely, you may not know the film had a famous, formidable critic in P.L. Travers, the author of the “Mary Poppins” book series.

Saving Mr. Banks is at its best when its dramatizing the alternately petty, amusing and emotional struggle between Travers (Emma Thompson) and none other than Walt Disney himself (played by none other than Tom Hanks himself) to bring her creation to the silver screen. The film opens with a familiar bit of narration reinforcing the idea that “what’s to happen all happened before.” We catch up with a reluctant Mrs. Travers (she insists you call her that) in 1961, right before she’s about to travel from London to Los Angeles to decide if she will grant a determined Walt (he insists you call him that) the rights to turn her film into a crowd-pleasing musical. Not surprisingly, the severe, stubborn Travers comically clashes with her collaborators, which include screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) and legendary songwriting siblings Robert and Richard Sherman (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman).

"There are dark spirits, old and full of hate...The world is in great danger."

A trilogy is a hard animal to pull off. Even when you have a popular franchise, it is extremely difficult. All of the pieces have to work just right or you could have a disaster on your hands. It is even harder when you've already beaten the odds once and delivered a trilogy that is both loved and a huge box office success. You run into an almost insurmountable mountain of expectations. Your pieces must somehow fit together so that they can be viewed as one whole product. They also need to match the world and production style of the previous trilogy even though technology has changed quite a bit in the decade that separates the two. Lightning doesn't often strike the same place twice unless you happen to live in Florida or, apparently, New Zealand, where Peter Jackson has managed to do the impossible...so far.

Director Scott Cooper made his directorial debut with the much critically acclaimed film Crazy Heart.  It was an impressive first film that managed to get Jeff Bridges an academy award.  With Out of the Furnace, Cooper again has a film on his hands that may gain some award recognition due to the many great performances sprinkled throughout the film.  But aside from the great performances, how does the actual film hold up?  It’s something I’ve been pondering for a bit.  The film wastes no time showing us its dark side right from the start.  Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson) is out on a date and heaving outside his car at a drive-in theater.  This isn’t the Woody Harrelson we’re used to.  He’s rough-cut and mean.  When his date talks back him, not only does he seem to enjoy degrading her, but like a vicious dog he snaps and attacks her.  When an on looker walks over to help, you already know this won’t end well for the man who simply wants to do the right thing and help a woman in distress.  This scene plays out as one of my favorite introductions to a film’s villain in quite some time.

As for the star of the film, Christian Bale, he plays Russell Baze, a working-class man who works at the town steel mill barely making ends meet, but he’s content.  The same cannot be said about Russell’s little brother Rodney (Casey Affleck); he’s a veteran who is back from Iraq and is struggling to get back on his feet.  He doesn’t want a life in the mill but the town has little to nothing to offer which leaves Rodney with little choice but to spend what little he has (and borrows) on gambling.  Russell wants to help his brother, but Rodney, whether through pride or stupidity, simply won’t take help when it’s offered regardless of the circumstances.

This is a film that was sitting on a few shelves for quite some time. It was first a novel by Chuck Logan back in 2006. Sylvester Stallone liked the idea and put together a screenplay. It was intended as a vehicle for him, but that's where the whole sitting on a shelf thing comes into play. The movie never really got off the ground, and before long Sly was a little too long in the tooth to do the role. It's not like he was a spring chicken when he wrote the thing, which could account for, you know, that sitting on a shelf business. The screenplay has finally gotten off the shelf and into our movie screens. After careful consideration, I'm looking for that shelf again.

The movie isn't anything we haven't seen before. It begins as Agent Phil Broker (Statham) is infiltrating the Sons Of Anarchy...The Outcasts motorcycle club. It appears that cooking meth is more profitable than cruising on the highway. So much for the whole Born To Be Wild ideal. The takedown goes a little bad, and the son of the club's leader Danny T (Zito) gets killed. Danny T vows the typical revenge as he's being carted away.

The most peculiar thing about The Hunger Games — both in the books and the blockbuster movie adaptations — is that the Games themselves are easily the least interesting part. The first film's staggering box office success predictably led to a much bigger budget for the rabidly-anticipated sequel. (Catching Fire cost a reported $140 million, which is nearly double the original's $78 million budget.) The extra money is on display in almost every engrossing frame, including the action-packed arena scenes filmed in Hawaii. But the real reason Catching Fire is an improvement over its predecessor is because the story's satirical, political, rebellious spirit has been placed front and center.

We catch up with scrappy heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) a few hours before she is set to depart for her mandatory Victory Tour with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). Katniss and Peeta bucked the system by becoming the first co-winners of the previous Hunger Games, the annual televised battle to the death meant to assert the oppressive Capitol's control over the entire nation of Panem. They survived largely by fabricating a love story that nobody bothered to tell Peeta was fabricated. Their showmance captured the nation's heart, but it irked Gale (Liam Hemsworth) — Katniss's formerly platonic hunting buddy — and the sinister President Snow (Donald Sutherland).

What would you do if you found out that you fathered 533 kids? Better yet, how would you handle that news on top of the news that the children you fathered are petitioning the courts to have your identity revealed? Well, that is the dilemma that Vince Vaughn is faced with in his new comedy Delivery Man. As you can figure out from the funny premise, this is a comedy, but it is not just hapless jokes without any real substance; Delivery Man actually has another side to it, a side that tugs on the heartstrings a bit.

A remake of the French-Canadian film “Starbuck,” (it is also worth mentioning that both films, original and remake share the same creator, Ken Scott) Delivery Man tells the story of David Wozniak, a truck driver for his family’s butcher shop who has big plans for his life that never quite pan out. Perhaps that is too kind a way of putting it. A better way would be to say that David has been a bit of a disappointment to his girlfriend Emily (Cobie Smulders, How I Met Your Mother) who has just informed him that she’s pregnant, his father who would most likely fire him if he wasn’t related to him, and to the family business. Not only that, he owes an immense amount of money to some unsavory characters with a penchant for drowning people who don’t pay their debts.

In 1986, AIDS was all over the headlines. Now AIDS is forgotten and ignored by most, but the pandemic remains a world wide disaster. It's not like syphilis is all over the news either, but AIDS is both an insidious killer and one with a stigma all its own. Aside from the stigma is the world wide spread of HIV (the precursor to AIDS) which had reached 34 million people by 2010. Across the world, the majority of new infections are male to female. Modern pornography is exponentially more available than it has ever been and does nothing to promote safe sex, and condom use is still something that has strong opponents in society.

It's good for a movie like Dallas Buyers Club to come along to reacquaint a new generation to the terrors that AIDS brought to a previous generation. Dallas Buyer's Club is based on a true story about rodeo electrician, hard drinking gambler and rampant heterosexual Ron Woodroof. After an electrical accident sends him to the hospital, he is told that he has 30 days to live. It is impossible for Ron to comprehend how he could have the “gay” disease since his sexuality is heterosexual to the extreme.

" There is nothing more relaxing than knowing that the world is crazier than you are."

When Disney Studios bought the Marvel line, what they were buying was really a printing press that printed freshly-minted money. That doesn't mean it was automatic, however. It was done right. Starting with the first two Iron Man films, the franchise that would lead to Joss Whedon's superior Avengers film was one of creating a universe. God made the universe in seven days. It took Marvel five movies. What we end up with is not just a fine collection of treats for the geeks and fanboys. We're left with an entire world, a world that we are all invited at about the pace of two films a year to come and play within. No one is pretending that they're making serious cinema here. What they're doing is making serious cash. To do that there is only one order of the day. Thou shalt entertain. After two hours visiting with Thor: The Dark World -- I'm entertained.