The Reel World

“For me, it was always going to be about love.”

The best time travel stories don’t endure because people really like thinking about wormholes and paradoxes. No, it’s the idea of reliving the past or getting a peek at what’s next — before realizing we’re better off just living each day to the fullest — that captures our imagination. That’s why a filmmaker like Richard Curtis, best known for writing and directing romantic comedies like Love Actually, as well as his Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill screenplays, can take on a fantastical concept like time travel so naturally. Based on Curtis’ filmography, you’d expect his take on the subject to be about a boy…standing in front of a girl…asking her to love him…by traveling back in time and finding out all the stuff she likes. But you’d only be mostly right.

Douglas, Freeman, Kline, and De Niro: four legendary actors band together in a single film and it’s a comedy no less; it’s not the first time that this has been heard of; however, not sure that it has ever been done with such style. It’s good to see four actors who you would normally see doing serious movies goof off and have a little fun, and by the looks of it, they had plenty of fun doing it. The Flatbush Four, Billy (Michael Douglas), Patty (Robert De Niro), Archie (Morgan Freeman), and Sammy (Kevin Kline) are four friends from Brooklyn who grew up together. Their bond was unshakable, and only they were allowed to make fun of one another, a rule that was enforced by Patty on several occasions. Growing up, it was these four against the world, and eventually they would take the world by storm.

Almost sixty years later, the Flatbush Four are no more in a sense. Now all old men, the group has long since disbanded and they are separated all over the U.S: Billy is out in Malibu, living with a woman half his age, Patty lives a solitary life of misery after the death of his wife, Sammy is equally miserable and bored living in Florida with his wife, and Archie after a mild stroke is relegated to living with his son and family where he is treated like an invalid. But when Billy calls with news of his upcoming wedding to his child bride (as the others refer to her), these four reunite for the first time in years in the only place suitable to house a wedding as well as a bachelor party: Vegas, and what a legendary weekend it turned into.

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy — understand him well enough to defeat him —then in that very moment, I also love him.”

It’s no accident that both soldiers and football players are fashioned to look indistinguishable from one another on their respective battlegrounds. We create a personal detachment between ourselves and our adversaries because we believe that will make it easier to annihilate them. That’s one of the many provocative ideas in Ender’s Game, the consistently dazzling and occasionally rushed adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s beloved science fiction book. (Of course, the author himself is considerably less beloved these days.) I can mostly forgive the film for feeling a little hurried because fans have waiting a long time for this one.

"You won't see it coming".

Ridley Scott has undergone a bit of a change in his last couple of films. He has become more contemplative and philosophical. It's certainly understandable. In the middle of filming The Counsellor, his brother and producing partner Tony Scott took his own life by jumping from a bridge. Obviously production on this film was halted for a time. Credit the director for pulling it together and getting the film back on track and finally released. Still, as you watch the film, you can't help but wonder if it wasn't heavily influenced by his own personal tragedy. It's not an uplifting film at all; in fact, it's quite depressing. If Prometheus was about the meaning of life. I'd have to say that The Counsellor is about the meaning of death.

“They’re gonna laugh at you. They’re all gonna laugh at you.”

The idea of remaking/reimagining/refurbishing a horror classic may have been laughable at one point, but now it’s just business as usual. Then again, I happen to think this is an especially good time to revisit 1976's Carrie. With all the attention bullying has gotten in the media these last few years, the supernatural story of a high school outsider pushed to her violent breaking point seems particularly timely. I just wish the new movie had more going for it beyond decent timing and a pair of impressive leading ladies.

Journalism today is in disarray. I say that not because there aren't many, many passionate journalists who want to do the best job possible. I say it because there are just many, many, many more bloggers who don't know how live up to those standards or why it's even important. The internet changes everything in the music industry, the movie industry, and the media industry. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. It just means that it's chaotic, and it often seems like no one is in control. The head of Amazon just bought one of the most venerable papers in the world, The Washington Post. The head of eBay is supposedly organizing a new media venture that will adhere to the strictest journalistic standards. Again, journalism today is in disarray.

The Fifth Estate is a movie about the frenzy surrounding Wikileaks and Julian Assange. The title suggests there is a successor to the fourth estate, which is the news media (don't ask about the first three estates since they are church, state and nobility which may be irrelevant now). I don't know if anybody knows what a fifth estate is yet, but Wikileaks is a big deal. It is also justifiably considered to be extremely controversial. Wikileaks is an international online organization that claims to protect the identity of any whistleblower trying to reveal classified and secret information with the hope of undermining worldwide corruption. I've seen the documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks and was able to compare that to The Fifth Estate. They are quite different, but in small ways that can add up to a lot.

“A successful breakout depends on three things: Layout, Routine, and Outside Help.”

You know, there was a time when the public could only dream of an Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone team-up. Now thanks to a little film called The Expendables, when it comes to the realm of action star team-ups, anything is possible. Case in point: Escape Plan. When this film was first announced, I figure it would be devoid of any real substance and just another attempt to capitalize on the success of  Expendables (the first one; the second is not that great) but the film surprisingly holds up on its own without having to cling to anything else.

Gone With The Wind is the most popular film of all time still to this day if you talk about adjusted dollars. The Birth of a Nation was the most popular film of all time for a considerable time prior to that. Both films could be said to have a benign view of slavery and white supremacy, although it would be easy to use much stronger language than that. In most circles, both films have been considerably discredited due to this myopic view. Both films almost completely ignore or disregard the incredible cruelty of using human beings as a commodity for commerce. Even that doesn't begin to address the evil. Slavery continues to subjugate and demean up to 30,000,000 people worldwide to this very day, but it was sanctioned by law in much of the United States until after the Civil War. The horror, indignity and monstrous unfairness of it all cannot be overstated. Those involved in the abolitionist movement prior to the Civil War were driven by a fanatical and fervent desire to expose the abominable hypocrisy that was prevalent. A small core of free men and women of all races risked their lives to fight the abomination.

12 Years a Slave was a book that was written as a true account of the blind evil of the time. It is now a movie by young director Steve McQueen (that's his real name; he is obviously not the dead actor). In Saratoga Springs, a young highly regarded musician has a beautiful family and home. His name is Solomon Northup, and he has a good life. He is intelligent, friendly and eager to make the most of his talents. He is persuaded to assist two entrepreneurs with a venture and travel to Washington, D.C. After much success and celebration he wakes up to find himself in chains, and so begins the 12 years. He is transported on a slave ship and changes hands among owners over those 12 years. He is, after all, property. He is now part of a “peculiar institution”.

"Try not to be distracted by the cleavage and the hairspray."

It all started out as a mock trailer written by Robert Rodriquez for the 2007 farce Grindhouse. The project combined such talents as Rodriquez, Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright. They were all fans of the 1970's exploitation grindhouse films. You can certainly see the influences in the movies these filmmakers have made on their own. Machete was equally a farce and only intended to give you that drive-in trailer feeling during Grindhouse. Along the way the segment staring Danny Trejo became something more.

I remember the day I was watching CNN and they broadcast the news of Captain Richard Phillips being rescued after being held captive by Somali pirates back in 2009.  The story of a captain facing gun-toting pirates and being held captive on a lifeboat for four days is a story rich with material that begs to be made into a film.  Now four years later, this heroic story comes to the big screen (in IMAX for those lucky enough to have an IMAX nearby) helmed by director Paul Greengrass (United 93) and starring Tom Hanks in what I believe is the performance of his career.

Very little setup is needed as we meet Captain Phillips (Hanks) as he is on way to take command of the U.S. Maersk Alabama to captain the ship around the horn of Africa and through pirate-infested water.  All crew members know the risk that comes with taking a position on any ship that travels past Somalia, but there is no other route for a crew to take, leaving them with no other choice but to steer through the violent waters as quickly as they can.  Just as we are watching the stern and confident captain plot his route, we are also introduced to Muse (Barkhad Abdi) who leads a crew of his own that has only one intention, and that is to strike pay dirt by seizing a ship on the open sea.