The Reel World

For adults with kids, there is a great need for animated films to make the family happy. For movie studios, there is a great need for films that the entire family can go to that are not slapped with an R-rating which cuts down on profits. Two recent films recently made films about races, Planes and Turbo, showed a need for speed. More and more, the glut of these movies shows the need for greed. Greed is what makes studios only think about making money and not good movies.  I actually did like both Planes and Turbo, which is strange because I absolutely hated Cars 2, which was also a race movie.

Planes is a sequel to Cars, which is odd since it wasn't produced by Pixar but Disneytoons which normally produce a heavy slate of straight-to-video fare. Early reception generated plan to make two more Planes films. Planes takes the world wide race that was tried in Cars 2 and makes it more visually entertaining. One of the most interesting things when watching one of these movies is figuring out the vocal talent. Here the names are not A-list stars, but they serve well. They are Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, Cedric the Entertainer, John Cleese, Teri Hatcher, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Brad Garrett and Carlos Alazraqui. I know. I've never heard of Alazraqui either, but he does a dead-on imitation of Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots. The visuals are the key here. The swooping vistas of flight are always exhilarating. It is still put in the framework of an overly familiar story of a downtrodden underdog.

The line between hilarious raunchy comedy and over-the-top raunchy comedy is very fine, and We’re the Millers tends to dance on both sides of it. In time such action will be revealed to be both a blessing and a curse, I suspect. With the young crowd, I believe the film will fall right into place with such movies as Horrible Bosses (a comedy which coincidently starred Aniston and Sudeikis) and to be more recent, This is the End. With more mature audiences, the raunchiness may prove to be slightly more than they were expecting to see. With me, I find myself on the side of the young.

David (Jason Sudeikis) is a small town pot dealer in Denver, an occupation he has held since college without moving forward or backward. Hesitant to admit it, he has grown stagnant with the life he’s leading and wants more out of life. Those desires are put on hold after he is robbed, with both his stash and all of his cash including the money intended for his supplier Brad (Ed Helms, The Hangover). Deep in debt with no prospect of paying it back, Brad offers David one opportunity to erase his debt: smuggle a smidge and a half (inside joke, have to see the movie to understand) of marijuana from Mexico across the border back to Denver.

Where do I begin? The first Harry Potter movie and the first Percy Jackson movie were both directed by Chris Columbus, but he moved on in both cases. The other similarities are substantial, and the studio producing the new Percy Jackson movie certainly hopes it can produce a similar success that Harry Potter did for its studio. There are a whole lot of books that are part of an ongoing story. In fact, there is a new series that moves on from Greek gods to Egyptians. That's right, Greek gods, but not like in Clash of the Titans which takes place so many years ago in olden days. Percy Jackson is right up to the present, and Percy Jackson is a half- blood prince, son of Poseidon. The first movie, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, brought us into the crazy world of satyrs and cyclops and other creatures not entirely human.

Before I finish with Percy, I should discuss Young Adult books. There are more and more, and they are all trying to cash in on Harry Potter mania, and they are all probably going to be made into movies. The Hunger Games is another YA series that has developed a strong audience filling the gap left by Twilight. Divergent is coming, as is The Mortal Instruments. The problem is that if I tried to list all the YA projects likely to head to a theater near you it would be mind-numbing. In other words, Sea of Monsters better hit big, because the competition is heavy. Some popular series only got one shot like the recent Beautiful Creatures and The Golden Compass and A Series of Unfortunate Events. The first Percy Jackson box office results were only OK, but it has been given another chance.

Who said inter-agency cooperation wasn’t possible? Well, maybe cooperation is a bit of stretch for the relationship between Washington and Wahlberg in 2 Guns, the Rated R comedy from director Baltasar Kormakur (Contraband). A buddy-cop film by definition, but a refreshing one that is sure to be a welcomed addition to the subcategory right alongside Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys, and Rush Hour.

Partners in crime Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and Marcus Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) have worked together for the last year despite being polar opposites; Bobby is smooth and the consummate professional while Stig (as he likes to be called) is flippant and a bit unhinged. Regardless, the two work well together, the problem is neither is who they pretend to be. They’re both undercover agents; Bobby for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA.) and Stig for Naval Intelligence, and here’s the kicker, neither knows about the other’s true identity.

Stars grow old and die. I don't know what they do in the afterlife. Maybe they look over the shoulders of studio executives, mouths open in horror at the scripts they are reading. Stars do die, and they need to be replaced. The torch needs to be passed, and I don't always think studio heads give these matters enough thought. Stars aren't born. They need to be made. Sanded down, left out to dry, buffed and polished so hopefully they shine really bright. Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds are the names above the title of R.I.P.D. Jeff Bridges, the baby and the brother of movie stars, has shone bright over the years. Bridges just picked up his first best actor Oscar a couple of years ago after a number of tries.  He has done it all and is now a leathery, grizzled veteran of the Hollywood landscape. Ryan Reynolds is a smart, hardworking and appealing actor who seems always on the verge of superstardom.

Ryan Reynolds has been around. He's been engaged to Alanis Morrisette, then married Scarlett Johansson and then married Blake Lively. You get the impression that he's a nice guy, and both Alanis and Scarlett expressed regrets about the breakups. Comedy seems to be his forte, but he clearly has made attempts to do intense dramatic roles, most notably in Buried which consisted of him emoting alone in a coffin for the entire length of the movie.

James Wan is simply a director who continues to impress me.  Ever since Saw was released I’ve been a fan of his visual style that he brings to every film.  Let’s face it, Saw is pretty much the biggest horror franchise of the past decade, and it all started with a simple little indie film that took place mostly inside a dirty bathroom.  When Death Sentence came out, I was floored by how well he managed to construct a Death Wish film for a new generation.  The parking garage scene was just freaking awesome.  Then along came Insidious which was another massive smash for Wan.  Sure, the movie had its creepy moments, but for me the final act just fell apart.  Now Wan is set to release The Conjuring upon the masses; is it another smash hit like Saw and Insidious, or will this be destined to fall flat as Dead Sentence did?

The Conjuring is based on a true story about famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren who are staples of the paranormal investigation history and made famous for their “findings” with the Amityville investigation in Long Island.  With ghost hunting shows saturating the cable channels, it was inevitable that we would finally get a tale about the investigators who somewhat started it all.  But this isn’t so much just about the Warrens, but instead about the most terrifying case of their lives.

“It’s important to enjoy life while you still can.”

My word, Bruce Willis must be exhausted, helming three movies this year so far and six last year alone; jeez, I know I’d be in need of a serious break. Luckily in RED 2, Willis doesn’t have to hold down the fort alone. Not when you have Malkovich, Mirren, and Parker available to help pick up the slack. That’s right, like Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman’s character from RED) said in the original, “The band is getting back together.”  And this time they are picking up some new members as Catherine Zeta-Jones and Anthony Hopkins join the cast. RED was great, but RED 2 is epic.

Every once in a while a film comes along that looks like it could be interesting, but you don’t really expect to like it all that much. It’s simply meant to be filler, something to kill time until something better comes along, but somehow you get drawn in and become so engrossed in the story that you forget everything else. That is the most apt description of my experience with The Way Way Back, a socially awkward dramedy with a ton of heart featuring Steve Carrell, Sam Rockwell, Toni Collette, Liam James, and many more.

Duncan (Liam James, The Killing) is an introverted, slightly awkward fourteen-year-old. After his parents’ divorce, his mother Pam (Toni Collette, United States of Tara) starts dating Trent (Steve Carrell, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone), a single father who masks his disdain for Duncan with thinly veiled accusations and comments. For the summer, Duncan is dragged along with the couple and Trent’s daughter Steph (who treats him like a pariah) to Trent’s family beach house.

"We always thought that alien life would come from the stars, but it came from deep beneath the Pacific."

The only thing we seem to love more than giant monster movies are movies about giant dudes going a few rounds with said giant monsters. It was huge television fare in the 1960's and 1970's. We had Ultraman, Space Giants, and Johnny Socko. All of them were Japanese imports that gave us daily or weekly monsters doing the old "Tokyo Stomp", and just when things appeared at their darkest, the giant hero would arrive and give us a show more akin to the weekend wrestling shows than anything else. We'd get choke-holds and body slams that would make the rubber suits jiggle as they fell. It was all in good fun and appears to have pretty much disappeared from the television and film landscape. That is, until Guillermo del Toro brings us one of the summer's eagerly awaited tentpole films: Pacific Rim.

In 1988 a movie by the name of Die Hard became a worldwide commercial success and helped launch the career of one of Hollywood’s most prominent action stars. The legend of the film transcends time and space as it is still to this day a beloved film, and its name has become synonymous with what an action film is. In 2013, another film looks to capture that same type of glory, a film I believe has the potential to become this generation’s Die Hard, and not because both film’s main character’s first name is John. White House Down is an explosively entertaining experience brought to life from the director that brought us Independence Day, 10,000 B.C., and 2012.

John Cale (Channing Tatum) is a former decorated soldier turned U.S. Capital police officer assigned to the protection detail of Speaker of the House of Representatives, Eli Raphelson (Richard Jenkins). Divorced with one daughter, Emily (Joey King) who once idolized him, but continuous disappointments and absenteeism on his part have caused a strain in their relationship. Calling in a favor, John scores an opportunity to interview to join the Secret Service and join President James Sawyer’s (Jamie Foxx) protection detail. To earn some brownie points as well as repair the rift between him and his daughter, he takes Emily with him to the White House, an opportunity that Emily jumps at due to her borderline obsession with all things politics.