The Reel World

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

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.

“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.

"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

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.