The Reel World

"Somebody somewhere knows something. And somebody's going to talk."

At the age of 76 many might consider The Company You Keep as a kind of swansong for Hollywood's original pretty boy, Robert Redford. It has all of the earmarks of a grand finale. Redford plays the star role and directs the film as well. It plays out like a message film with the grace of not overplaying its hand. And so, while the film brings up the activists morality of Vietnam-era America, it never becomes preachy or too obvious. In almost every sense of the word this is about as picture-perfect a goodbye as Redford might have asked for.

People have used a lot of different words to describe Michael Bay and his films: “loud”, “blockbusters”, “mindless”, “soulless”, “Hitler” and, of course, “awesome.” One of the words you don’t normally associate with Bay’s undeniably successful output is “clever.” I daresay Pain & Gain is the most interesting movie the action auteur has ever made; the film is both seriously silly and surprisingly smart in how it presents its stupid characters.

“Unfortunately, this is a true story.”

Ever wonder what would happen if you took all the best or most memorable parts in a sci-fi film and cut them all together?  What you get is the hodgepodge mess that is Oblivion, which unless I’m mistaken or blinked a bit too long and missed it, doesn’t have an original bone in its already weak story.  Though they say if you’re going to steal, then steal from the best; the problem is that when you play it off as your own, please be able to give us a refreshing twist on a classic scene, not just make it cool.  Sure people will say the same about Tarantino, but he owns up to it and puts a spin on it that is undeniably his own.  In the case for Joseph Kosinski (the writer and director) I look at Oblivion and feel he gave the entire sci-fi genre the finger and took all the cool great moments to play with at will.

(If you’ve never seen The Matrix, Moon, Blade Runner, Independence Day, 2001 Space Odyssey or numerous others, well, then perhaps you may be in the dark as to what I’m talking about.)

 "If you ride like lightning you're gonna crash like thunder".

The best film that you may not get an opportunity to see this year is The Place Beyond The Pines. The film has already scored great buzz at a few film festivals and is about to see a very limited theatrical release. It's one of those films that absolutely deserves better, but somehow as you watch it you realize that this limited environment is a perfect match for the movie. This is not because the film isn't good enough for wide release. It is. It's because the movie is a rather intimate experience that just doesn't seem like it belongs at your noisy cineplex where it must compete with the barrage of explosions and terrifyingly loud musical score. There's a place for everything, and perhaps The Place Beyond The Pines has found its place beyond the pines and away from the hustle of the big box office world.

The power is in the mind, or at least it is in Trance, the latest psychological thriller from Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle. From the original trailer I saw of this film, I had the wrong impression of this film completely; I was intrigued by the film, but I just expected it to be another heist film. Now, for the record, I love heist films; I love the watching the thieves plan the heist, I love watching them execute the theft, and I even love the eventual double-cross that everyone always sees coming. To call Trance simply a heist film is to severely undersell its value.

Trance wastes no time getting into the action. From the opening bell we are introduced to Simon (James McAvoy, X-Men First Class), a fine arts auctioneer at a prominent auction house. Simon then proceeds to break the fourth wall and explain the evolution of art heist. “Back then all it took was a bit of muscle and a lot of nerve.” Simon then commences to instruct the audience on procedure in the event that a heist should be attempted, which immediately leads in to an actual heist occurring at the auction house. A four-man team led by Franck (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan) storms the building with guns, smoke grenades; the whole she-bang. As Simon tries to secure the painting in the vault, he is confronted by Franck, and while trying to protect the painting, suffers a blow to the head.

“You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back — and I’ll give you the guts.”

More than any sport, baseball is all about numbers. Unfortunately, some of those numbers — like 73 (home runs in a single season) and 500 (career homers) — mean a little less in light of the steroid era. Others, like 56 (Joe DiMaggio’s legendary hitting streak), seem destined to live on forever. The most significant number on that shortlist might be 42, worn by Jackie Robinson when he broke Major League Baseball’s color line on April 15, 1947. 42 — the film, not the number — is significant for a somewhat surprising reason. The movie succeeds as rousing, crowd-pleasing entertainment by functioning less as a straight-up biopic and more as the story of how Robinson became, arguably, the country’s first African-American crossover star.

 "Lucky Bastard was a pornographic website that invited fans to have sex with porn stars. The following footage is believed to be the last video shot for the site."

You know exactly what that kind of an intro means. You should. The found footage genre has been around even long before it was turned into a modern trend by The Blair Witch Project. Since that time the genre has appeared in both large and small budget films. The shaky footage usually covers a variety of sins by the filmmakers. Rarely does the genre have anything clever or new to dispense. That's not exactly true with Lucky Bastards.

“Welcome to Jurassic Park.”

With those words begin an adventure that started with the legacy of Willis O’Brien’s  The Lost World. You see, dinosaur films are nothing new; they have held our child-like fascination since the industry was born. Jurassic Park was, however, something very new when it thundered into our cineplexes and forever in our imaginations 20 years ago. The marriage of brand new CGI technology with Stan Winston’s superbly detailed animatronics models transports you back 65 million years in time. CGI technology has improved since then and has become somewhat commonplace, but there is nothing common about Jurassic Park.

Remakes, reboots, and sequels: these are the trends in Hollywood that seem to make fan boys groan.  Some films should be left in the past, and some franchises simply need to come to an end.  But every so often a film comes along that dares to show us something new, and the end result manages to capture some of the magic that got us to love the original film to begin with.  The new Evil Dead filmmakers managed to succeed in doing just that and deliver a film that has me excited about what is next for the Book of the Dead and all those unfortunate enough to flip through its pages.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Evil Dead franchise, this entry into the series will likely be a gore-soaked experience you won’t soon forget.  And for the hardcore fans of the series, there are plenty of winks and nods to the previous entries to keep you grinning as well as some new twists to the mythology that you’ll either find groovy or you’ll simply sink into your seat and groan.  But one thing is for certain, fans will miss their beloved Ash and his “boom stick” this go around.