The Reel World

"Who is Jack Reacher? Born Jack, not John. No middle name. He's a ghost. Served in the military police. A brilliant investigator, troublemaker, too. And two years ago he disappears. You don't find this guy unless he wants to be found."

We've found him. The character of Jack Reacher comes from a series of thriller novels written by Lee Child. From the very start you know that this is going to be a different kind of Jack Reacher than fans have come to know and love from the books. He described as being 6' 5’’ and about 250 pounds. Tom Cruise doesn't really fit any of those description elements. He does, however, fit two very important descriptive elements when it comes to Hollywood. He's still a big name and a pretty reliable box office draw. He also put up some of his own cash to produce the movie. Now that's how you get cast for a part very physically different from yourself.

"My dear Frodo, you asked me once if I had told you everything there was to know about my adventures. Well, I can honestly say I've told you the truth, but I may not have told you all of it..."

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since Peter Jackson last brought us to the fantastic lands of Middle Earth. It was one of Hollywood's most ambitious projects ever. Jackson took on the perilous journey of adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's famous Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Perilous because of the beloved place the works hold in the hearts of those who have read them over the years. There is such a wonderfully detailed world delivered by Tolkien that we already had very vivid ideas of these places and characters. To his credit, Jackson proved to be up to the task and delivered a trilogy that one can only describe as brilliant. The lands and people were just as I had envisioned them since I first encountered them in my own youth. Expanded versions hit the home video market, and about 12 hours of story has made it to our screens. And there it has sat for the better part of that decade.

“They just want the same thing over and over again. They put me in a coffin…and now they’re nailing it shut.”

He has been regarded as “the master of suspense”, “the greatest British filmmaker”. He is Alfred Hitchcock; well, in this case, Anthony Hopkins portraying the infamous director. Set during the time of Hitchcock’s most notable and influential film, Psycho, the film walks you the through the entire process of the making of said movie without that boring documentary vibe typically found.

If you’ve been to a multiplex over the last few months, there’s a decent chance you’ve seen the one-sheet promoting Playing for Keeps accompanied by the tagline, “This Holiday Season, What Do You Really Want?” Let’s pretend we know absolutely nothing about this film, shall we? Gerard Butler occupies the biggest rectangle, so he’s clearly the star. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine as to what this movie is actually about.

Is Butler a roguish gambler or marble player? Does his character have to decide if what he “really wants” is to sleep with Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, Catherine Zeta-Jones or Dennis Quaid? My point is there’s little in the movie’s exceedingly generic poster and title that hints at the surprisingly warm, family-focused dramedy Playing for Keeps actually is.

"They cry, they plead, they beg, they piss themselves, they cry for their mothers. It gets embarrassing. I like to kill 'em softly. From a distance."

Brad Pitt demonstrates that very well during one of his execution scenes. Killing Them Softly is director Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of the 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade by George V. Higgnins. This film is Dominik’s third go-around serving as both writer and director (the other two times being Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James), and I must say that he seems at home with double the amount of work.

"For them this is just some place. For us it's our home… it's up to us to fight for it."

For decades it was the doomsday scenario. Cold War Americans lived in almost constant fear that the Soviets might drop a nuke on us and begin Armageddon. It was unthinkable that a conventional invasion could reach our shores instead. Red Dawn stirred its own mushroom cloud of controversy when it reached theaters in August of 1984. While the Cold War was actually closer to its end than any of us might have suspected, Red Dawn entered our collective consciousness as a shock to a system that had for some time moved beyond the culture of fear those older than myself knew growing up. Now nearly 30 years later the Soviet Union is no longer, and the Cold War is something many Americans have never even experienced firsthand. We have new enemies, and so we now have a new Red Dawn.

"Pause...take a breath."

At first you might expect A Late Quartet to be about the music. There is certainly plenty of it to go around. The film even manages to convince us that Christopher Walken is a renowned cello player even though we all know what he can do with a pocket watch. Yeah, you caught yourself smiling there, even if you'd like to believe you're above such things. It demonstrates the real strength of the film. It's not the music. It's a rather surprising and convincing collection of performances, this is true. But it's the thespian art that is truly on display in this rather intimate drama.

There’s an old showbiz adage warning performers to “never work with children or animals.” There’s also an impressive list of legendary filmmakers — including Steven Spielberg and James Cameron — who struggled mightily to make water-based blockbusters like Jaws and Titanic. (That list also includes somewhat less legendary names like Kevin Reynolds and Waterworld.) Apparently, no one told Ang Lee any of this before he agreed to make Life of Pi.

Like Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi is a recent big-screen adaptation of a best-selling book considered by many to be unfilmable. The list of Oscar-nominated directors who reportedly took a crack at Life of Pi over the years includes M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense), Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie).

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this..."

These were strong words, and the man who spoke them was certainly a dominant figure in American history. He's been portrayed hundreds of times on film and television. Rarely have any of these efforts been able to capture the true essence of a great man. You can't blame the actors or the production teams. There are those tasks which some say just can't be done. Lincoln heard those arguments himself. I'm sure that Steven Spielberg must have been haunted by the same thoughts when he set out to do Lincoln. Fortunately, he found another remarkable man who was up to the task. If Daniel Day-Lewis does not get the Oscar for his performance as Abraham Lincoln, then I propose the Academy close its doors forever. We might well believe that all men are created equal. It's a true enough axiom. That doesn't mean that all men possess equal ability in all things. Just two hours with Daniel Day-Lewis and you'll find the point well illustrated.

"Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don't really go in for that sort of thing anymore."

It was 1962 and Ursula Andress emerged from the tropical island surf sporting a provocative swimsuit, and a tradition was born. The seductive scene would become the first iconic image in a line that has lasted a half a century and counting.  Fifty years; 23 movies makes it the longest running film franchise in motion picture history. He had many faces over those 50 years: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, George Lazenby and even David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen in a 1967 spoof. For the last three films he's been played by Daniel Craig. They all had somewhat different styles. They all had a line of beautiful women. They all faced different challenges and foes. But they all shared the same name: Bond...James Bond.