Posted in: The Reel World by J C on November 25th, 2015
“You've gotta earn your mark by doing something big...bigger than yourself.”
It was actually 20 years ago this month that a certain animation studio made an indelible mark on cinema. When Pixar released Toy Story in November 1995, it was the very first computer-generated animated feature, and it made us believe that movies really could go to infinity...and beyond! In the ensuing years, the studio has produced an unprecedented and unparalleled run of films that mix breathtaking technical wizardry with inventive stories that touch moviegoers' hearts along with their funny bones. The Good Dinosaur, Pixar's latest effort, gets about half of that equation right.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 25th, 2015
I'm going to start by listing a number of names that make up a kind of extended family. The names don't have a lot in common at first, and it seems like a hodgepodge. I'm sure I'm going to leave someone out, but let's start with Kevin Kline, Johnathan Demme, Diablo Cody, Sebastian Stan, Mamie Gummer, Audra McDonald, Joe Vitale, Rick Springfield, Bill Erwin, Bernie Worrell, Rick Rosas, and Charlotte Rae. I'm forgetting someone. Oh yeah, Meryl Streep. It's that kind of a movie which is being sold as a star vehicle for the most praised and beloved actress of the modern era, but is really an ensemble piece. We can debate who is as beloved as Meryl Streep in the history of cinema, but let's not, because Ricki and the Flash is not that kind of movie. It really isn't about the star turn by Meryl, but a collective, communal experience by all involved. All the names I mentioned are part of this experience, more so than in most movies. It's about the connections we try to make and the ones we fail at. It's about reaching for things and not getting them but doing it anyway. It's about failure and celebration, often within a breath of each other. It's about moving on but not forgetting the past. It's about loving someone when they are far from perfect. It's about forgiving and accepting.
I'm going to start with Rick Rosas. He died before the film was released and plays the bassist in Ricki's band, the Flash. In real life, he played in three bands with Neil Young (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Crazy Horse, and Buffalo Springfield) as well as with Joe Walsh, Ron Wood, Etta James, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Rivers. Bernie Worrell, who plays the keyboardist, was a founding member of Funkadelic and Parliament as well as playing with The Talking Heads. Joe Vitale is the drummer; he has played with The Eagles, Joe Walsh, Ted Nugent, Dan Fogelberg, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and many others. Ricki and her band play to a few die-hard faithfuls in Tarzana every night, as well as doing her day job as a cashier at Whole Foods. I should mention that her frazzled boyfriend and lead guitarist is Rick Springfield. I should also mention Streep is 66 years old and is singing Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty.
Posted in: Contests, Tuesday Round Up by J C on November 24th, 2015
We are smack dab in the middle of the most wonderful time of the year. Thanksgiving week falls right in that sweet spot between Halloween and Christmas...and so does A Christmas Horror Story, courtesy of RLJ Entertainment. Comedy Central goes Inside Amy Schumer: Season 3, Lionsgate blazes through American Ultra, Wild Eye Releasing stops at the The Last House, and Sony jams out with Ricki and the Flash. Finally, Ol' Blue Eyes does it his way with Eagle Rock's Sinatra: All or Nothing At All.
This week is also your last chance to enter and win November's Tuesday Round Up contest. Once a month we’re going to give away a free DVD title to a lucky winner who comments in our weekly Round-Up posts. All you have to do is comment in a Round-Up post — like this one! — and tell us which of the featured titles you’re most excited to watch or read about. The winners and their prizes will be announced the first week of every month right here in our Tuesday Round-Up post. You can’t win if you don’t comment. Contest is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada.
Posted in: The Reel World by Archive Authors on November 22nd, 2015
By The Sea is literally like a vacation. It is a beautiful time that is a little over two hours at a picturesque resort. It is an exquisite location with lovely views. By The Sea is a beautiful little movie. It is small and nice, but it has two very big stars, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie Pitt has written and directed the film and has co-starred with her husband for the first time (because Jolie was not married to Pitt when they made Mr. and Mrs. Smith). It is clearly something that is very important to Jolie and is probably very personal to her. I will get back to speculation about Jolie and her intentions.
The film starts with a drive through gorgeous countryside in a very expensive sports car. Roland (Pitt) and Vanessa (Jolie) seem somewhat inscrutable, somewhere between sullen and curious. They talk sparingly but pleasantly. They arrive at a very remote, exclusive, and ornate old world hotel that rests on a rocky ocean inlet in Malta, which is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean. Roland is a writer who has had some success in the past, and Jolie admits to doing very little at all. They check into a spacious suite and go about setting up the room for a long stay. Roland goes off to write every day but really only spends time drinking in the bar downstairs. Jolie mostly stays in the room and on the balcony. A young couple moves into the room next to theirs after a few days. At one point, Vanessa discovers a hole that allows her to spy on the young couple. These very basic elements develop over the course of the film, which leads to a catharsis and climax of sorts.
Posted in: The Reel World by Archive Authors on November 21st, 2015
The Secret In Their Eyes is a heavily plotted and intense police thriller, but there is much more to discuss about this film than that. The film has a lot of issues, both in the story and in the making of the film itself. One of the issues is the casting. We have two of the grand dames of cinema facing off for the first time, Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman (which is surprising, though Nicole did co-star with Sandra Bullock once, which is close enough). If you detect a tinge of sarcasm, you are correct. Not to be sexist or ageist, but what those two actresses always sold was vibrancy and excitability. Here they are toned down and depressive. That is what their characters in this film should project, but the effect is awkward. There is a large degree of range and intensity required here that is hard to pull off, and I don’t want to fault these actresses, but I do have some issues with them. It is a very emotional and complicated story that requires all kinds of subtle shading. I don’t believe either actress aced the subtleties. But let’s move on.
This is a remake of a highly regarded Argentinian film of the same name from 2009 that won the Oscar for best foreign film. When a foreign film is particularly successful, it is natural for Hollywood to use it as an easy blueprint for a big-budget draw for top A-list talent. That is what happened here, and, in fact, the remake is pretty close in story and structure to the original, but there is a considerable difference in tone and execution. Even if this current version with big name actors is good, I think everyone will say that the original is better. There was a different political backdrop as well (Argentina’s “Dirty War”), which is handled a little awkwardly in the American version by focusing on external terrorist threats instead. Part of the complexity of the story is conflicting law enforcement agencies butting heads over jurisdiction and the resulting obstacles to the solving of the case.
Posted in: The Reel World by Jeremy Butler on November 20th, 2015
It’s the one that fans have been waiting for. The conclusion of the only adaptation series to rival the star power of Twilight in my opinion (Divergent comes close, but the popularity is clearly with this Jennifer Lawrence-led series). Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 is the culmination of all the action set up in the first film. It’s time to finally take the fight to President Snow, and this film delivers in every aspect. Action sequences are tier-one as well as being character-driven, all the while staying faithful to the source material. Accomplishing all these tasks is always difficult; however, this film appears to do it with ease.
I think the number one thing loyal fans of the book were looking for was for the film to maintain the faithfulness to the original material. The series has always done a very good job of this, but I think it was best done here. As someone who has read the trilogy, I was very happy with how closely the two mirrored one another. The setting of certain scenes changed naturally (which was to be expected), but much of the dialog was the original text. I love to see a film maintain that level of commitment, because much of the fan base is made of people who fell in love with the books and wanted to see that same story illuminated on the silver screen. I don’t imagine that anyone will be disappointed in that regard.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 19th, 2015
“There's the legal system...procedure...the almost-theatrical aspect of the law. And behind all that...”
Those words are wearily spoken (in voiceover) by Germain Cazeneuve before we even realize the character is a social worker/passionate prisoner advocate. They also hang in the air until the conclusion of Two Men in Town/Deux Hommes dans la Ville, a blistering takedown of the French judicial system and capital punishment. (France used the guillotine to execute prisoners up until 1981, which is the year the country abolished the death penalty.)
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 19th, 2015
Dumb it Down turned out to be a bit of an indictment on the state of present hip-hop affairs. A group of experts was brought together, both past and present industry professionals who gave their opinion on how the art form has transformed from a way for a person to express their thoughts to apparently the new tactic in advertising. As a fan of the genre, there is no denying that the music has changed from what it was originally. Admittedly, I find myself gravitating more towards songs with an actual message behind them rather than the club bangers (as they have come to be called). However, I have my doubts about the way this documentary is going to go over.
The overall question for this documentary is how it will be received by the audience. A scathing indictment of the industry by participants who knowingly admit that they took part in the dumbing down of the art form that they are now speaking out against. The hypocrisy of that admission, I imagine, is going to do a significant amount of damage with the audience. T-Pain came out and admitted that he dumbed down his own lyrics so that they would be better received with the listeners; however, he then turns around and talks about how doing such a thing is what wrong with hip-hop today. That contradiction weighed heavily with me as I watched the documentary, because how can you really speak out against something that you took part in? I understand that it is possible to have a change of heart, but that was not my first impression when I witnessed this admission. It seemed more like a “pass the puck of blame” scenario. There are plenty of others who speak out as well, but again I have to wonder how many of them participated in what they are now speaking out against.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 18th, 2015
Its spy vs. spy in Man from U.N.C.L.E., or at least it starts out that way. Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer play Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin respectively in this reimaging of the popular television series from the 60’s. Guy Ritchie is at the helm of the spy flick, which should give everyone high hopes that this will become the first film in a franchise. Though a bit dry at times, Man from U.N.C.L.E. proves to be a clever and engaging movie that stays true to the era it is set in. There is enough action, espionage, and beautiful women to capture the attention of the male audience, and the female audience is likely to be sated just being able to stare at Cavill and Hammer as a suave, well-educated, gentleman and a terse, committed, albeit volatile patriot. I’ll leave it to the ladies to determine which is which.
The film takes place after World War I; Napoleon Solo is a reformed criminal working off his sentence as the C.I.A.’s most effective operative. Solo ventures into Soviet territory in order to make contact with and extract Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina), the daughter of a nuclear scientist believed kidnapped to exploit his expertise. While carrying out his mission, Solo crosses paths with KGB’s top operative Kuryakin, whose mission it is to stop him. At odds, the two battle wits as well as weapons in an exchange Solo ultimately wins.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on November 18th, 2015
Crumbs is a film that has many unique elements to offer. It is a mixed bag like most films. It is a small independent, post-apocalyptic science fiction set in Ethiopia whose main character is probably under four feet tall. Candy (Daniel Tadesse) is a scavenger in alternately desolate and overgrown landscape. Candy lives in an abandoned bowling alley with his beautiful partner, Birdy/Seyat (Selam Tesfaye). A giant spaceship has hung in the sky for decades, seemingly inoperable but starting to show new signs of activity. Candy finds artifacts which he barters for survival. These artifacts are silly remnants of pop culture like toys, sneakers, and record albums referencing forgotten icons like Justin Bieber, Michael Jordan, and Michael Jackson. There is chaos and confusion in this world but only in the most oblique ways. The message of this parable is slight and elusive. It is more an exploration of Ethiopia than it is anything else. There is a clear sense of allegory and metaphor, but only a sense. It is a short film of 68 minutes, because it really doesn’t have a lot to say. Its viewpoint can be summarized by saying that in a post-apocalyptic future our possessions will lose their meaning. Toys will seem like totems, and people will become symbols for a time we no longer understand or remember. Nazism and Santa Claus will have an equal weight in this desolate, arid, and depleted future. Writer/Director Miguel Llansa also includes two strange, avant-garde, Third World shorts that both run under 10 minutes. Chigger Ale takes place in the same bowling alley as Crumbs and a dingy dance club. It celebrates Ethiopian dance and fun, but its main character is a classic outsider not interested in fun. The diminutive Daniel Tadesse is an angry and silly man who wears Nazi uniform and phony Hitler mustache. He is eventually rescued by a sexy Nazi from outer space.
Night in the Garden takes place in a remote mountain cabin where a strange man in a white wig and novelty glasses takes to a somewhat disapproving and disembodied God voice.
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