Category Archives: Uncategorized

Terminator Genesys

 

The effects are awesome. The Governator looks good in his various forms. The Khaleesi looks good with her natural brown hair. The chases are exciting. The pace is breakneck.

 

Terminator Genesys has all the things you want in a summertime action pic. Okay, the 3-D doesn’t add much. But, the gunplay, the explosions, the battles are all epic. Still, TG is not quite a must-see.

 

The story leaves a bit to be desired. Here’s the scoop: In 2029, John Connor (Jason Clarke), leader of the resistance against the machines (who took control of the humans on “Judgment Day” in 2017), sends right-hand man Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to reset history.

 

When he gets there, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke, AKA Daenerys Targaryon on Game of Thrones) is expecting him. At her side is a good guy robot guardian she calls Pop (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Kyle’s mission is immediately complicated when a machine disguised as an LA cop (played beautifully by Korean actor Byung-hun Lee) begins a violent assault.

 

Kyle and Sarah time-travel to 2017 to prevent Judgment Day by taking down the giant Genisys organization. (The dominance San Francisco based Genisys has over all of communication and life may bring to mind Google or other similar giant real-life entities.) Pop meets Kyle and Sarah is 2017 SF, but while they jumped ahead three decades, Pop lived those years and aged enough to become gray-haired.

 

As our heroes pursue their world-saving goal, they hijack a school bus on the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge and soon become precariously perched on the edge of the bridge, just above the water below, before making their escape. Later, a copter chase provides thrills and provides a chance for Arnold to deliver a famous line. (Although he does not get to say, “Get to da choppah!”)

 

Another time-jump at the film’s climax is an attempt to try to put things in order, but time travel has a way of gumming up the works.

 

Director Alan Taylor has directed several Game of Thrones episodes, which may explain Emilia Clarke’s casting as Sarah Connor. On Game, she has an imperial look with her blonde hair. But in TG, as a brunette, she brings the approachable girl-next-door look.

 

Terminator Genesys has what it takes to rock your holiday weekend with exciting action and cool effects. But whether you feel an urgent need to see this film (as you and others have with several movies in recent weeks) remains to be seen.

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Pitch Perfect 2

Pitch Perfect 2 hits all the right notes. It’s funny. The music is tremendous. The film’s opening scene which features Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) in a “commando performance” kicks things off on a raucous tone. A spontaneous acapella sing-off guided by David Cross is a blast.

As with any sequel, the goal is to revisit what made the first film a fan favorite and to introduce new elements to surprise and delight.

What’s new this time? A new Barden Bella, Emily (Hailee Steinfeld). Several Green Bay Packers singing in the film. A smoldering romance between Amy and Bumper (Adam Devine). Becca’s (Anna Kendrick) internship at a record company run by Keegan-Michael Key. And a new rival for the Bellas, an edgy German acapella group led by a hunk and a hottie.

Does it feel fresh? Yes, but it’s like the second time you taste something wonderful. It’s just as good but it’s hard to match the feeling of that first time.

The film begins with a Barden Bellas performance in Washington before the President and First Lady. Amy has a wardrobe malfunction that results in shame for the group (abundant media coverage and jokes about “Muffgate”) and a suspension from the college president. But there is one shot at redemption.

The suspension does not affect the group’s invitation to compete at the world championship event in Copenhagen. Can you imagine what might happen there?

Elizabeth Banks, who also directed PP2, is back as co-host Gail who, along with master of snark John Michael Higgins as co-host John, delivers some of the film’s funniest lines.

Pitch Perfect 2 comes awfully close to matching the energy and novelty of 2012’s Pitch Perfect. With the current absence of traditional movie musicals, let’s hope that PP2 generates enough ticket sales to keep the (sequel) ball rolling. It’s a feel good flick that will make you smile.

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Ex Machina

 

The best film I’ve seen this year is Ex Machina, which ranks near Bladerunner in its story of artificial intelligence creatures and their interactions with humans.

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a 26-year-old coder for a large search engine. He wins a company-wide lottery and is chosen to spend a week with the company’s founder, the just slightly older Nathan (Oscar Issac) at Nathan’s remote mountain hideaway.

After a copter ride over miles of wilderness, Caleb makes his way to Nathan’s crib and meets the quirky genius. Nathan tells Caleb about Ava (Alicia Vikander), a robot Nathan has created that Caleb will evaluate over the next few days.

Caleb never gets comfortable. His room, and much of the building, has no windows. There are occasional power shutdowns. Nathan counters his drinking binges with extreme workouts. Nathan speaks to his female Japanese housemaid (Sonoya Mizuno) abusively.

Caleb has daily sessions with Ava where they converse but are separated by glass. Following the sessions, Nathan debriefs Caleb.

As the week progresses, Caleb’s curiosity about Ava and her capabilities grows. As with Deckard and Rachael in Bladerunner, Caleb and Ava appear to be developing genuine affection for one another, which helps set up the story’s climax.

Rookie director Alex Garland makes a smashing debut in a film that is understated. This movie depends more on a thoughtful script (Garland wrote it) than on effects and tricks. The focus on conversations makes Ex Machina a film that, with a few accommodations, could be presented as a stage play.

With a small group of actors carrying the film, casting and performances are crucial. Issac and Gleeson, in their portrayals of these brainy nerds, are fun to watch in their interactions. Vikander brings appropriate restraint to her role as the gorgeous robot Ava. Bravo to all three!

One reviewer quoted in the above trailer called Ex Machina “an instant classic.” For any fan of great movies, I recommend it. For any fan of great sci-fi, Ex Machina is a must-see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Water Diviner

 

Russell Crowe’s directorial debut The Water Diviner is a gem. The story, characters and settings blend the sweetness of family love with the in-your-face violence of war.

Connor (Crowe) is a rural Aussie widower who goes to Turkey to find his three missing sons who fought in the century ago Battle of Gallipoli. (Remember the 1981 film Gallipoli?) Upon arrival in Turkey he meets the beautiful Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) whose husband is among the Turkish war dead. She hesitates to admit it because she would then be obliged to marry her husband’s brother (who she does not want to marry).

Occupational forces try to stop Connor from searching battlegrounds but he is determined. When he finds remains that indicate a son was killed execution style, Connor threatens the vanquished Turkish officer Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan). After cooling off, and learning that one of the three sons may be alive, he and Hasan become allies. As Connor continues on his quest, he actually has an opportunity to save Hasan’s life.

Connor is one of Crowe’s most likable characters ever. Though grieving the death of his wife and sons, Connor has some light moments with Ayshe’s son Ohran (Dylan Georgiades) and some flirtatious moments with Ayshe.

As a director, Crowe is solid, focusing of advancing the narrative with many gorgeous images and a handful of directorial flourishes (such as dissolving from a whirling dervish to a spinning windmill). Some of the war scenes are a bit more grisly than might’ve been expected.

Crowe’s acting talent has been a given since he first appeared on U.S. screens. Whether The Water Diviner is a one-off shot at directing or the start to the next chapter in his career, TWD is an impressive effort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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True Story

Brilliant opening shot: A teddy bear falls slowly, landing softly next to a little girl who is, inexplicably, curled up in a suitcase. It is quickly revealed why.

Meanwhile, Mike Finkel (Jonah Hill), a New York Times reporter, goes to Africa for a story that makes the cover of the Times Sunday magazine. The story is written while Finkel plays poker with colleagues in the newsroom. He wins the hand but it turns out his story is not quite accurate. He is fired.

Finkel goes to his cabin in Montana with his lady Jill (Felicity Jones) and pitches freelance writing pieces. A call comes from a reporter in Oregon (Ethan Suplee), informing Finkel that accused murderer Christian Longo (James Franco) claimed he (Longo) was Finkel when he was arrested in Mexico.

When Finkel goes to Oregon to visit Longo, the fun begins. In a series of jailhouse one-to-ones, Franco and Hill each show off their acting talents. Finkel is flattered when Longo mentions how much he likes Finkel’s writing. Longo sends Finkel a lengthy handwritten letter and Finkel offers to use its content to co-write a book, once the case is cleared.

Jill has doubts about the whole scenario, but Finkel is totally seduced by Longo’s apparent intelligence and his cool demeanor (despite being charged with four murders).

After this enticing setup, the film bogs down. But… here comes another memorable sequence: Director Rupert Goold juxtaposes Jill’s piano playing with Finkel’s writing on his laptop. Keyboard on keyboard action. Nice.

True Story has a bit of suspense: What is the true story? Did Longo kill his family? What will happen at trial? Will Finkel and Longo co-author a book? Will Finkel be redeemed after his journalistic faux pas?

But the payoff is weak. Oh, there’s resolution, but it doesn’t quite deliver what the first few chapters of the film indicated might lay ahead.

Nonetheless, Franco and Hill are a delight to watch. Someone told me when she heard those two were in a movie together, she presumed it was a comedy. Nope. True Story is serious stuff. It takes a shot, but ultimately misses out on greatness.

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Unfriended

 

When an entire movie takes place on a high school student’s computer screen, it’s easy to expect the film to be dumb or cheesy. Actually, the presentation of Unfriended is rather clever.

For those of us who spend hours each day in front of a computer screen, with pings and bells alerting us to new emails, Facebook notifications and other updates, Unfriended takes place in a familiar, generally comfortable setting.

Unfriended is a short movie. Runtime from the first Universal logo to the first end credit is 77 minutes. A longer telling of this story could’ve easily become bloated and tedious.

Unfriended’s tale plays out during a Skype video chat among six friends, plus one mystery participant. The stranger who butts in seems to be a student who killed herself after being shamed in a Youtube video.

Blaire Lily’s (Shelley Hennig) Apple computer screen reveals the Youtube videos depicting the shaming of Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman) and her suicide. The screen also displays Blaire’s outside-the-chat messaging with her boyfriend Mitch (Moses Jacob Storm) where suspicions of something weird first arise.

Facebook plays a big role as Laura (or someone who has hacked her account) keeps messaging Blaire, even after Blaire unfriends her.

When this mystery online intruder begins a cruel game and threatens to kill chat participants, tension mounts and secrets are revealed.

Director Levan Gabriadze makes the film look seamless, as if it were completely shot in real time. The other main cast members (Renee Olstead, Courtney Halverson, Jacob Wysocki and Will Peltz) interact believably with Hennig and Storm. (As is usual with movies depicting high school students, most of the actors are in their mid to late 20’s.)

It’s weird enough to get Facebook friend requests from deceased individuals. (I’ve had that happen.) My hope is that any laptop grief I experience today will be the result of glitches, not due to meddling with my accounts from beyond the grave.

 

 

 

 

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Furious 7

Furious 7 brings exhilarating vehicle chases, violent hand-to-hand combat, fiery explosions, a really bad bad guy, a tribute to a fallen star and… Kurt Russell!

Not to mention skydiving cars and trucks, a visit to the glossy Abu Dhabi, a major cat fight and computer snooping worse than anything the NSA has come up with.

But Furious 7 is not just about the spectacle of reckless actions in and out of cars. It’s also about the camaraderie of the ensemble. They are courageous (mostly) and cool to be sure, but they also have a bit of fun and some tender moments, too.

The poster for Furious 7 has a double meaning. It’s the 7th film in the series and the 7 people shown are the key characters. Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Hobbs (Dwayne [The Rock] Johnson), Tej (Ludacris), Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) are the team that takes on the Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) and terrorist Jakande (Djimon Hounsou).

Shaw, a former British black ops killer, is bent on avenging the death of his brother (from Furious 6) and Jakande wants to grab the God’s Eye computer program. Meanwhile, the Furious crew is recruited by Mr. Noboby (Kurt Russell) to fetch the programmer who can help prevent God’s Eye from getting into the wrong hands. She’s the gorgeous Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel).

Not that you should be concerned with the plot. Just enjoy the chases, the crashes, the close calls, the mayhem and the energy Furious 7 delivers to the screen. Director James Wan doesn’t let the respites from action last very long.

What about Paul Walker? He died 16 months ago when he crashed his Porsche, but his character Brian is a vital part of the film. Over half of the scenes were shot before he died. His brothers worked as stand-ins and CGI can do amazing things. There’s a nice sequence at the end of the movie that remembers Paul Walker.

Furious 7 is a review-proof movie. It will be huge. Last year’s Captain America: Winter Soldier set the April record with a $95 million open. Expect Dom, Brian and crew to zoom past that mark.

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Get Hard

 

Get Hard is a crude, rude equal opportunity offender: Blacks, Whites, Gays, Latinos, etc. Not for the thin-skinned.

Get Hard is a funny movie that gives Kevin Hart almost as high a profile as Will Ferrell. Obviously, the film’s producers are trying to hit the urban market as well as the general market and I’m guessing they’ll have some success.

James King (Ferrell) is an L.A. money trader who is beaucoup rich. He’s engaged to his boss’s smokin’ hot daughter (Alison Brie). Darnell (Kevin Hart) is the hard-working owner of a luxury carwash whose customers include James.

When James is busted for fraud and sentenced to ten years in San Quentin, he hires Darnell to get him hard enough to survive his time behind bars. James has mistakenly presumed that Darnell has been in jail. Since he offers Darnell money he needs, Darnell lets James believe what he wants.

Darnell turns James’s mansion into a fake prison. The tennis court becomes the prison yard, the setting for a memorable scene in which Hart portrays black, Latino and gay prison types. Bravo, Kevin!

This cross-culture journey takes James and Darnell to a gay restaurant, a “crib” in the ‘hood and a white power motorcycle club’s hangout. There are moments that are uncomfortable for James, Darnell or both, as well as for the audience. But, again, there are laughs to be had.

Ferrell’s character is a Harvard grad who knows his way around the world of investments. Still, he is buffoonish in a Burgundyesque sort of way—enough so that he’s the goofy Ferrell we know and love.

As big star Sandra Bullock did with the lesser-known Melissa McCarthy in 2013’s The Heat, so does big star Ferrell allow Hart plenty of room to showcase his strong talents in Get Hard.

If you can handle the offensive nature of much of the Get Hard’s script, you’ll find some funny stuff here.

Also in the cast is Craig T. Nelson and singer John Mayer. This film was directed by Etan Cohen, not to be confused with Ethan Cohen of the Cohen brothers directing team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home

 

If aliens do ever invade earth, I hope they resemble the Boovs who occupy our planet in the new film Home. The Boovs, represented in the film mainly by the enthusiastic and lovable Oh (Jim Parsons) and the bumbling leader Captain Smeg (Steve Martin), are cute and purple—or red, blue and even green, depending on what they’re feeling.

The Boovs first move upon arriving on our planet is to relocate all the humans to Happy Humanstown, allowing the Boovs free access to all the good stuff left behind. (I thought immediately of the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, but I’d guess most members of the film’s target demo will not make that connection.)

The Boovs manage to transport folks by turning off gravity and, as humans rise skyward, grabbing them to go for a little ride. But one human manages to avoid the Boov move. She’s young Tip, voiced by Rihanna wih her Barbadian accent. Of course, she and Oh meet up and take off in her car.

As Oh and Tip (and Tip’s cute cat called Pig) travel the world looking for Tip’s mom (voiced by Jennifer Lopez), they come to form a solid friendship.

While Home doesn’t approach the level of a Pixar film or other Dreamworks animation efforts like the Shrek, Madagascar and Dragon movies, it’s a decent effort that should satisfy kids and parents looking for harmless animated fun. Not a must-see, but not bad.

Maybe the best thing I can say about Home is that it kept a theater full of kids attentive to what was onscreen. Often, at Saturday morning preview screenings, the young ones get restless and chatty at some point during the movie. Not that they were laughing all the way through, but the crowd checking out Home appeared to be absorbed in the film. That’s a good thing.

 

 

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Insurgent

 

Insurgent, as the 2nd film of a quadrilogy, is like a middle child in a family. The eldest and the baby get more attention and certain perks, so the middle children have to work hard to be noticed.

The main task of the second film of a series is to set up the final films. At the same time, there must be a few hooks to give the film an identity of its own. Insurgent manages to hit its marks on both counts.

Insurgent offers cool dream sequences (apparently inspired by Inception) and the addition of Naomi Watts (as a brunette!) to the cast. Not to mention… the two main characters act on their mutual attraction.

To refresh, civilization in this dystopian version of Chicago is based on all people being selected for one of five factions, according to personality testing. Those who crossover into multiple categories are referred to as Divergent. In the 2014 film, Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley), after being pegged as Divergent, chooses the Dauntless faction, where she meets and falls in love with Four (Theo James).

As we pick up the action in the new film, Tris and Four are living on the run, away from the city, where political turmoil is wreaking havoc. Erudite faction leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet) is now in charge. Upon their return to the bombed out landscape of Chi-town, the pair meet up with Evelyn (Watts) who leads the factionless brigade. She is also revealed to be Four’s mother, though their relationship is far from warm.

The film’s highlights include trials conducted by Candor faction leader Jack Kang (Daniel Dae Kim) with heavy doses of truth serum injected before testimony. Later, the sequences that occur after Tris turns herself into Jeanine for more faction testing are fun to watch as Tris’ mind goes through weird dreams. They are even trippier than the effects that present the opening production logos.

Woodley, Winslet and Watts are the acting stars among a large cast that also includes Miles Teller, Ashley Judd and Octavia Spencer.

As a fan of dystopian future settings, I like this one. (Although it seems odd that most of the bombed-out building shells are still standing 200 years after the destructive war.) The POV flight through the dried-up Chicago River bed isn’t quite as thrilling as the zipline ride from the top of the Hancock building in Divergent, but it does present a creative vision.

While Divergent focused on introducing the characters and the scenario, Insurgent seems more concerned with advancing the storyline. The film, which is violent throughout, ends with a bang as a new political coalition stands by to be fully realized in Allegiant—Part 1. That film will comes to theaters in March 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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