Category Archives: Movies

The Lone Ranger: Better Than Expected

Posted on by Henry

Another plane ride, another unexpected movie review.  I seriously hadn’t planned on watching The Lone Ranger, but boredom plus free makes for some powerful incentives.

I didn’t watch the film in theaters because it just didn’t seem worth $10 – $12.  I’m still not sure whether it’s worth that much, but the movie passed the “acceptably fun” test for being stuck without other entertainment on a plane, and it didn’t explode with the offensiveness I had expected.  That’s not to say that others won’t find it offensive, since some clearly already have (Hanay Geiogamah, for example).  In fact, coming around to it, I had such low expectations for the movie that it can’t help but have exceeded them.  Please bear this in mind.  I’ll do my best not to spoil anything too much, and I’ll warn you before the spoilers get hot and heavy… but some are inevitable.  Read on as you see fit.

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Ladycops bring The Heat

Posted on by Henry

Have any of you seen The Heat?  I more or less ignored it until I was stuck on an airplane last week with nothing to do.  I won’t claim to be glad that I was on an airplane for so long, but I am glad that I had the chance to watch the movie.  The Heat combines stupidity, comedy, entertainingly awkward social interactions and a dash of action in the very familiar buddy-cop formula, and comes out just ahead of the grade.  We’re not talking about a new classic, but it’s a fun and funny movie that will happily scratch your comedy-action itch.  Better yet, it delivers the tried-and-true buddy-cop comedy with all-female leads.

While there are vast swathes of buddy-cop movies, hordes of films in which we can watch men being silly with and at each other while they fight crime, The Heat is the first that I know of in the genre which stars two women in the leading roles.  While this point may feel overplayed, it’s still a big frickin’ deal as far as women’s movie roles are concerned, especially because The Heat has been so successful.  I’m not begging for a sequel, but I could certainly go for more movies like it.  Why?  Well…

I’ve seen enough of these movies to have a good feel for where the story beats are going to come; I won’t claim that I can call them all before they show up, but I rarely feel surprised.  Following the ladies offers a different experience.  I still expect the pieces that are staples of the buddy-cop genre (which The Heat delivers on), but The Heat’s take on romantic side-interests is refreshingly entertaining (the plucky puppy-dog local FBI agent is worth a good laugh, as are Melissa McCarthy’s terribly mixed signals).  These aren’t really new, just a fun reworking of already well-known story patterns.

But I really think the interpersonal social dynamics deserve a mention: we end up sympathizing with two women who are clearly not especially sympathetic according to our standard cultural expectations.  These are women who have almost certainly been called “bitch” repeatedly by their detractors.  They are brash, overbearing, and competent.  But instead of disapproving of them the movie clearly wants us to like them.  Novel and intriguing, no?  We’ve long been shown men like this and been told that they were protagonists, it seems only fitting that we should see a movie with women in those roles.

The Heat isn’t a masterpiece.  It isn’t even terribly unconventional except for its casting of two female leads and how that plays out in the film.  But if you are looking for a movie to watch with your friends and you feel the need for buddy-cop goodness, take a look at The Heat.

*SPOILERS*

Oh and by the way, talk about badass: crawling down a long corridor to shoot the bad guy after being stabbed repeatedly in the leg?  Groovy.  It’s very reminiscent of poor shoeless John McLean with his room full of broken glass in Die Hard.

Guns, Gams & Go-Fast Machines: Fast & Furious 6

Posted on by Henry

I feel a little embarrassed saying this, but I recently watched and enjoyed the fast-car soap-opera-with-guns Fast & Furious 6.  It was just as intelligent as I had expected it to be, with plenty of zoom-zoom-bang-bang to make up for its intellectual shortcomings.  Which is to say, the movie was almost entirely about action and cars.  Much as in other entries in the series, women’s legs also made an important appearance by filling the screen at (in)appropriate moments.

While the writers clearly didn’t care one whit about how computers actually work (normal for the genre), they surprised me by offering a genuine sense of continuity with the other Fast/Furious films.  This made me very happy indeed, as the various tie-ins towards the end brought Tokyo Drift into relation with the rest of the series.  They also clearly established where the next action will most likely take place and why it will be exciting…

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Who Did it Better: Elysium vs Johnny Mnemonic

Posted on by Jason "Zeeblee" Leonard

Zeeblee

I just saw Elysium, and in discussing it with a coworker we determined that it was indeed a cyberpunk film.  Our fellow coworkers weren’t familiar with the genre, and in introducing them to it we remembered the 1995 film Johnny Mnemonic.  We then realized that Elysium shares many aspects of the classic William Gibson story.  From this point on there will be spoilers, and unlike previous posts I won’t be whiting them out, so if you don’t want either film’s secrets to be revealed, you should stop reading.

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Cabin in the Woods

Posted on by Henry

caravaggio_isaac

 

Abraham is told that he should really just watch the movie already

Cabin in the Woods is an excellent film, particularly if you’re looking for a bloody romp through the menacing trees with a plot twist that will leave you trying to screw your head back on straight.  You get plenty of warning, and the ending is staring you down from a mile away, looming like a blood-hungry Macy’s parade balloon as it swoops down on you and consumes all in its path.  But for all that you can see it coming once you put the pieces together, it’s so totally not what I’ve come to expect from a “kill-the-youngsters” horror movie that I was still gobsmacked when I actually realized what was happening.  And if you can handle the buckets of gore and unrepentantly dark story, the humor which rears its head time and again will keep you chuckling the whole way through.

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Beautiful Creatures is more than skin deep

Posted on by Henry

Just to make things clear, this is about the 2013 movie, not the book by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.  I honestly haven’t even looked sideways at the book, though I probably should.  I originally watched the movie because I was bored on a long flight and I hoped it would inspire me in running a Monsterhearts game.  I was totally right.

On the face of it, Beautiful Creatures is a fairly average movie that nestles comfortably in the niche most recently made by Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series.  I haven’t read those books either, but yes, this is all about teenage monsters and teenagers who have magical powers.  See how I just implied that most teens are monsters?

I have no love for the Twilight books, and the only times I’ve watched the movies were during “watch to regret, drink to forget” parties, mourning the particularly shitty moments in my friends’ lives.  Beautiful Creatures, on the other hand, is genuinely fun and rewarding to watch.

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Pacific Rim

Posted on by Mattias Lehman

GENTLEMAN-GUSTAF-FUCK-YEAHIf I made a top 5 list of things I think are cool, it would look something like this:

  1. Dinosaurs
  2. Dinosaurs
  3. Robots
  4. Dinosaurs
  5. Dinosaurs

But I don’t really think the above captures how much I like dinosaurs. My parents swear that my first real word was ‘dinosaur’, I still know the names of far-too-many dinosaur species, I can give you a compelling argument as to why the T-Rex was likely a scavenger, not a hunter, I have practiced several dinosaur noises, although I remain jealous that my phone makes this noise when texted, as I doubt I could ever be trained to replicate it, and I once nicknamed a lady I dated ‘raptor girl’ to my friends because she did a raptor impression on the internet and gave me a dinosaur head (cut out of a magazine) attached to a popsicle stick on our first date — boy was that a good move! — and we remain close friends to this day. Basically, I want to be a dinosaur when I grow up. When Jurassic Park was re-released recently… let’s just say that the number of times I saw it is shameful, or would be if I were capable of feeling shame about my love for dinosaurs. So you can imagine when I saw this trailer for Pacific Rim, I all but soiled myself. IT’S DINOSAURS FIGHTING ROBOTS! But having seen it, I must admit to a mixed reaction.

WARNING: with most media, I feel obligated to introduce a complicated system of spoiler tags. But there is no plot of which to speak in this movie. So if you fear the spoilers, don’t read on, but know that I’m judging you.

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RED brings comedy to a knife-fight, wins

Posted on by Henry

I suppose it would be more accurate that they bring guns to a knife-fight and then laugh about it.  RED is none other than Retired, Extremely Dangerous, a movie about aging covert operatives who appear to be targeted for forceful extra-retirement by some very well connected people.  Loosely inspired by Warren Ellis’ graphic novels of the same name, this movie takes those books’ themes and runs with them, delivering in a huge way.  A few names you’ll recognize own the movie’s screen with their presence: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Karl Urban, and Mary-Louise Parker.  They’re maybe kind of a big deal, and they totally make the movie.

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Movie Review: World War Z

Posted on by Jason "Zeeblee" Leonard

Zeeblee

I recently saw World War Z at a local Carmike theater, and while it was fun I ended up feeling like I had just watched a generic zombie film, and not a World War Z film.  Where the book is one of the greatest pieces of zombie media ever made, the film instead missed the mark on what makes the whole zombie genre interesting.  In a way this will be a double review as I will discuss what features made the book special, and how the loss of those features made the film feel generic.

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Schindler’s List, and stories that inspire us

Posted on by Henry

It is rare for a movie to reduce me to tears.  Not just tears, but quiet sobbing too.  Schindler’s List does it.

Schindler’s List tells a powerful, horrifying, and moving story, one which ought to be heard by everyone.  It is more than a story of persecution and salvation, it’s a story of inspiration and hope.

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