Movies Watched The Week of 5/24 - 5/30

Hello gang.  We are back.  It’s a pretty solid week here, although it peaked early on in the week.  And while there’s nothing bad, there’s a bitter disappointment in there.  It’s a shame.  But there’s one legend doing great work inside, an icon changing things up, and a unduly hated blockbuster.  Give it a read and see what happened.  Or not.  I don’t care man.  It’s been a long week.

Darkman (May 24th, 2015)

Director: Sam Raimi

Starring: Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Colin Friels, and Larry Drake

The first Liam Neeson action flick, and it’s probably the best.  It’s got more style and energy to it than anything he’s done in this Taken phase of his career (The Grey notwithstanding).  And in a time where Sam Raimi is undervalued and not doing great work, it’s a nice reminded to see that he was a unique voice in cinema for a while before Hollywood knocked that out of his system.  This is a comic book movie that isn’t even based on a comic book, right in line with Batman 89 in visuals and score (thanks Danny Elfman) and in some ways tone, but this is all Raimi and thankfully not Burton.  Liam Neeson is a scientist working on a synthetic skin for burn patients when he is attacked and left for dead thanks to his lawyer girlfriend shaking the hornets nest.  And of course, he uses his fake skin to create masks and his newfound ability to not really feel pain with a heightened strength to get revenge.  It’s all done with the Loony Tunes inspired insanity he perfected in Evil Dead II, brought to the less demonic comic book world.  Neeson is great as the tortured, rage filled Darkman. He acquits himself well to the genre.  McDormand does well enough, not getting enough screentime to really make a dent in this fast and quick movie.  The villains are kinda forgettable but that’s fine. Raimi is the star of the show, setting up great and hilarious set pieces that use the masks gimmick to full effect with all his crazy visual tics on display. It’s a fun ride that stands above the iconic Batman.  Wish Raimi could harness this energy again to something not Spider-Man related, but at least we got this. 

Rating: 9/10

Cowboys and Aliens (May 26th, 2015)
Director: Jon Favreau
Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, and Sam Rockwell

Yeah, fuck it.  I like this movie.  Sorry, not sorry.  It’s not great, but it isn’t plagued with the problems Lindelof deals in in the cinematic world.  Questions aren’t answered and the ending isn’t a clusterfuck of stupidity.  It’s a simple western with aliens as the bad guys instead of injuns or some shit.  Craig plays an amnesiac who wakes up in the desert without any idea how/why with some strange contraption on his wrist.  When he ambles into a nearby town, he is discovered to be a notorious outlaw and is arrested.  Before being trucked out to a city for justice, Ford shows up as the man he wronged to get frontier justice.  But the aliens attack and kidnap their people, sending these men on a journey across the land to find their peoples.  It’s a western and it manages to be pretty lowkey for the most part.  That may be the problem for most, it’s humble approach.  The initial invasion is bigger than a western action scene, but it’s pretty low scale for a sci fi extravaganza. Favreau directs the hell out of it, the visuals perfectly capturing the vibe of a western.  The aliens themselves are decently rendered little bastards.  Craig is good as the stoic badass with the little hints of humor throughout, a good man with no name esque performance.  Ford is awake in his performance, always a good thing. He’s playing a mean, corrupt bastard of a man who has a decent journey through the film.  It’s not a masterwork but it is nowhere near The Long Ranger or John Carter in terms of cinematic messes.  It’s a fun ride and doesn’t deserve the beating it got.

Rating: 8/10

Shaft (May 29th, 2015)
Director: John Singleton
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Christian Bale, Jeffrey Wright, and Richard Roundtree

John Singleton should stick to genre movies.  Having recently seen Higher Learning and rewatching Boyz N The Hood, his message movies are so blunt and unsubtle and way too heavy handed.  R Rated versions of after school specials with amateurish production.  But after growing in the technical side, he can take a good genre script and shoot it pretty well. This movie here is not a masterpiece or even a great movie by any stretch.  It feels choppy and cut up with reshoots thanks to busy body studio heads and producers.  It’s plot isn’t convoluted so much as harried and unmomentous.  But it’s got a good style, feeling like a modern (for 2000) version of a genre movie with the charisma of Sam Jackson keeping this all watchable.  Sam doing much of the work.  But the cast he gets is really good, a far cry from the amateurish acting he traded in before.  And he shoots the action pretty well.  It’s fun mainly, especially when Richard Roundtree gets to interact with Sam.  Because this isn’t a remake.  It’s a sequel, and Roundtree reprises the role of Shaft.  So that’s fun.  And the villains, while not threatening in the least, are fun to watch.  Bale is great as a more outwardly douchey/unappealing version of Patrick Bateman and Jeffrey Wright is pretty good as the overly ambitious drug dealer.  It’s not a perfect movie and it isn’t as good as Four Brothers, but it’s a solid entry from a man who wasted too much time trying to be Spike Lee. 

Rating: 8/10

Wet Hot American Summer (May 30th, 2015)
Director: David Wain
Starring: Michael Showalter, Janeane Garofolo, Paul Rudd, and Christopher Meloni

There’s a lot of people in here that I like and who went on to go to do alot of good things.  And this is by no stretch a horrible movie.  But it’s kinda not good.  It’s really not that funny.  It’s rickety and too silly and doesn’t feel like anyone put thought into the movie/jokes.  This feels like a big improv sketch show with a lot of bad sketches.  I like the idea of what they’re trying to do, but this doesn’t come off as funny or subversive as Sleepaway Camp and that didn’t mean to be.  But there is a scene where Christopher Meloni talks to a can of soup that is voiced by H Jon Benjamin, so it can’t be completely worthless.  It has it’s moments but they are spread way too far apart and don’t hit the mark high enough. 

Rating: 7/10







Top Movies

1. Darkman
2. Cowboys and Aliens
3. Shaft
4. Wet Hot American Summer

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 5/17 - 5/23

We got us a short week here, with both jobs being very busy for me and taking precious time away from laying down and watching cinema. It’s tough, but I think I can get through it.  And sadly, nothing here jumps on the list of great ones or even super rewatchability.  There’s one complete failure, a mediocre take by a legend, and a good little oddity from another legend.  But it’s all interesting to me, so give it a read and tell me what an asshole I am for thinking as such.

Higher Learning (May17th, 2015)

Director: John Singelton

Starring: Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson, Ice Cube, and Michael Rappaport

Boyz N The Hood was a real big movie in 1991, one of those flicks that capture the attention of the world and feels important.  So John Singleton jumped onto the list of hot directors and sadly kinda squandered it.  One only has to see his directorial output past Baby Boy to see how far he’s fallen, only making 3 movies in the last 12 years of the unpopular variety.  And even looking back at Boyz N The Hood, it hasn’t aged particularly well and Singletons directorial style is the reason why it hasn’t aged well.  He isn’t a subtle man, going to bash people over the heads with the messages he is trying to get across.  Nobody is a character really, just a message that are filled with speeches and moments that fall right into that message.  It’s all big and grandiose with obvious music to make you feel something, either a time or feeling.  And all that can be applied to his third movie, Higher Learning, which has all those Singleton flashes.  But what separates this from Boyz N The Hood is that Boyz doesn’t have a lot of characters to spend time on and his message is more narrow and clear, which allows some moments to come in to show who these people are when they aren’t walking motivational posters.    This movie tries so hard to showcase all the problems that could befall a college student, from overworking athletes to racism to rape to misogyny to mental illness to anything you can think it tries to tackle.  So nothing sticks and all of it’s just grating.  It feels phony and contrived and just self righteous.  It’s a big swing and a miss that shows why he hasn’t had the longevity and productivity that Spike Lee has.

Rating: 4/10

The Lady From Shanghai (May 20th, 2015)
Director: Orson Welles
Starring: Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloane, and Glenn Anders

Off my massive collection of movies on blu ray, I only on two Orson Welles movies and this is one and the other isn’t Citizen Kane.  This is a decent little movie, something that seems to be a work for hire job that he tried to make unique but was screwed over by the studios yet again.  Chopped to bits and forced to deal with reshoots that stand out completely, it has some good moments and ideas but doesn’t really stand together.  It’s supposed to be a black comedy take on a typical murder mystery, but the choppy editing makes it totally convoluted and hard to follow.  And the performances are by the two lawyers in the movie are so big and obnoxious, it can be really hard to watch.  Welles doesn’t fare much better with his insane Irish accent.  Hayworth is just a blank for the most part, so aside from her looks she doesn’t really stand out.  What this movie does is all technical stuff (editing aside) really well.  Good location stuff and a really good climax that Enter The Dragon ripped off, this works decently enough.  But don’t use this as the lynchpin of early black and white hollywood cinema.

Rating: 7/10

Happy Feet (May 23rd, 2015)
Director: George Miller
Starring: Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, and Robin Williams

George Miller may very well be the weirdest and most singular populist director working.  His original Mad Max trilogy was filled to the brim with weird touches and big visuals.  The Witches From Eastwick was crazy, as was his installment in The Twilight Zone Movie.  Even Babe: Pig In The City is so much weirder than the usual kiddie movie fare.  And that continues onto Happy Feet, a movie that features anthropomorphic penguins that are kinda realistically depicted, ignoring the dancing and singing and such.  It’s a musical with some odd choices and a great look.  And it’s got the mexican penguins that kinda take you aback that he’d put them in.  But it’s also a deceptively smart movie, tackling the ravaging of mother nature and even organized religion/extremism in there while also being a love story with a be yourself bent.  It’s a cute movie with some good laughs and is visually gorgeous, not a surprise with Miller.  But it’s a little too long and is structured really weirdly.  It’s not bad and it’s a good time at the movies.  But he’s done better, and maybe the sequel is better since he’s good with sequels. 

Rating: 8/10





Top Movies

1. Happy Feet
2. The Lady From Shanghai
3. Higher Learning

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week Of 5/10 - 5/16

Hey gang! Welcome back, we got a new weeks worth of cinema to bring to ya.  Sadly, it's a week with less great in it than prior weeks, but there's enough stuff in here worth some enjoyment.  It's a solid week, nothing special or horrible.  So let's give it a go and see what happens.  

Coogan's Bluff (May 10th, 2015)

Director: Don Siegel

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Susan Clark, Tisha Sterling, and Lee J. Cobb

You gotta love some old school Clint movies that are charmingly out of touch with the times.  Clint stars here as a Sheriff deputy from Arizona who is tasked with extraditing a prisoner back to Arizona from NYC.  So it’s a movie where not only does Clint get to play fish out of water in 1968 NYC, but the prisoner is a hippie and the world he inhabits is so cartoonish that you can’t help but chuckle at it, like a crusty grandpa who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about but is confident he does.  Aside from the charming ignorance on display, the movie is kind of shaggy and slow.  It ambles along with no real urgency, despite the mad dog killer roaming the streets.  Clint spends most his time just laying pipe with women around town.  The only real highlight of the movie is Clint getting into a big brawl in a bar.  That’s about as interesting as the movie gets.  It’s got some late 60s movie charm to it with the aforementioned hippy silliness, but that’s about it.  Charming enough if you want a Clint fix. 

Rating: 7/10

The Dead Zone (May 13th, 2015)
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Herbert Lom, and Martin Sheen

If someone told you that an adaptation of Stephen Kings book The Dead Zone would be made in the 80s, David Cronenbergs name wouldn’t immediately jump to mind.  He is an intellectual director, not necessarily a man interested in plot or everyday people.  But with further thought put into it, the match is actually a pretty good fit.  Cronenberg has one fascination when it comes to movies, and that is the body turning against ones self.  And that is what The Dead Zone is, a story where everyman Johnny Smith (Walken) gets into a car accident and slips into a coma for 5 years, coming out of it with the ability to see the important moments regarding life and death to those he touches with his hand.  But this ability is taking a toll on Johnny and it is slowly killing him the more he uses it.  Cronenberg is a pretty good fit here as he is more interested in intellectual ideas and tone, bringing a real sense of melancholic doom to the movie.  It’s also easily makes the weird seem reasonable, never coming off as fake.  And while he isn’t one for the technical aspects of filmmaking, he does get some good shots and a cool visual way to show Johnnys ability.  Walken is good in the role, but is kinda the weakest link in the movie.  He is just naturally so weird and off putting that his journey he takes isn’t as rewarding or natural, similar to Jack in The Shining.  But it doesn’t kill the movie.  The only other weak link is the ending plot with Johnny meeting Greg Stillson (Sheen) is a bit rushed, only really coming into play in the last 20 minutes or so, rushing Johnnys journey into the decision he has to make.  But it’s done decently enough in the rush to work within the overall framework, still ending on a tragic but kinda bittersweet note.  This isn’t my favorite Cronenberg (that’s still A History Of Violence), but I have a lot to see and thus far from what I’ve seen this is the best of his from the 80s. 

Rating: 9/10

Cujo (May 15th, 2015)
Director: Lewis Teague
Starring: Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Danny Pintauro, and Chris Stone

This is an interesting companion piece after coming off the heels of The Dead Zone.  Whereas that movie felt very much in line with Kings work with an auteurist feel, this one tries to emulate King with a workmans hand guiding it.  Which is fine, as it’s still a decent movie and fixes some pretty bad aspects of the book in the transition, but is hindered by the weak narrative at play before the showdown in the car actually comes into play.  The one weakness still in play from the book is that Dee Wallaces character is really kind of unlikable, a woman who steps out on her husband because she’s a spoiled brat.  And she makes some stupid decisions that just are horror movie stupid, making her hard to root for.  And just the domestic stuff doesn’t click anyway, with Kelly as her husband kinda not interesting to watch anyway.  And the movie is screwy when the rabid killer dog is more empathetic than the humans it’s trying to kill.  But once the dog attacks the car, it takes off and works pretty well.  It still retains a bunch of the obnoxious coincidences that plagued the book as well, but they work well enough in a story about a dog thats as good and devious a killer as Jason Voorhees.  It’s a movie that requires some more than usual suspension of belief, but there’s some charm to be had for it, that 80s drive in charm.

Rating: 7/10

Bad Lieutenant (May 16th, 2015)
Director: Abel Ferrara
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Frankie Thorn, Zoe Lund, and Paul Calderon

This is a weird movie in the fact that it has a very seedy tone to it that it does pretty well, but it is also not the greatest in any other aspect.  Keitel gives a great performance as this little shit, a wolf in sheeps clothing who can’t do anything right who just descends into even worse depravity at the end.  But that’s pretty much what the movie has going for it.  It tries to go for a Catholic forgiveness redeeming story, but it gets to it with way too little time left.  It’s got that early 90s indie feel to it, and Keitel is really the only one in the movie.  People just float in and out.  It’s a weird flick, one that I can’t even completely say is good but is so odd and singular with a great performance at its center, I can look past the really repetitive drug scenes.

Rating: 8/10






Top Movies

1. The Dead Zone
2. Bad Lieutenant
3. Cujo
4. Coogan's Bluff

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week of 5/3 - 5/9

Welcome back gang.  We gots a new entry for ya ass, and it’s alright.  It’s an almost disappointingly average week, with an utter awful lowpoint in the mix.  But overall, a good week.  And while I can’t write it up due to an embargo, I saw a movie this week that you can see on the other website come Friday, May 15th.  So sit back and try to enjoy.  And wait patiently to see the word come out about the new release.

Chillerama (May 3rd, 2015)

Directors: Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Adam Rifkin, and Tim Sullivan

Starring: Richard Riehle, Joel David Moore, Ray Wise, and Adam Rifkin

All anthology movies have a weak entry in them.  VHS 2 had the robot eye short.  The Twilight Zone Movie had Spielbergs short about old people.  But I haven’t seen an anthology with an entry so bad as to poison what came before and what came after it.  This isn’t a serious movie.  It’s filled to the brim with super childish humor and taboo/offensive material in such a delirious way as to be fun and not offensive.  But Tim Sullivans entry is so bad on every level, that the movie sank a whole lot.  It’s the second entry in a 4 entry film.  The first entry is from Rifkin, and while that isn’t perfect it has a dedication to the ridiculous and bodily fluid humor that it is a bit charming in its low key shittiness.  And the two after it by Green and Lynch are real solid and pick up the slack but not enough to really make the whole good.  Sullivans is that bad and amateurish.  Greens is a goofy little throwback to the Nazi genre of grindhouse movies with a really Jewish sense of humor about it in such an over the top way.  And Lynch takes on the zombie genre in such a fucked up and different way as to be jaw dropping.  And he has a little joke movie within the movie that is so childish that you can’t help but laugh.  I wish I could recommend this more.  But Sullivan really just fucked this movie up completely.

Rating: 7/10

Mission Impossible (May 4th, 2015)
Director: Brian DePalma
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, and Jean Reno

It’s really crazy to think that it’s been close to 20 years since this movie came out and that the franchise is still kicking.  Because while it’s not a bad movie by any stretch, it just doesn’t have the hook that most spy movies do.  That and MI2 was so not well received that everyone just assumed it was over with.  And luckily for us the series became fluid, with each director coming on and making it feel different than the last.  So here, we got a DePalma movie. Not too into shootouts and guns, but more about the tech and cool shots and real tension and an over the top story.  It feels much in line with DePalama.  The story is kinda too convoluted for its own good and some of the character beats aren’t fleshed out to well that by the end, you’re left wondering why they did what they did.  Cruise isn’t bad in it, but he is trying to play a character that isn’t there on the script where he essentially would just be playing movie star in the sequels. But DePalmas craft keeps the movie going, especially in the iconic scene with Cruise hanging from a ceiling in that white room which is just tension and quiet.  It’s a crackerjack scene and makes the movie.  The climax is cool too, even with some typical wonky 90s cgi work. But it has Tom Cruise blow up a helicopter and get exploded towards a speeding train.  So it’s fine.  Since the series is basically one offs with no real continuity, this is lower on the scale for watchability. Really only for the context of the series, much like Dr. No.  But it’s solid enough and makes for a fun watch.  

Rating: 8/10

Play Misty For Me (May 6th, 2015)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, and John Larch

Here we got the debut of Clint in the directors chair.  And it’s a pretty solid little picture, rough around the edges but a movie that actually influenced things to come.  See kids, this was the movie that introduced the crazy stalker movies that would include the most famous of them Fatal Attraction.   As a debut, it is rough around the edges.  Some obvious audio issues, a little lagging in the pace, and some whatever moments in the performance area.  But it does a good job with the idea of a swinging dick dj (Clint) getting in too deep with the crazy lady fan of his (Walter) while trying to further his career and reignite his relationship with his ex (Mills).  There’s some real tense, wild moments in it.  He even kinda does some real early shaky cam in an attack scene, that’s kinda surprisingly bloody.  And being a 70s movie, it’s got some stereotypical black and gay characters that give it that nice little 70s spice.  The resolution is just so gloriously insane that it made me cackle.  I’d suggest this to folks, since it started a pretty strong career behind the camera for the icon. 

Rating: 8.5/10

Invaders From Mars (May 8th, 2015)
Director: Tobe Hooper
Starring: Hunter Carson, Karen Black, Timothy Bottoms, and Laraine Newman

Tobe Hooper, the man with the most ridiculous of careers.  He came out of the gate with a masterpiece, a game changer in the horror field with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  And after that, almost nothing he’s made has been really good.  He’s got his movies that have some goofy entertainment to be had.  And we can get into the debate that he directed Poltergeist, despite all the rumors and the feeling while watching it that Spielberg directed it.  But despite his almost abject failure to make a success without the air of Spielbergian influence, you gotta give him credit in that he pretty much never repeated himself. He went so off base with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 that you gotta respect the audacity to just make a sequel in a different genre completely.  Even this movie here, Invaders From Mars, could have been an easy Poltergeist/Amblin ripoff.  But instead he goes with the tone of an old 50s sci fi drive in flick, full of goofy performances and silly plot turns and weird monster effects.  And it is just a good, goofy little movie that won’t really stick with you but entertains you while in the moment.  Aside from the kid being an utter chore to watch and a just awful twist ending, it’s a good time.  And if you ever wanted to watch Nurse Ratched get eaten by a giant martian testicle, this is the movie for you.  This is a solid entry in Hoopers three movie run with Cannon films, but it is at the bottom because it can’t match the sheer lunacy of Lifeforce or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. 

Rating: 7.5/10





Top Movies

1. Play Misty For Me
2. Mission Impossible
3. Invaders From Mars
4. Chillerama

- Tom Lorenzo

Movies Watched The Week Of 4/26 - 5/2

Oh baby.  We got a fucking week for ya’ll here, with the massive premiere of a movie 3 years in the making.  And it more than fucking delvers.  We also got 2 70s car movies straight out of the Tarantino playbook. The only downside is a mediocre comedy that still can’t lessen the shine off the massive week we got here.  So sit back and enjoy something that was more physically challenging then the Mayweather/Paquaio Fight.

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (April 26th, 2015)

Director: John Hough

Starring: Peter Fonda, Susan George, Adam Roarke, and Vic Morrow

Ah, you gotta love 70s car movies.  There is really nothing more to this movie other than the desire of the filmmakers to shoot some cool stunts and destroy the shit out of some shit.  The plot is such.  Two dumbasses (Fonda and Roarke) need money to make it into Nascar, so the rob a supermarket.  Mary is a crazed groupie who gets caught up in the mess while a policeman (Morrow) hunts them down.  Simple enough.  It’s in real time, so there’s some immediacy to it.  The casting is good enough, with George just being beyond terrible in such a glorious grindhouse way.  Fonda’s hair is the worst thing he’s ever done on screen, and he helped kill Escape From LA.  Morrow is just doing what he do.  We come for the cars and we get some fucking cars man.  The stunts are great and you get the sense that they were just irresponsible and reckless.  It’s glorious.  And the ending is perfection in the stunts department.  Then the wrap up to the film is so balls out ridiculous that you can’t help but respect the insanity of how they end it in such a laughably nihilistic way.  If you want a quick ride with some insane car stuff, this isn’t the worst way to spend your time.  If you want a real movie though because you’re high falutin, stay away cause this is just pure entertainment.

Rating: 8/10 

Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1st, 2015)
Director: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, and Mark Ruffalo

The time is here.  We have been waiting for a good long while.  3 years to be exact.  The glorious return of The Avengers is here and everyone in the world is going to see it. We’ve had 5 movies in Phase 2 of the MCU to tide us over, and they’ve all been winners for the most part. But this is the main event that those movies were the undercards to.  And with Joss Whedon and the crew of super heroes back in the game, the year has it’s contender for biggest movie of the year.  But could years of hype and waiting work against the movie? Can the movie itself live up to the hype or will it suffer from sequelitis?  Based off some reactions, some people can’t really let their expectations go.  But without the bullshit holding one down, you can see whats plain to see.  This is a great god damn movie and ups the ante for the MCU, a new high point for the brand.  

The movie starts off in media res with the Avengers rolling into the base of a Hydra outfit, and they roll in guns blazing.  And he starts it off with a long, edited together long take of each Avenger doing their thing much like Whedon did at the end of The Avengers.  It sets the movie up perfectly with the visual cues that these guys have been working together for a while and are comfortable, fighting like a true team.  The comic book ingenuity Whedon displays in just this one scene is great.  Everyone gets their great moments, and it lets us know this is gonna be an even keeled ensemble movie.  And with this opening, we get the introduction of two new supers, though they aren’t heroes at this moment.  Pietro and Wanda Maximoff aka Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen) make their debuts and they make an impression.   Olsen works much better than Johnson, who stands below Evan Peters as Quicksilver in Days of Future Past, but Johnson is still good enough. It’s brief but quality stuff. And it is in this opening raid that the plot is kicked into gear, as Tony Stark gets it in his head (thanks to a Scarlet Witch induced vision) to create an artificial intelligence to protect the world.  It is here that we get the seeds of Ultron’s birth.

From that point on, the movie is pretty much non stop.  It’s a big movie that spans the globe and makes time for everyone to have their moments, even cameos that appear.  The creation of Ultron is a big threat and one they can’t just simply solve with punches or a well timed nuclear bomb.  They have to use their tactical brains and work as a team to take him down before he gets loose.  But the problem is that they are hella outnumbered and outgunned, while also being torn apart from the inside.  Tony didn’t tell the others he was making an AI, so when Ultron comes to life, they blame Tony for his massive ego and god complex.  So they have to come back together for now to face a threat. 

This movie is really big.  Whedon ups the ante of the scope of the movie, shooting in widescreen and bringing a better visual style to the movie than the big budget TV look of the last one.  He still shows that visuals aren’t his strong suit with some wonky camera angles and weak visual effects in spots.    And it’s funny, because no one will bring this up, but it has a similarly muted color scheme like Man of Steel.  But since it’s Whedon and Marvel, no one will mention it.  Just like they won’t mention the insane amounts of damage done in the action scenes here.  Just because they show the heroes save some citizens now and then, the action is so massive that just as many people died here thanks to the heroes bullshit than in Man of Steel.  But since I don’t actually care about that shit in a comic book movie with really comic booky action, I was just ecstatic to see this epic level of action.  It’s big and never ending and just ripped out of the comics.  And it’s all character based action, using everyones powers to be really varied.  It may get a little cluttered at times because of Whedons strained talent with visuals, but it’s really awesome.  Easily the best of the MCU.  

While this is a busy movie, pretty much everyone gets moments and feels worthwhile to the plot.  There is almost no ounce of fat on this movie, aside from a pointless subplot with Thor is a pool that should have either been cut out or lengthened to make any sense.  But even Thor has his moments, cluing everyone into the cosmic implications to come with the increasingly visible Infinity Stones.  Cap though, yet again, is the forgotten member of the movie.  He really just serves as the good guy moral compass leader man, really dealing with nothing at all.  It’s kinda telling that they can’t get sort of story going with him. But this time out, the movies arc isn’t Stark.  His is important, as it ideologically strains the group and sets up future conflict, while setting up the plot of the movie from the past events in his movies. He’s still not the focal point or the heart of the movie  

So while the three big guns of the MCU with their own franchises are kinda sidelined, the rest of the crew are given much story and one in particular is given a big heap of work.  That would be Hawkeye, who was essentially a nothing role in the first one and hasn’t shown up in other movies.  So as an apology to Jeremy Renner, Hawkeye is given the heart of the movie and shows why he is such a vital member of the crew, despite being an unpowered human with a bow & arrow.  And Renner really shines in this movie, playing the smirking and wisecracking smartass with a heart of gold that Matt Fraction made classic.  And where Renner gets some great stuff, Black Widow and Bruce Banner get the other heartfelt story.  A surprising but fitting romance is blooming between these two and it’s really good stuff about two people who’ve never had any agency in their lives trying to take charge of their lives for once with someone they love and who loves them.  Scarlett and Ruffalo do great work here to sketch the relationship between the two.  And much like the Mal/Inara relationship in Firefly/Serenity, the relationship really works and makes even me, a hardened B movie fanboy, really happy at one particular moment in their relationship.  No one will ever say Whedon doesn’t do character moments well, and he does them here in the dramatic moments and the never ending comedic moments. 

What Whedon has done here is nothing short of spectacular, especially with the apparent emotional/physical toll it took on him, and the rumors of Marvel/Kevin Feige being too controlling.  He delivered a massive sequel that managed to work on it’s own and set up future movies really well, something that’s tripped them up before.  The character work he does is superb and heartfelt, the action is thrilling even with his limits at that aspect.  The movie is funny and dramatic and just massive.  Aside from the minor Thor digression, the only real negative here is James Spader.  And not Ultron himself.  I mean Spader. He doesn’t act here.  He plays Spader, even bringing that weird mouth thing Spader does when he talks thanks to the wonders of mo cap.  And it’s not even that he’s bad.  It fits character wise, since he’s like a mechanized son to Tony, taking on his snarky and condescending nature.  Just seeing Spader doing Spader feels kinda lazy, only working thanks to the writing of the character.  But aside from that, the movie is fantastic.  The long wait for Infinity War is gonna be tough, especially with the lack of Whedon at the helm.  But right now, this is the Empire Strikes Back of Marvel.  Dark but not dreary and setting up rougher times to come, this is a massive achievement.  It’s a shame that Mad Max: Fury Road and Star Wars: The Force Awakens are coming out this year, since they stand a real good chance to topple this movie quality wise.  So if this doesn’t end up as the number 1 blockbuster of the year, this is a ridiculous fucking year.  Marvel did it again. 

Rating: 10/10

Cyrus (May 2nd, 2015)
Directors: Jay and Mark Duplass
Starring: John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, and Catherine Keeener

The movie starts with Catherine Keener, so I knew we were getting a piece of white bread of a comedy.  It’s not that she’s bad, it’s just that shes a warning sign of a boring and slight comedy coming ones way.  And that is what we got here.  The Duplass manage to make Reilly and Hill interact and it’s not funny.  Like, almost at all.  There’s some chuckles here and there, but it’s almost laugh free.  Crazy.  And when the supposed thrust of the movie is the rivalry between Reilly and Hill, you’d expect to get that.  But, we don’t meet Hill for about 20 minutes and then we don’t get the actual rivalry until about 30 minutes left in the movie.  So, the movie spends alot of time with no real drive to it.  What the movie is more interested in is the relationship between Reilly and Tomei, which is good.  It’s sweet and has some real heart/humanity to it.  But the other aspects of the movie really just drop the movie down.  The performances are fine enough, despite laughs being almost absent here.  And since it’s a mumblecore movie, it’s shot like a slightly more polished student film.  I’m not usually this kind of guy, but this is the whitest movie ever.  It’s so bland and the problems at hand are not really interesting.  If you like the Duplass brothers, I’m sure this is perfect.  But for me, this did nothing for me.  Not terrible.  It was just there.

Rating: 7/10

Race With The Devil (May 2nd, 2015)
Director: Jack Starrett
Starring: Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, and Lara Parker

This came in a two pack with the other Peter Fonda movie this week, so I threw it in and had me some nice 70’s B movie enjoyment on a Saturday night.  And while this isn’t as basically entertaining as Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry it is actually a much better movie.  It’s still a road movie with some crazy car stunts, but the majority of the movie is more akin to The Wicker Man.  It’s closer to a thriller with some tense scenes involved.  And unlike the prior movie, this one features real people and not dumbshit criminals.  It doesn’t hurt that Warren Oates is in this one, always a welcome sight.  We don’t have an Oscar movie here, but the effort to be more than just simple entertainment is welcome.  And when the climactic chase takes place, it is awesome.  More crazy shit on the road just brings a smile to my face.  And like the prior flick, this one has a brilliantly silly ending of the nihilistic nature.  But while it’s silly, there is something upsetting and unnerving about it. Like Larry, it’s a good time.  But there’s more to it than that one.  Real good stuff from the 70s man. 

Rating: 8.5/10





Top Movies

1. Avengers: Age of Ultron
2. Race With The Devil
3. Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry
4. Cyrus

- Tom Lorenzo