Letterboxd — Your life in film

Much like the last one, it whizzes, it bangs, it makes cutesy references to the original series and movies, it puts a weird opposite world kind of spin on WRATH OF KHAN, and then the lights go up and we go home. J. J. Abrams is a man who knows how to make spectacle, of that there is no doubt, but he seems increasingly unaware of what makes the Star Trek universe so appealing and special. He just might do wonders for STAR WARS VII, but he may do it in all the wrong ways.

Slight, but charming. It’s nice to see that an animated movie, with all the work and time it takes to make one, can be almost entirely eventless, gliding by on the charm of character alone. This seems to be the movie that Hayao wishes his son started out with, and it’s not lost on me that its themes include honoring the past while preparing for the future and the legacy great men leave with their children.

Shane Black does his very best KISS KISS BANG BANG but with a superhero and it's really good fun until he thinks he has to make a superhero movie like everyone else did since time immemorial. And while I like Ben Kingsley's performance, the turn nullifies some terrific and terrifying set up (despite the inherent ridiculousness of The Mandarin). Somehow, this was even more silly. But thematically, it all comes together quite well, and Black knows how to pen a quip that doesn't completely remove the audience from a moment. And don't miss Mark Ruffalo! Someone get that man his own movie.

No one is making movies like Shane Carruth. A stunning sythesis of the unabashedly cerebral mixed with the nakedly emotional in a film that has such a profound trust in the audience to take moving images cut together in specific ways to mean something, to say something, to infer a deep feeling. And that’s what make COLOR so singular. It tells an inventive story in such a way that attention is required to make sense of it, and when that focus is given, the audience is more open to be swayed by the unique sense of feeling and rhythm that stirs deep emotions. Sure it’s possible that one may get lost in solving the puzzle, and maybe the metaphors are too rigorous, but Carruth is tackling human stories in a way that breaks down any prejudices of, for example, love, relationships, and personal failure, etc., and allows us to see them and feel them in a wholly new context.

Heavy-handed doesn't even begin to cut it with this movie. Blunt as a baseball bat to the head, maybe. THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST did more to humanize Jesus than this movie does for Jackie Robinson and his trials and tribulations. I kid, but only slightly. Competently made, but let me give you an example. There's a scene where a dad takes his son to a game Robinson is playing in. Son innocently hopes that he will see a future legend play, like Dad did when pops saw Honus Wagner play when pops was a wee tyke. Dad rubs son on the head, says "Maybe!" and immediately starts to yell the n-word at Jackie. Son hesitantly joins in. My eyes roll to the back of the theater.

Unabashedly stands on the shoulders of other, better sci-fi giants, but it puts such a pretty sheen on it that I can’t say I was disappointed by the experience. Gorgeous cinematography and solid direction can’t bring down this story, which while derivative, is very well told. A nice, solid piece of undemanding entertainment.

Unfortunately gets weaker as it goes on, which defeats the entire purpose as the third segment of the film seems to be the reason this movie exists. This small scale yet multi-generational epic actually falters by being so meticulous, leaving very little room for ambiguity in the actions and influences of its characters. A solid melodrama at times, it fortunately never falters into complete ridiculousness. Cianfrance's directing hand is solid, but if you ever wanted to watch CACHE and have everything painstakingly spelled out for you, I guess this is the movie for you.

I'll admit, I was utterly won over by this utterly charming, foul-mouthed, good natured, low key comedy of the joyful, bittersweet, purposeful aimlessness of youth. Is that too much to put on this film? Probably. But what this movie gets so right is that air of friendship, of ill-fated crushes, of wasted summer days, of adventures that never had a chance of actually coming to fruition, but actually, you never know so... why not give it a shot? Although this film doesn't resemble my teenage years in the least bit, the film is so powerful in evoking the mood of being young (while still being incredibly specific to the setting) that it felt like it could've been me on that screen; that in fact, it was me. I miss those days filled with nothing but possibility (that leaned heavily toward the "nothing"). Where the day took you where it took you, and if it was a strange house with a pretty girl, then, why yes, I'll think I'll stick around. The power of the movie is not that it could only happen in New York, but actually, that it's happening everywhere, all the time.

Gets by on solid camerawork and a stern commitment to ever-escalating grimy violence and unflinching bloody gore and viscera, though over-the-top enough to not enter into the realm of so-called "torture porn". Otherwise, a pretty typical dumb decisions out in the woods horror movie until the last 15 minutes, when the movie makes good on its doomsday prophesying and finally, a chainsaw appears. That last sequence is pretty darn fantastic, both for how it goes where most horror movies don't dare (save CABIN IN THE WOODS) and how it gamely contradicts all the cliches the movie was dutifully ticking off thus far. Enough references and call backs to the original series that it felt like I was watching more of an alternate universe version than a remake ("if this is a remake, what's that Oldsmobile doing there?"). Call this EVIL DEAD INFINITE ("there's always a chainsaw, there's always a wo/man").