Amusing, if disappointing.
Released in the summer of 1996 by iconic director Harold Ramis, this 117-minute sci-fi comedy film was an unfortunate box office disappointment, grossing only half of its $45 million dollar budget. When a Los Angeles construction worker's life gets bogged down by an impossibly busy schedule, he has himself cloned to make things easier.
Human cloning is one of the all-time great sci-fi premises, but "Multiplicity" — like so many others to tackle this concept — fails…
Something that really struck me on this rewatch was how the narrative plays with perspective and exposition-through-omission. Even though we witness the story exclusively from Tom Cruise's vantage point. Frequent leaps in the timeline ensure we're constantly behind the information-curve.
The audience doesn't learn new information when Cruise does; we learn only when he hares that knowledge with others. It is a remarkably smart, and effective storytelling technique; allowing the time-loop narrative to feel much longer and involved than it…
I wanted to see this when it was first released, but unfortunately never got around to it. Suffice it to say, 11-year-old Jon would have really liked this film. It's goofy, 90s-era sci-fi fun, but never irritatingly so. Harland pulls off the pratfalls with ease, while the Martian-mission serves as a decently exciting backdrop for a Disney original.
The science may be suspect, and the characters are all one-dimensional, but the breezy affability of everything allows it to work. As juvenile and clichéd as it all was, even 32-year-old Jon kind of enjoyed this one. I thought it was ALRIGHT.
This captivating science fiction drama from critically acclaimed director Christopher Nolan was produced on a budget of $165 million, and released on November 5, 2014. Although it's an entirely original property with no ties to any previous works, the hype surrounding Nolan's ninth feature film was so high, Warner Bros. studios traded away the rights to its lucrative "Friday The 13th" series (among other franchises) just to secure worldwide distribution rights to this movie. So to say…
This low-budget American crime-thriller from first-time director Dan Gilroy was a critical and commercial success following its theatrical release on Halloween, 2014. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as an enigmatic individual who muscles his way into the world of crime journalism: earning money by photographing accidents and murders late at night, and selling them to a local news station. He is a quirky, bottom-feeding opportunist, exhibiting signs of high-functioning autism... always communicating directly, if dishonestly with his mark.
Gyllenhaal…
