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Quik Flix Hit

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Lazy Eye (2016)

Rated R

T42 Entertainment

Dean is not so concerned with the lazy eye condition he’s had since youth. What frustrates him, though, is a recent necessity for progressive lenses. As he’s rounding middle age, Dean struggles to see things in the distance and up close. His condition becomes an analogy of sorts that plays out as he reconnects with an ex-boyfriend.

Tim Kirkman’s Lazy Eye is a pleasant and diverting romantic indie drama despite its stage-play feel. It’s a short, focused film and that feels right.

Dean (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe), a married and complacent graphic artist, decides to steal away to his Mojave Desert vacation home with the seeming intent to put work tensions on pause. Unbeknownst to his coworker Mel (Michaela Watkins, who joyfully makes the most of her limited screen time) and Dean’s often-absent husband, the weekend getaway is actually a rendezvous with Alex (Aaron Costa Ganis), a long-ago lover. In flashbacks cleverly intercut with Dean’s ruminating present, we learn that the men reconnected through carefully worded and playful emails. A span of 15 years separates them—certainly a longer time than the men were together.

toonMarvinBlogDean’s libido is ignited at the prospect of Alex actually showing up (though Dean’s love of self-love suggests it doesn’t take much to get him going), and their initial reunion brings not-unexpected carnal abandon.

Soon after, glowing and happy, the men began to talk, and talk. Walk and talk. Swim and talk. Eat and talk. There are issues to be hashed out over this weekend: Why did they break up? Why did Alex fall off the grid? Why reach out to Dean after all this time? Why is Dean settling in his career, and perhaps his marriage? Were the men ever even compatible?

I don’t mind the talk because it’s mostly interesting and pressed me to consider my own feelings on lost love, career choices and indecision. I’m am reminded of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), a film mainly concerned with following two people around as they discuss life, love, success and failure and what it all means going forward.

This film’s basically comprised of snapshot moments (and wonderful location photography) of their relationship’s start (their meet cute in an East Village bar with Dean sketching Alex’s picture on a napkin; Alex, meanwhile, is a flighty recent college graduate), breakup (Dean’s obsessive hunt for answers after Alex dumps him; Alex’s deception in their relationship), reunion (a waitress intrusively comments on them being a cute gay couple), and conclusion. Kirkman uses facial hair as a transitional device: In flashbacks the men are clean shaven to contrast their bearded contemporary looks.

Even though Dean is the main character I gravitated toward Alex. Dean initially seems to be the more focused adult. He has the respectable job and husband, while Alex seems roguish and mysterious. But then we realize Dean is the one who’s circling his life, cheating on his spouse and selfishly wanting …  everything. Alex seems to have lived the carefree life and is trying now to zero in on something more—children and lasting love, perhaps.

But ultimately this is a study of Dean’s progressive-lens life. We watch him struggling to keep the distant past, up-close present and near future in perspective.

Oh, and the dead rats made me smile.

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The Killing Season Interview

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‘KILLING’ DOC’S DUO PLUNGES INTO ABYSS SEEKING JUSTICE, HUMANITY

killingseason_q-a

Nietzsche warned that when fighting monsters, beware not to become one. Josh Zeman and Rachel Mills warn that when hunting killers, take care to not to forget their victims.

The New York-based producers undertake the daunting task of hunting serial killers and puzzling through the horrors and sorrows left in the aftermath in A&E network’s The Killing Season. The eight-part docu-series bows Nov. 12 and is as relentless in giving voice to forgotten victims and knitting together coalitions to study killers as it is in actually hunting for them.

READ MY REVIEW OF THE SERIES.

The Killing Season begins simply enough, though, as a look into the unsolved murders of four prostitutes on Long Island. Zeman and Mills throw themselves into this case in their back yard, detailing the crimes, interviewing law enforcement officials, dropping in on family and friends of the victims, and following leads.

The trail of clues to the initial crimes, which originated in 2010, has long since gone cold, complicated by law enforcement bureaucracy and a lack of cohesive shared evidence and information.

“We are drawn to the idea of helping when police get stuck,” Zeman says. He has experience with the subject matter, having produced and codirected another serial-killer-themed work, Cropsey, in 2009. He and Mills turn to cyber-sleuthing, websites and blogs dedicated with varying degrees to hashing out facts, creating serial-killer profiles and propagating theories. Websleuths.com stands out as a one of the more-credible resources.

As we watch, the team’s scope steadily widens.

killingseason-small

A&E

“Alex Gibney (the documentary’s executive producer) encouraged us to look at bigger issues,” Zeman says. So Zeman and Mills began drilling down deeper into their investigation of victims—they are nearly all prostitutes and/or drug-addled low-income women on the fringes—as well as the fractured methods to share data among law enforcement and a disturbing patterns of long-haul truckers. In theory, some of these long-haulers target prostitutes while crisscrossing the nation. It’s a job, we are told, “perfectly suited for picking up a woman in one state and dumping her body in another.” We also learn how the Internet becomes a deadly tool used by killers to target female escorts.

Zeman notes that in this era of social media, smart-device technology and web-savvy citizen across the nation, it was startling to learn that despite the wealth of information at our fingertips, there remains hurdles to unifying these resource into a comprehensive database that can be shared by law enforcement agencies.

“It’s called linkage blindness,” Zeman says. There’s the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) that makes data available to law enforcement agencies, but information is entered into ViCAP voluntarily, Zeman says. The input of data is not mandatory or consistent. While many law enforcement agencies collect data in their regions, the information is not typically connected with systems from other regions.

A powerful element of The Killing Season involves watching Zeman and Mills knit together information from this agency and that agency and match it with information gleaned from fastidious websleuths and geologists who can pinpoint possible burial sites and professors programing algorithms that deduce the hunting grounds of serial killer and amateur profilers who give their FBI counterparts a run for their money.

“Citizens have the most extensive databases we can access,” Zeman says.

Meeting with victims’ family and friends was about more than gleaning information about the cases, Mills says. It offered insight into the lives of often-invisible victims of these crimes. It was a difficult, but rewarding experience, she says. The love ones often emerged as keepers of the flame for the victims.

“Sisters in particular, they continue to tell these stories, keep the memories (of the victims) alive,” says Mills, executive producer at Jigsaw Productions, whose work includes the documentary Killer Legends (2014).

The duo often appears fearless in documentary, whether calling up possible serial killers, or confronting a suspect directly at his home, or taking rides with supposed informants, or meeting clandestinely with mysterious characters.

“Josh was gung-ho,” Mills says. “I had to work up bravery.” But there she is right beside Zeman, journeying into potential danger. At times, the two had to haul around bulletproof vests, Zeman says.

“Of course we got nervous,” Mills says, “but to make our point we had to be bold, to try to give these women justice.”

“These families were braver than us,” she adds.

All told, the duo spent 175 days on the road in an emotionally draining experience.

“We’ll see how people respond,” Zeman says. “Our goal is not to solve one crime, but to solve a whole lot of crimes.”

Take a look into the abyss on Nov. 12 at 9 p.m. ET on A&E.

 

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Quik Flix Hit

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Video review

Indigo Children (2012)

Unrated

indigochildren

In an unremarkable small town that could be any unremarkable small town, a quiet boy is spied upon by a quiet girl. She’s drawn to him because, like her, he’s an Indigo child. This means, according to her, that they are special, different, better, though to the viewer they seem as ordinary and stoic as their town.

toonMarvinBlogWriter-director Eric Chaney’s debut film bows this month in digital format. Deliberately paced, Indigo Children strives to echo the rhythms of small-town pathos. Shots are held, given time to be seen and absorbed.

I say the town’s unremarkable, but the cinematography’s not. Fantastic aerial shots of lush-green fields, mighty trees and ancient railroad tracks are contrasted with a model-train diorama. Homes decayed and moss-covered are contrasted with upscale homes, and a big city on the horizon.

Story proper—young lovers Mark and Christina (Robert Olsen and Isabelle McNally) attempting to connect with themselves and each other—flows through laconic voiceovers, videotape confessions and clipped dialogue. The dialogue, at times, seems intentionally vague.

After the death of his absent father, Mark’s family is reduced to himself and his shattered mother; they move around each other like ghosts. Christina, with her wide eyes, cutoff shorts and forced confidence, launches a relationship with Mark. It’s as if inert Mark’s a potted plant and she’s cultivating a relationship around him.  Fond of binoculars, Christina’s new to town, supposedly staying with an uncle who’s never seen.

A second story involves lustful teen boy (Arturo Castro) trying to find a connection with his mother, who never speaks, and is seen each day methodically readying herself for a night out … somewhere, with someone.  This disconnection is a reoccurring theme in Chaney’s film. There are always circumstances separating kids from adults—disappearance, death, disillusionment, depression.

Several shots of big-city skyscrapers looming in the distance put a bigger (better?) life in sight, but out of reach.

Chaney, talented at finding emotion in mundane scenes, has an eye for detail and conveys confidence in pacing. The film evokes a strong sense of place; the director hints at personal connections. It’s hard, though, to imagine those beyond the art-house crowd investing in this short, enigmatic tone poem. Its structure is everything our attention-deficit movie-going society sidesteps. Artsy or not, Chaney’s a filmmaker to keep an eye on.

We are all Indigo children, I guess, yearning to be special and to get beyond our stations in life, but struggling to find a way to board a train that will take us there.

 

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Canine is here!

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My short story “Canine” appears in the latest issue of Insomnia & Obsession magazine. Learn more about the chilling story here, or purchase a print or digital version here.

Canine-coverThe artwork is by Chris Bently.

 

Quik Flix Hit

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Summer Movie Series

Terminator Genisys (2015)

Rated PG-13

terminator-genisys

Paramount Pictures

You know me, I’m a sucker for time-travel flicks. That fact, coupled with director James Cameron’s persuasive knack for depicting action—whether on a shoestring budget (like his original 1984 Terminator film) or a big-bucks bonanza (his standard-elevating 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day)—bowled me over twice. Cameron’s certainly the key because despite his films remaining among my favorite sci-fi actioners, I didn’t cotton to the subsequent sequels (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 2003, and Terminator Salvation, 2009) directed by others.

toonMarvinBlogThis latest effort, which basically ignores parts 3 and 4, attempts to follow-up the Cameron films. At first we’re wondering if we’re seeing the same films again, more a reboot than a direct sequel.

A future world-ravaging battle between humans and machines is in its last throes as the human resistance has finally beaten the sentient machines that launched the battle back in the ‘90s that left billions of humans dead. Leading this resistance is legendary warrior John Connor.

It’s discovered that in its final hours, the defeated machines have launched a Hail Mary operation using a “time-displacement” contraption to send one of its deadly “Terminator” cyborgs (Arnold Schwarzenegger) backward in time to kill John’s mother Sarah before she births him, thus taking out its enemy before he’s ever born. John counters this operation by sending his faithful human soldier Kyle Reese backward to protect Sarah and defeat the Terminator. This is basically the same plot as the original film. In the early-going, some scenes are shot-by-shot. In the original, Kyle not only helps save the day by sacrificing himself to destroy the robot, but in his spare time impregnates Sarah to create the franchise paradox of being the father of the leader who sent him to protect his mother. Now, stay with me. It transpires in the sequel (Terminator 2: Judgement Day) that this was all for naught because the machines send another, more advanced time-jumping Terminator (an incredible Robert Patrick) to strike at John himself, while John’s still a boy; the resistance, not to be outdone, sends a reprogrammed Terminator (Schwarzenegger again) as protector of young John.

This latest film twists itself in knots to entertain both these scenarios, trying to serve up the best of both films. To that end we get two different versions of Schwarzenegger’s T-101 Terminator; a variation on the advanced T-1000, the liquid-metal morphing Terminator from film 2; plus a hybrid of each of these machines, its identity and mission I’ll leave for you to discover. This time around Sarah is portrayed by Emilia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”). Her introduction heralds a plot deviation that final puts this film on its own course. She’s capable and tough, but Linda Hamilton’s waitress-cum-muscled machine killer remains the definitive Sarah Connor.

We’re dealing with multiple time jumps, the old standby alternate timelines and surprisingly effective pathos (if you’ve kept up with the franchise) wrung from Sarah plight of foretold doom, Reese’s plight of longing for his best friend’s mother and the T-101’s plight of protecting, learning from and loving humans. At points the film becomes more convoluted than necessary, trying too hard to lend gravity to its sci-fi confection, forgetting to have fun. But it’s closer in spirit to the franchise’s best efforts than its worst ones. Director Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) present some decent action sequences. Taylor’s movie does effectively use stock footage and cutting-edge CGI to recreate Schwarzenegger’s ‘80s terminator, while incorporating an age-appropriate Schwarzenegger into the mix. The older, broken-down version of the Terminator saves the film from the preposterous idea of a 67-year-old Schwarzenegger as an action star.

To James Cameron’s credit, it must be said that nothing in this film outdoes the stunt work and then-groundbreaking f/x of his original films, which are decades removed from this film.

If you’ve long followed this series you’ll probably enjoy this as an improvement over films 3 and 4 with its attempt to again give story and characters equal weight to the action. If you’re fed up with this whole time-travel, Schwarzenegger action shoot-em-up, there’s not much here that’ll light your fire. The film’s good enough to leave me suspecting that had Cameron directed it he might well have pulled off a cinematic hat trick.

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More Summer Movie Reviews:

Inside Out

Jurassic World

Tomorrowland

Mad Max: Fury Road

Avengers: Age of Ultron

 

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Quik Flix Hit

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Summer Movie Series

Inside Out (2015)

Rated PG

insideout

Disney/Pixar

Known for taking children’s emotions seriously, Pixar’s latest film nevertheless surprised me with its complexity and daring. It’s not that Inside Out doesn’t have the Pixar touch: it’s funny and loaded with action and superb visuals. It’s also one of the studio’s most inventive, plot-wise, rivaling Monster Inc., Ratatouille and Up in that respect. But it carries the ambitions of Pixar’s more adult-leaning efforts, The Incredibles and Wall-E. It takes an adult to see what Pixar’s attempting here, but a child to feel it.

In the BloghouseBy now you’ve seen the previews, right? You’ve been introduced to Riley, the 11-year-old girl whose emotions are personified by cutely rendered and directly named creations: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Anger (Lewis Black) and Fear (Bill Hader). These beings stand around a console in the middle of Riley’s mind and take turns guiding her through her days. In an inventive system, the team captures Riley’s emotions in glowing spheres, which are organized according to importance and shipped off, via vacuum tubes and trains, to be stored until they are reused, forgotten or discarded.

The pixie Joy has big blue eyes and a sun-like aura. Anger, in his tweed pants and loosened necktie is forever moments away from literally blowing his top. Sadness, who in many ways becomes the heart of the film, mopes about with her asymmetrical haircut and turtleneck sweater. Disgust, who the film does the least with, has fabulous lashes, perfect hair and a high-maintenance disposition. The insect-like Fear is mostly over-the-top manic, but he does get some big laughs.

Like old pros Riley’s color-coded emotions know when each is up at bat. She needs some toughness to excel on the hockey ice, here comes Anger to juice her up. She needs her spirits lifted after a bad situation, there’s Joy. About Joy: she’s clearly the leader of the pack, whose abundance of, well, joy keeps Riley buoyed along rippling currents of adolescence. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? A child leading a joyous existence? But what happens when joy isn’t suitable as a coping mechanism? Realistically, can we be happy all the time, in every situation?

Riley’s life faces a seismic shift when her family relocates to the West Coast. New home, new school, new friends. Now the animated kids’ film begins to deepen as life’s realities reshape emotions and self-value.

I can think of a half-dozen ways this movie could have taken easier routes through this material, like the tried-and-true Pixar formula of one part kid mixed with one part adult mixed with one part critic-impressing subtext. Instead it relies on honest emotions and not half measures to pull us to its conclusion.

The psychological and neurological underpinnings of the film seem seriously considered. We’re dealing with short-time memories, long-term ones stored as keepsakes, and essential core memories that are critical to Riley’s fundamental outlook on life. There are long-standing islands harboring the girl’s personality: one formed from love of family, one formed for zany diversions, still another based around her love of hockey. (It’s brutal to see those islands crumble under trauma faced by Riley.) There’s long-forgotten wastelands of defunct memories (and discarded imaginary friends) and emotions that are haunting. Not to mention visits to towns that house Riley’s abstract thinking, dreams, imagination and fears. The team manufacturing her nightly dreams as if they were film productions is particularly inspired.

The plot involves the upheaval of those core memories as Joy and Sadness are accidently launched away from headquarters and must journey home before Riley’s life implodes from the lack of Joy and the internal conflict from the remaining emotions—at the very time in her life when she needs them at their best. The film gains power as we cut back and forth between the exciting mission inside Riley’s head and the blunt emotional consequences in her real world. It’s one thing to see the emotions muck up their roles and tumble through various caverns in their child’s mind; it’s another to see young Riley slip into depression and emotional confusion and anger she can’t articulate to her parents. With Joy away from headquarters, even Riley’s love of hockey and the self-esteem it built slips away in one heartbreaking scene.

At one point during the film, my daughter began to cry and I wondered if the material was too much for her. As I watched her, I realized she was right there fraught with Riley, and ultimately, like Riley, my daughter worked her way through her emotions. Somehow the film makes visually manifest abstract ideas of how we can laugh and cry through the same experience—and how each of those emotions are essential.

It’s not the greatest animated film ever made, but Pixar could have rested on its laurels and delivered a good, fun movie with this material. Instead, in pushing to make one of its most ambitious films yet, Pixar sinks the slap shot.

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More Summer Movie Reviews:

Terminator Genisys

Jurassic World

Tomorrowland

Mad Max: Fury Road

Avengers: Age of Ultron

 

| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive

Quik Flix Hit

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Summer Movie Series

Jurassic World (2015)

Rated PG-13

jurassic-world

Universal Pictures

The head honcho of Jurassic World is told to beef up attractions for the cloned-dinosaur theme park. The same request must have been made of the creators of Jurassic World, the sequel to the Steven Spielberg-Michael Crichton 1993 box office juggernaut. So the fantastic and improbable dino-Disneyland creates exotic dinosaur hybrids to wow its been-there, done-that, got-the-T-shirt visitors and sate its money-hungry corporate investors. Likewise, we get a film, directed by a competent Colin Trevorrow, trying to make everything bigger, bolder, faster, louder. As a big summer movie thriller it does the job.

In the BloghouseThe visceral response to massive prehistoric beasts chasing and chomping on humans while tossing vehicles around like Matchbox cars is likely a rapid heart beat. And this time, the dinos attack not just by land, but air and sea.

The setup, introducing the half-dozen main players, is swift and employs snappy dialogue.

As a deluxe cruise ship delivers teen Zach (Nick Robinson) and his younger brother Gray (Ty Simpkins) to their aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), Jurassic World’s top administrator, we take in the grandeur of this island resort/park/museum/zoo/research facility in sweeping aerial shots. Improbable though it may be, the filmmakers try to ground the festivities in American pastime familiarity: cotton candy and gift shop inflatable dinosaurs; a petting zoo, where little tykes ride cute baby dinos; self-guided tours in clever, transparent spherical vehicles spinning across grassy plains; an elevated monorail circling the park; interactive hologram exhibits. Then there’s the Sea World-like aquatic show, replete with a massive dino-whale blasting out of the pool to snag a hanging snack (a Great White shark!) for the roaring audience in the splash zone.

As this is set 20 years after the original story, we miss grandfatherly and original park creator, the late John Hammond (the late Richard Attenborough), but we remember dino-DNA expert Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) who takes on a darker persona this time out.

Owen (Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy) and Barry (Omar Sy, X-Men: Days of Future Past) are introduced as diligent, big-muscled dino wranglers. Owen, in fact, has made himself the alpha male of a pack of velociraptors. We watch him engage the viscous creatures like a lion tamer: firm and confident, but respecting the animals’ predatory natures and keeping his distance with safeguards.

Two other main characters bound into the mix: park bankroller Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan, The Life of Pi), visiting his latest big-dinosaur investment, and Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio), head of the military wing of the corporation who has his own agenda for these hybrid dinosaurs. The new attraction, dubbed Indominus Rex, is teased as the mother of all dinosaurs. We get hints of him through shaking trees, deep-nose snorting and thunderous footfalls—you know the drill.

With the characters in play and the park abuzz with thousands of guests, things slide off the rails before we can get settled. In quick succession, Claire’s nephews break away from their put-upon handler (Katie McGrath) to roam the park sans adult supervision; Hoskins mounts what amounts to a corporate coup; and Indominus pulls a sweet fake-out that hastens his escape from captivity.

The rest is run-or-get-trampled, eat-or-get-eaten thrills, which the movie succeeds at wonderfully. Pterodactyls dive-bombing visitors, raptors tag-teaming against their adversaries and a Jurassic faceoff I won’t spoil. A quick visit to the crumbling site of Hammond’s original Jurassic Park (as John William’s theme leitmotif twinkles on the soundtrack) hits the right note of nostalgia.

I see no type of indemnity clause that could hedge this venture’s bet against a catastrophe of Jurassic proportions, and yet I sense that if we could build this World, people would pay thousands of dollars and travel thousands of miles to sign those waivers and dive right in.

Summer’s here!

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Quik Flix Hit

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Summer Movie Series

Tomorrowland (2015)

Rated PG

tomorrowland

Disney Pictures

Tomorrowland is the kind of movie that would have inspired me as a kid. Nearly every moment of this film’s runtime is devoted to underscoring the power and necessity of imagination and invention. That our fertile human minds can lead us not only to weapons of destruction and instruments of healing but to a more essential purpose, as thinking beings, of our capacity to shape our destiny in the best of ways. I’m proud to write that as an adult I found this movie inspiring. In this era of bloated politics, cultural indifference, incuriousness and xenophobia, I tapped into the filmmakers’ schema that a through-line of invention is always among the clutter, a path waiting to be exposed and taken. It’s as if the movie is a test of our belief in our better angels, the power of imagination. Those who cotton to that may be moved by the film’s attempts to inspire; those who don’t may dismiss this as corny.

In the BloghouseWhen we think of the imagination it took to allow man to travel beyond the planet and walk on the surface of the moon, or even imagining a day when it would be commonplace for men, women and children to board a pressurized tube of aluminum and plastic to be hurled hundreds of miles and hour, tens of thousands of feet about the ground as a form of commercialized travel, how did we get to a time and place where that kind of ingenuity is buried under the latest political wrangling or financial scandals or reality-TV obsession? We don’t invent things anymore, we stand on the shoulders of inventions we now mock, while repackage them in the latest colors, slim shapes and hipster slogans.

Imagination and those who celebrate it are often punchlines these days. And yet from our earliest imaginings we’ve created motion pictures and automobiles and computers and microwave ovens and antibiotics and x-ray machines.

Tomorrowland presupposes that most of us have grown up and away from ideas of awe and visions that stir us to move in wonderfully radical directions. We’re resigned to our fate of future days that will erase, decade upon decade, our joy of possibilities and possible better times. Who today looks ahead and envisions days of abundant resources and peaceful cultures and cooperative nations? But what of this mythical place where the imagination could be allowed to run free? The story jumps off at New York’s 1964 World’s Fair, where we meet the best, brightest, boldest thinkers and imaginers.

One such thinker, 10-year-old Frank Walker with his self-made jetpack (of course!) in tow, will attend the fair with the intention of changing the world with its possibilities. While a fair official (Hugh Laurie) sees promise in Frank but dismisses the boy as not yet ready for prime time, a curious little girl, Athena (Raffey Cassidy), thinks otherwise, seeing something urgent in Frank’s imagination. The boy is surreptitiously invited to a world beyond the world he thinks he knows. This prologue gives us a marvelous glimpse of Tomorrowland—a gleaming, Disney Kingdom-like wonderland of rockets and flying trains and inventions as small as a button pin and as large as the sky—before we’re catapulted to the present day where we meet Casey (Britt Robertson), a wise-beyond-her-20 years daughter of a NASA scientist (Tim McGraw). Casey, already a dreamer, makes a spectacular and brief visit to Tomorrowland and doesn’t hesitate to chase its possibilities. This puts her in the sights of powerful forces who’d rather not have the place discovered and will use deadly means to keep things secret.

She eventually connects with a much older, disillusioned Frank (George Clooney) who has long put his residency of Tomorrowland behind him, as well as, perhaps, the promise he once held as a boy. Clooney does wonderful work as the craggy, jilted Frank who nevertheless maintains a little-boy longing in his eyes. It’s great to see Casey’s imagination reignite his.

Casey’s plight aligns her with Frank and a still-young Athena as Casey uncovers not just the wonders of the future, but, as grownups know, its frightening uncertainties as well. The stakes—at first the exposure of Tomorrowland, then the possible end of the real world itself—felt like serious business to me. But don’t let my crowing about the film’s underpinnings make you think there’s no fun to be had. There are great action set pieces, including giant robots fighting, a time-freezing weapon, a journey into space and through a wormhole, an attack on a country house decked out with a most impressive defense system, and a fight that takes place in two time streams.

What does it say about a film that gambles its success on the hopes that the audience buys into a dream? It saddens me to see this film turn out low box office numbers and negative reviews, basically making the film’s point of humanity’s time-worn nature to run headlong into cynicism and doubt, instead of it daring to dream, to believe that better, yet-to-be-imagined days lie ahead.

No matter. I was inspired and I hope younger viewers, who are our tomorrows, will be as well. I found the last shot of the film powerful. Does that make me a sap, or hopelessly optimistic?

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Quik Flix Hit

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Summer Movie Series

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Rated R

madmax_fr

Warner Bros. Pictures

Mad Max: Fury Road is told almost entirely in terms of action. It’s an extended chase from Point A to Point B and then back. That director George Miller elevates this chase to visual, sonic and kinetic elegance proves that you can turn nearly any story into a great film if you know what you’re doing.

In the BloghouseHow many car chases have we witnessed in action films? At this point, what can be done to distinguish a good car chase from all others? I’d say distinctive style, which Miller has in spades, harkening all the way back to 1979’s Mad Max.

The character Max Rockantansky has been reimagined for a new generation. Tom Hardy is even less chatty than Mel Gibson’s iconic version, who had three films of his own. We meet this new Max as he’s eating a live lizard and repairing his supped up ’73 Ford Falcon “Interceptor,” a holdover from the original film. We know he’s lost his family because of the fleeting images that haunt him. And while he’s ostensibly the hero, the film’s about Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa (get used to names like that, the film’s loaded with them). Her haunted eyes, prosthetic left arm and branded neck tell us she’s endured things beyond belief. In a post-apocalyptic world we’ve known from the previous films, Furiosa lives in one corner, The Citadel, ruled by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) who uses women as chattel (for milk, pleasure and breeding), while hoarding a water supply from the dusty, dirty masses. He’s supported by his War Boys henchmen, also dusty and dirty but better fed and given vehicles.

Furiosa takes a stand and escapes with Joe’s five wives, two of whom are pregnant. Hiding the women within a tanker, Furiosa turns a supposed fuel run into an escape agenda to her homeland—and the chase is on. During the run she crosses paths with Max and Nux (Nicholas Hoult), one of Joe’s cancer-addled War Boys.

The rest is Miller magic. The post-apocalypse has never looked so bleak yet wonderful. Miller reminds us he’s a visionary. Masterful, whether he’s packing the frame with visual puns and throwaway imagery or dazzling with beautiful wide-angle vistas. One haunting scene shows humans lumbering on stilts across a dried-out, poisoned landscape like giraffes on a bombed-out Africa veldt. And the colors! They explode from flames and flair-gun tendrils and blowing sand and dust from cascading rocks. The chase takes us through canyons, across sinking fields, along bone-dry wastelands, past a grassy oasis and into impossible sand storms.

To say nothing of the people inhabiting this world: wiry and muscled, sun-blasted and chalked-up, mutated post-nuke hellions and soft-skinned beauties. The inhabitants are scarred with brandings and tumors and tattoos, and festooned with tribal paint, leather and furs.

Miller’s vision extends to the vehicles, which are basically characters themselves. We have motorcycles and tractor trailers, customized dune buggies and sedans and retrofitted trucks with cranes and scoops, and double-decker wagons. Machinery is fetishized with artifacts and spot welded into hybrid monstrosities, adorned with banners and long flexible poles that support swaying War Boys; even moving scaffolding support huge bass drums that set the pace, and a heavy-metal guitarist whose riffs spew dragon-fire.

Water, food and foliage may be scarce, but not gasoline. These big-wheeled vehicles boom and zoom through vast desert and salt flats with abandon, heedless of fuel or repair needs.

Forget over-the-top, this film is custom made to rev us up and beyond, around, underneath and through its chase-plot by any means necessary.

Any character development we get is through sorrowful gazes or crazed expressions or primal screams or knowing grunts; Miller’s a pro at this. Amid the chaos he knits in his themes: vengeance, solidarity and finally redemption. I remember again his skill at sketching dozens of characters—and vehicles—from corky traits, blunt visuals, and above all, action.

This movie totally succeeds in its agenda. It’s action-packed, visual astounding, simply plotted and completely contained. Every moment works.

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Quik Flix Hit

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Summer Movie Series

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Rated PG-13

avengers-team

Marvel Studios

The tyranny of Ultron, from its inception to its final battle with a reorganized Avengers team, seems to last only a few days. Hardly an age, but the title is the least of this film’s problems.

Everything seems right on paper: Booming, action-packed scenes, moments of character development, humor (always in supply in Marvel films—take note, DC!), dire global stakes, shifting alliances. But something about the whole affair seems disjointed. Maybe it’s because you can only expect so much return on this superhero investment. Most of the heroes have already had two or three movies to themselves, plus their grouping for the first Avenger’s film (2012). Maybe it’s finally too much of a good thing.

In the BloghouseBecause the first film surprised with its steady stream of humor, this time we expect to be entertained by jokes, setting up more of a challenge to be funny. Each hero gets his/her moment, but nothing that really expands these characters. We watched Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) struggle morally in the last two Iron Man films with the weapons and technology he created. We’ve seen Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, Her, Lucy) confront her shadowy past as recently as Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye is given a surprising backstory that I didn’t entirely believe. The film doesn’t seem to know what to do with Thor (Chris Helmsworth), and for the first time Captain America’s earnestness and pining for the good old days seems a bit annoying. I couldn’t bring myself to invest in the Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch subplot; the super-twins (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen) are basically more characters poured into the mix.

There were moments to enjoy, no doubt. A highway chase/fight scene woke me up, and the team lounging after a party has a warm touch that evokes the best of the original film. James Spader lends a great voice to Ultron, the nemesis borne of Stark’s well-meaning-but-misguided attempts to protect the planet, but the character itself seems a little too self-important (Yes, I get that Ultron takes on characteristics of its maker Tony Stark; it’s still too much!) and surprisingly not the best strategist. Wouldn’t a higher level of artificial intelligence spend more time on its mission and less time jumping into futile fights with superheroes? How many battles do we need of super-people and robots who can’t really hurt each other destroying architecture for miles around? And speaking of battles, was it just me or did the cinematography and CGI seem choppy, Michael Bay-ish?

A budding romance between Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Black Widow seemed awkward, forced by the screenwriters. Black Widow had more chemistry with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in Winter Soldier. The film is cluttered with characters—Nick Fury, Maria Hill, War Machine, Dr. Selvig, Dr. Cho—although I know it was meant to be cluttered with characters. The first film seemed easily digestible, funny, exciting. This time I’m struggling to care for the crisis, surprised at the forced jokes, more surprised that the big action set-pieces underwhelmed. I will give the film credit for the awesomely executed floating city, and Vision (Paul Bettany) is a sight to behold.

Marvel’s been incredible successful at bringing these heroes to the big screen, individually and as a team effort, but I’m wondering—despite the influx of new heroes (Falcon, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man)—if we’ve told all the stories (Civil War and Black Panther notwithstanding) that are interesting to tell. If you love superhero movies, come what may, See it; otherwise, Skip it.

 

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