Up first:
Very Good Girls, starring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen.
John Brown at Universal Studios Cinema (Credit: Marvin Brown)
Universal Studios Cinemas
Next: Day2: Bloodcast
Campus MovieFest 2014
Universal Studios
Day 1: Setting Up
The CMF bills itself as the “world’s largest student film and music festival.” In its 13th year of doing what it does best, the event brought together college and university students from around the globe to screen their films, workshop and network with each other, and walk the Red Carpet for the culminating awards ceremony.
The affable cofounder and Vice President ViJay Makar and his skillful team undertook what must have been (but didn’t feel like) a daunting task of corralling hundred of students and managing dozens of workshop hosts, celebrity presenters and an untold number of film screening.
How this thing works: Students at participating colleges and universities are supplied with Apple laptops, Panasonic HD camcorders, and training–all for free. The students are given one week to create their own short movies, with each school hosting red carpet finales to showcase its top movies. The movies must be five minutes or less, and use music created by the students themselves or contributed by independent artists.
This thing can only get bigger by the year.
Campus MovieFest 2014
Universal Studios
Day 1
The palm trees, Universal Studios, an explosion of billboards and lights promoting coming attractions. Smells like movies out here. The 2014 CMF gets under way.
Next: Setting up
Off to the Campus MovieFest in Los Angeles.
Summer Movie Series
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Rated PG-13
Warner Bros./Village Roadshow
I have a thing for time-travel movies. When protagonists scramble backward or forward in time attempting to correct wrongs or save the day or recapture love, for me, it hits a sweet spot. Based upon the trailers, I went into Edge of Tomorrow eager to see how the time-jumping theme would be put to use. It didn’t disappoint.
Given that the film takes place in the near future and that the time-traveling mechanism is actually created by aliens and not built by humans provides a fresh approach. Based on a Japanese light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, Edge is Groundhog Day (1993) crossed with Source Code (2011).
We follow Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), a brash public relations officer in the military, who’s also cowardly on the actually soldiering side of things. Through a bit of plot contrivance, Cage is forced into frontline combat against a seemingly unbeatable alien force.
Cruise imbues his character with enough forced confidence, which crumbles in the face of real danger, that I connected with his terror as he is literally shoved into a heavy, weaponized bodysuit and airdropped onto a field of battle no less horrific than Normandy on D-Day.
The aliens, Mimics, are fiercely conceived as octopus-like monsters that burrow through the earth like caffeinated groundhogs, then emerge to tear through adversaries with multiple buzz-saw appendages.
Cage’s mission goes horribly wrong for every soldier involved, but not before he takes sight of legendary soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt).
Instead of waking up in the afterlife, Cage is reborn into the same day and at the same spot where his mission began. Yes, the same commanding officer (Bill Paxton) will berate him, the same elite squad will mock his recruitment into its ranks, the same doomed mission plans will be laid out. After things go badly again, and he’s reborn again, he and we get the drift of things. After a few rounds of being horrified by his circumstances, Cage begins to use the knowledge at hand not only to mold himself into a better soldier, but to get to know his enemy and to construct something of a survivable battle plan.
Director Doug Liman (The Borne Identity, Go) has fun with Cage’s learning curve, finding creative ways to repeatedly kill our hero. I won’t spoil how or why Cage faces this dilemma, but it holds the key to possibly winning the war.
Cage eventually connects with Rita, who knows more than expected about his plight. She’s a hardened soldier—not completely convincingly played by Blunt; Michelle Rodriguez would have been typecasting but also perfect—who’s all about the mission.
The plot isn’t as complex as it could have been, which will ease confusion for those who struggle with gimmicky scenarios like time travel. I think Edge starts strong, builds up quite a bit of steam with its “live, die, repeat” format, but ultimately runs its course before its endgame arrives. But I’m still a softie for time-travel movies.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Summer Movie Series
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
Rated PG-13
Marvel Enterprises
Let’s see. When last we left off, Uncle Ben was murdered, as was Gwen Stacy’s police captain dad. The Lizard was behind bars. Gwen and Peter Parker’s relationship was broken but there was a spark of hope. And poor Peter was no closer to understanding why his parents abandoned him.
This sequel to the 2012 reboot answers the questions about Peter’s parents and adds several other wrinkles to his life, not including the on-again-off-again thing he has going with Gwen.
Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone return and bring their chemistry with them, and the visuals are up to snuff, but I feel like the good will and characters built in Part One are wasted in this follow-up. This isn’t a bad movie, mind you, but I don’t know why they keep overstuffing these things with bad guys and plot—that misfortune befell 2007’s Spider-Man 3.
Peter and Gwen’s relationship, his mom and dad’s disappearance and the birth of supervillian Electro (Jamie Foxx) would have been enough story. But we also get the Harry Osborn/Green Goblin subplot (which really should be main-plot material), inconsequential villain Rhino and Sally Field’s Aunt May jockeying for position.
Nerdy, introverted scientist Max Dillon becomes Electro after getting zapped by genetically enhanced electric eels. For some reason he blames Spider-Man, despite the fact that Spidey is basically the only person who has shown him kindness. With his ability to harness electricity he fearsomely commands the city’s attention, even though his costume and uneven makeup leave something to be desired.
Meanwhile, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan, Chronicles) returns to the city to find his billionaire father Norman (Chris Cooper) dying from a hereditary illness, an affliction Harry discovers he shares. He reconnects with old friend Peter in a well-written and -acted scene that underscores this plotline deserved more time.
Meanwhile, Gwen tires of Peter’s inability to commit, which is largely due to the danger he represents to her as a superhero and the promise he made to her dying father to stay away from her—again to keep her way from danger. Two good reasons in my book.
The plot lines converge in a final showdown I won’t spoil, but comics fans have seen coming since the first movie.
The first film, with its charismatic leads and reworked origin story, convinced me that I could do with another Spider-Man series; this one caused me to wonder if it might be time to give Spidey a break.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Summer Movie Series
Godzilla (2014)
Rated PG-13
Warner Bros.
Godzilla takes his time showing up in his new movie. At first I’m thinking great, less is more. After awhile, I’m really getting eager to see the big guy. Finally, I’m wondering if Godzilla’s going to make a cameo in his own movie. He does eventual make his entrance. It’s a good one, the mighty creature rising up out of the ocean, water cascading off his mountainous frame like waterfalls, towering over birds and helicopters, blotting out the sun, opening his mouth to stop the show with his roar. Humans and giant monsters alike pause to take notice.
The whole movie is like that: setup, delayed gratification, big scene. Repeat.
There’s a prologue 15 years ago that mainly functions to give the protagonists a tragic backstory. In present day, a scientist played by Bryan Cranston has basically gone insane after his years of dire global warnings go unheeded. His estranged son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Avengers: Age of Ultron) reluctantly arrives to talk some sense to his dad. Before long the son discovers, lo and behold, the old man’s not bonkers. Thus Ford is pulled into his dad’s mission while trying to get home to wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen, Oldboy, Very Good Girls) and his own son. Olsen’s wasted in this, while Cranston brings gravitas this movie doesn’t need. Japanese legend Ken Watanabe is also wasted as a scientist whose function I still haven’t figured out.
When technology goes awry—Cranston told us so!—it produces a giant insect parasite that tears across the globe, eagerly off on some unknown mission. Once military intervention fails, it’s up to our scaly hero to save the day. With his awesome tail and fire breath, Godzilla’s formidable in battle, even when being double-teamed by giant monsters.
There’s lots of destruction of large-scale architecture, but nothing we haven’t already seen in big-budget action flicks. Honestly, I had more fun watching Pacific Rim (2013), itself a tribute to classic Japanese Kaiju films like Godzilla.
Make no mistake, this Godzilla is leaps and bounds ahead of the 1998 American reboot. My issues with the film resides in the screenplay, not in its execution. Director Gareth Edwards has a knack for amazing images and the execution of a scene. When this film’s on, it’s on. A scene of an elite military team parachuting into the monster warzone borders on iconic. The men jump from a plane then seem to fall endlessly with red flares streaming from their boots, through cloud holes, into dark sky, into glowing thunderclouds, back into dark sky, and downward. It’s a beautiful sight, visual poetry. Another scene of beautiful destruction involves a burning train roaring through the night and off a destroyed bridge. There’s a memorable visual of soldiers moving through lush jungle, and of a suspension bridge swaying and crumbling as it holds busloads of people.
Can I also note that actor Sally Hawkins, who plays a scientist, has absolutely nothing to do in this movie? Why even include this character?
If you’re a Godzilla fan, or into big-budget summer action—albeit doled out at deliberate junctures—check this out, otherwise: Skip it.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Summer Movie Series
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Rated PG-13
Marvel Studio
For me Captain America stands in contrast to the other superfolks in the Marvel film universe. For sure, Marvel’s cash cow franchise has enough to brag about. I enjoyed much of the Iron Man series and the impressive culminating effort, The Avengers (2012). The franchise has its clunkers too: Hulk (2003) and the Thor films, for my money. The Captain America movies have neither the brilliant, hedonistic, wink-wink hubris of the Iron Man series, nor the over-the-top demigod, Viking-esque, parallel universe hodge-podge structure of the Thor films. This is probably why Captain America stands out from the pack.
Starting with 2011’s first film, I liked the throwback setting (World War II), the simple plot (defeat the Nazis), the quick origin-story setup and the delicate love story. Before things got intertwined with all the other superhero motives and movies, there’s earnest Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) trying to set the world right, one patriotic punch, one patriotic speech at a time.
It’s a testament to Evans’ performance and the writers that we continue to admire Steve Rogers/Captain America’s earnestness instead of mocking it.
In Winter Soldier, I liked the instant chemistry between Cap and fellow veteran Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) aka The Falcon. I also like the chaste chemistry between Cap and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). Even when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and all the Hydra-S.H.E.I.L.D.-Avenger’s stuff starts weighing down the plot, the film finds nice touches of do-or-die matter-of-factness that lightens things up again.
The Winter Soldier himself is intriguing and coolly brutal, sprung from the Bucky Barnes character from the first film (is that a spoiler?), but I think more investment of that character in Part One would have really paid off in the pathos they attempt to wring out of this film. I didn’t remember enough of Bucky to make his sad, brain-scrambled existence very impactful this go-round.
Here’s hoping that as Marvel gears up its next round of superhero films—independent and team efforts—it keeps Cap simple and refreshing.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Summer Movie Series
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Rated PG-13
Twentieth Century Fox/Marvel Entertainment
So here we are, another X-Men movie. This one’s a linking film between 2011’s look-they’re-all-young-now prequel, X-Men: First Class, and series proper, where they are old dudes and dudettes. Elements of this film were established in 2013’s standalone feature, The Wolverine.
It’s not as confusing as it seems—if you even bother to try and sort through it all. It’s enough to know that some time in the future, the human and mutant races are under siege and nearing extinction. Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen) and the few remaining good/bad mutants are in a last-stand battle to stave off lab-created supermutants. These genetic robotic-mutant monstrosities can adapt to any of its foes’ varied mutant powers, making the supermutants all but invincible.
Once all seems lost, a Hail Mary time-traveling gimmick is employed that allows Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to be mentally catapulted 50 years back in time to his younger body. Hot-headed Wolverine isn’t the best representative to send on this mission to destroy the enemy before it’s even created, but his near-indestructible Adamantium frame and mental constitution make him the only one capable of making the journey. Not only must he stop an as-yet-created enemy, he must convince now-younger Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to assist him. That second part may be harder than the first since the two mutant leaders are respectively suicidally depressed and incarcerated in a super-prison—and hate each other to boot. (See the previous film if you don’t understand how this came to be.)
Stopping the supermutants—created through a nefarious Vietnam-era government program—involves stopping rogue mutant Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). The last movie saw her blue-hued, shape-shifting mutant making romantic gestures with both Professor X and Magnetic. Her now-bitter character’s actions put her on a collision course with mad scientist Dr. Trask (a great Peter Dinklage), which will ultimately create the bleak future. All of this occurs at a brisk pace, is action packed and—thankfully—humorous.
Fassbender, McAvoy and Lawrence bring needed dimension to the proceedings, and Jackman’s always engaging, particularly in the ’70s setting. Despite occasionally cutting back to the future, the original X-Men crew, including Storm (Halle Berry) and Kitty Pride (Ellen Page) get limited screen time.
How many more of these films can they make? I like them and the creators still find space to employ the mutant/societal outcast trope effectively, but I think the series is running out of road.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Bloghouse- Ohioana Book Festival| OHIOANA BOOK FESTIVAL Marvin Brown will be at the Ohio HWA booth during the festival. What: Ohioana Book Festival When: April 20, 2024 Where: Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. …
- Book FairCOLUMBUS BOOK FESTIVAL Marvin Brown will be appearing at the event. What: Columbus Book Festival When: July 15-16, 2023 Where: Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant Ave./Topiary Park, 480 E. …
- Interview with Ginger GentileTAKING ON IVY LEAGUE: INTERVIEW WITH ‘EXCLUSION U’ DIRECTOR GINGER GENTILE Activist director sets sights on elite universities Spin the wheel and land on a current hot-button topic …
- Ohioana Book Festival
