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Get Out (2017)

Rated R

Blumhouse Productions

Get Out has the suspense, creepiness, violence and jumps scares one would want from a good horror film. Written and directed by Jordan Peele (half of the “Key & Peele” sketch comedy duo), the film’s also insidious with its coiling use of racial themes to enhance its effect.

A chilling opening sequence evokes the Trayvon Martin tragedy as we watch a young black man walking lost in the suburbs at nightfall. Peele immediately establishes a knack for tone and subtext. A character walking alone in the dark is a horror film trope, but certainly the specificity of a lone black man in a white neighborhood adds another dimension of dread to the scene. Notice, in quick, quiet cellphone dialogue, that the man knows how he looks and where he’s at invites danger.

Next, we’re introduced to engaging interracial couple Chris and Rose (Daniel Kaluuya, “Black Mirror,” and Allison Williams, “Girls”) preparing for a weekend trip to Rose’s parent’s palatial estate deep in the exurbs. Rose seems nonplused that her mom and dad are unaware Chris is black; Chris is obviously more concerned about the oversight. Peele plays with racial notions of Rose’s privilege vs. Chris’ realistic concerns here, and in a later scene on the road when they are visited by a police officer. Rose doesn’t hesitate to cut into the officer for what she perceives is racist treatment of Chris, while Chris simply wants to deescalate a situation he’s likely experienced on more than an occasion. The opening sequence, police encounter and an accident en route cleverly set the viewer on edge even before the anticipated visit with the parents.

Said parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) are welcoming in their liberal righteousness. Rose’s father, a successful neurosurgeon, declares he’d vote for Barack Obama for a third term if he could. Her hypnotherapist mother says all the right things but they land with a disingenuousness not lost on Chris. And what to make of Rose’s brother (Caleb Landry Jones, Antiviral), a disheveled rich kid quaking uneasily, speaking inappropriately, like he’s always on the verge of blurting out spoilers?

Back home, Chris’ best friend Rod (LilRel Howery), a TSA officer, is a Greek chorus of sorts, humorously braying about Chris’ naivety of race relations. But Chris—and the audience—isn’t naïve, simply hopeful for the best while laughing at Rod’s over-the-top rantings. You see, Rod says all the things black movie-goers say about white horror movies. He can smell a setup a mile away. Peele, working so effectively as a director of horror, here reminds us he made his bones in comedy.

Over the course of the weekend, Peele quietly but assuredly reels the viewer into a delicious web of paranoia. Suddenly, there’s an annual gathering of friends and family. The winding driveway his lined with black, expensive SUVs, the expansive lawn is a sea of gawking white faces. Chris’ and our time in exurbia grows curiouser and curiouser. His solo trips around the huge house and vast grounds bring unease. The way he’s regarded and how he reacts as the lone black man amongst throngs of old-money white people is a master’s class on how black folks navigate—sometimes moment to moment—competing worlds of racial divide. Chris’ intriguing hypnosis session with Rose’s mom—fantastically visualized as Chris floating in the cosmos with the real world hovering on a big screen TV just out of reach—sets the plot on a course not fully understood until the finale.

Most interesting is the portrayal of the other black faces Chris meets at the house. Every time he talks with or bumps into Stepford-like persons of color, Peele intrigues with the interactions—are they friends or foes, captives or themselves commanding some scheme? In this cauldron of supposed post-racial ennui, we nervously and giddily wait for the shoe to drop. Does Peele’s mixed-race heritage inform the proceedings? Perhaps. The film, in my view, knowingly winks at both sides of the racial coin. What an assured directorial debut!

If there’s a wobbly spot in an otherwise outstanding film, it’s a half-realized backstory concerning the death of Chris’ mother. The moment seems to exist mostly to justify an unlikely act of kindness late in the movie.

In the finale, with the curtains pulled back, the film burst with absurd conflict and straight-up horror and humor. The dangers are far afield from where we would have imagined, and yet with clever insight Peele suggests cultural appropriation is always hiding in plain sight.

This is the second “black” film in a row I’ve seen that, while presenting pointed issues on race, nevertheless with topical, effective storytelling and capable acting and directing taps into American commonality and manages to connect more broadly. Like Hidden Figures, this film seems to have admirers across the board.

 

 

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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

 

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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

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Rated PG-13

guardians_of_the_galaxy

Marvel Studios

This summer superhero action flick is going to be a hit because its emphasis is on humor and music—two elements that enhance any film when done well. We get to see things blown up real good, but mostly we like the songs and the banter and brawling between the Guardians. Marvel smartly gambled that audiences needing a respite from the onslaught of first-string superheroes might give this a try.

In the BloghouseThe Guardians is a ragtag team of, you guessed it, outlaws forced to combine its talents and snarky comments to take on a force bent on the destruction of, you guessed it, the galaxy. The enemies, the instruments of destruction, the far-flung interstellar locales, the double-crosses all fall within the scope of this kind of movie. But when Star-Lord pops a worn cassette tape into his Walkman and starts jamming out to earthbound hits circa 1970s, you smile at the absurdity and go along with it. Why not? Sure, we’re light years from earth and decades ahead of modern times, but why should that hinder our love for The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”?

Each of the five Guardians left an impression on me, but for my money I liked Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically altered raccoon who’s sadly aware of his manufactured nature and really into heavy weapons. That he doesn’t look ridiculous piloting starships or blasting away with guns at least as large as himself is a testament to the f/x team. I also like human Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), aka Star-Lord, who’s handsome, skillful, arrogant—the qualities always evident in superheroes—but more importantly good-hearted and repeatedly willing to make bold sacrifices for others. The kids will like Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a treelike being whose mode of communicating consists entirely of the phrase “I am Groot!”

There’s a sad-sweet prologue of young Peter confronting his dying mother that’s well executed but gains depth when we return to the moment late in the film and truly recognize its value. I also like how the movie established pretty quickly that each of the Guardians for the most part like and accept each other. It’s a time saver. We know they’re going to make good teammates, they know they make good teammates so why waste time pretending like they’re not?

Guardians of the Galaxy goes down easy and certainly leaves space for a sequel—that’s the Marvel way. I suspect it’ll do even more business on video when those who didn’t think they had a taste for it finally see it at home and realize how much fun it is. And the music? Come on! “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” “Ooh Child.” “Cherry Bomb.” “Come and Get Your Love.” And its use of “Hooked on a Feeling” steals away that song’s long association with Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

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Quik Flix Hit

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Summer Movie Series

Lucy (2014)

Rated R

lucy18-1

Canal+

Director Luc Besson (The Professional, La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element) has been off his game for some time now. Lucy is a step back to form, but he doesn’t quite get there. The film wants to have more depth than its screenplay allows. In addition to being an action film, a fight film, a philosophical and literal take on the evolution of man, quantum ideas of consciousness, the film wants to explore the end of human existence and what may lie beyond it. Right. But mostly it’s an action film.

In the BloghouseLucy (Scarlett Johansson, Her) is an American studying in Taiwan who hooks up with Mr. Wrong, who inadvertently pulls her into a synthetic drug ring. Forced to be a mule for an improbable narcotic that will either kill you deader than dead, or jumpstart your brain function beyond its known capabilities, Lucy—through a ruptured implant—gets the latter.

At first we know the drill: we’ve seen Johansson as the Black Widow in three Marvel movies now. She can dispatch roomfuls of armed men using martial arts and various weaponry. But once the drug improves her brain function exponentially, who needs weapons when you can control matter … then read minds … then sense emotion in its purest form … then visualize human souls … then affect space and time itself?

Morgan Freeman’s on hand as a renowned scientist whose theories on the mysteries and depths of the human mind are validated by Lucy’s existence. She seeks him out after reading his life’s work in mere minutes. Meanwhile, the leader of the drug ring Min-sik Choi (Oldboy, 2003) wants his product back—by any means necessary. There’s something to be said about a man who continues to pursuit a woman who has stopped bullets midflight and can reverse time itself. He’s pretty cocksure.

All of this can be fun, and if you’ve come to this for the action and fight scenes alone, you’ll get your fill. But in trying to be more than an action film, while not really taking its philosophical components full weight, the movie feels disjointed.

It’s Besson’s incredible La Femme Nikita crossed with 2011’s Limitless (which itself bites off more than it can chew) but isn’t as good as either of those films.

This film might have erred by casting Johansson, who certainly has acting chops and action-film bonafides. Unfortunately, because she brings the expectations of a hide-kicking, name-taking superhero, we’re denied what should have been a jolt from seeing a vulnerable stranger in a strange land transformed into an awesome instrument of destruction and resurrection.

If Besson is trying to speak something to the nature of evolution and violence in society, it gets lost in the clutter.

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Summer Movie Series

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Rated PG-13

edge-of-tomorrow

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.

In the BloghouseGiven 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.

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Sundance 2011—The Return (7)

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Sundance Film Festival 2011*

Park City, Utah

 

Win Win (2011)

Rated R

Reviewed by John Brown

 

Win Win, directed by Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor) and starring Paul Giamatti (Sideways, American Splendor), was definitely the first movie I saw at Sundance that I think families will enjoy–aside from a little language. Giamatti plays Mike Flaherty, a small-town lawyer who, struggling to get by financially, turns to desperate measures by lying to the court about one of his clients in order to make extra money. While things seem to be going as planned, a kid

Marvin Brown and Win Win director Tom McCarthy (Credit: John Brown)

Marvin Brown and director Tom McCarthy at the screening of McCarthy’s film Win Win (Credit: John Brown)

related to his client shows up and just happens to be a great wrestler. As Mike tries to use the kid, Kyle  (newcomer Alex Shaffer), to turn around the losing high school wrestling team Mike coaches, the lies continue and the laughs begin.

The storyline is lighthearted and funny, which makes you feel for Mike and his situation while laughing at him and his friends as incompetent coaches. Shaffer was actually found through a casting call and is actually a successful high school wrestler, which makes the storyline more believable and his acting just seems like he is being himself as a teenager.

The movie reminds me of the feeling I had watching Little Miss Sunshine (2006) as I laughed and felt sorrow throughout, but much more laughter and in the end walked out with a very happy feeling from a feel-good story. On the Marvin Brown scale: See it.

*Note: Since marvincbrown.com had not been created at the time of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, I decided to go back and repost these reviews and festival  items, which were catalogued elsewhere—mainly because I needed to get these reviews into my archives, but also because it was an enjoyable experience I’d like to share.

Quik Flix Hit

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Her (2013)

Rated R

her

Annapurna Pictures

Her takes place in a not-distant future where much of the populace of a major city travels around talking to its unseen smart-devices. Replace this image with one in any major city today: people walking around texting or otherwise engaged with their smartphones. It’s not a big leap from our world to this future world.

brown-blogartIn this future, a soon-to-be-divorced Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) traverses a beautiful metropolitan landscape—by train, on foot—with an obvious sadness. He seems like a nice enough fellow. He is employed as a writer of “handwritten” letters for all occasions. Think Hallmark with a more personalize touch. His skill at his job suggests a hidden depth of understanding of love and loneliness. Theodore has a small circle of loyal friends, including a former college hook-up (Amy Adams, Man of Steel), who is in her own failing relationship.

The stage is set for a love story, but keep in mind Her is directed by Spike Jonze. If you’re familiar with his work—the mad genius responsible for Being John Malkovich (1999), Where the Wild Things Are (2009) and Adaptation (2002)—you know you’re in for some genre-twisting, head-scratching material that often functions on multiple levels of insight and comedy.

In no time, Theodore falls for Samantha. She gets his humor, is moved by his writing, is supportive of his wounded love life. Now, if you’ve seen the movie trailer or heard anything about the film, you know that Samantha is in fact Theodore’s newly purchased operating system. This upgraded form of artificial intelligence is like Siri squared. Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson, Lucy) tells Theodore she’s capable of learning from her interaction with him and can gain experiences beyond her programming. Indeed. She quickly impresses by getting him up and out of his apartment, prioritizing his emails, suggesting a birthday gift for his niece and such. She laughs at his jokes, but then begins to make up her own. Next, she’s encouraging him to go out on a date, and apologizing for overstepping with personal opinions.

At first Theo regards her with the amazement we regard a fantastic new piece of technology, but then a funny thing happens. Besides being an uber-organizer, gaming buddy, message taker and good listener, she begins to intrigue Theodore with her questions (What was his marriage like?), with her opinions (The human body isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.), with her pointed efforts to absorb experiences. She even develops a naughty side and is not above swearing or getting angry.

Indeed, it’s Samantha’s quest to know things, to question things, to be touched by a piece of music, or even hurt by a callus remark, that moves a lonely Theodore to see Samantha as something more than an operating system. One amazing scene shows her leading him along a busy boardwalk (she watching and directing him through the camera lens of his smart-device) sharing his experience of being alive, playful, surrounded by people.

It’s incredible how many male-female dating/mating/fighting scenarios Jonze is able to come up with—despite the fact the “female” in this coupling is in a 5-inch device in Theo’s pocket. There’s jealousy on both sides and intriguing efforts by Samantha to find ways to become emotionally (then sexually) closer to Theodore.

There are shocking components to this story, not the least of which is that most friends and coworkers hardly bat an eye when Theodore begins calling Samantha his girlfriend. You see, thousands of others have also taken to bonding with their operating systems. Of course society’s gripped by this latest, greatest technology.

Even as the film grows disturbing, it grows familiar in its look at how invested we are in our smart-devices. Ask yourself how hard it would be to go without your smartphone or laptop or tablet for a day … a week? How much harder if the OS sings along with you while you strum a guitar, quickly sketches a naughty picture based on your off-color joke, charms your friends and family, or likes to watch you sleep at night?

There’s been one romance film after another that presents great obstacles for our lovers to face—time and space, age and gender, racial and death. But this movie’s ambition strikes out at the very idea that matters of love and connectedness begin and end with physical bodies. Her posits that love at its purest might be found in the now, however fleeting or abstract it may be.

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Pulp Fiction

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Pulp Fiction. Same as it ever was.

Quik Flix Hit

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After Earth (2013)

Rated PG-13

This film publicity image released by Sony - Columbia Pictures shows Jaden Smith in a scene from "After Earth." (AP Photo/Sony, Columbia Pictures) ORG XMIT: NYET842

Sony – Columbia Pictures

Yes, it’s a project of hubris (Will Smith turned down Django Unchained for this?), and yes, director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, The Happening, The Last Airbender) is in a rut. Even so, After Earth isn’t all that bad. I wouldn’t measure it against the current crop of summer movies, but it’s one of those watchable flicks you stumble into while flipping through one of your hundreds of cable TV channels.

BloghouseIn the distant future, man has long ago departed earth for more hospitable climes. Nova Prime is our new home and Smith’s Cypher Raige is the leader of our peacekeeping Rangers. Rangers take on the S’krell, alien beings bent on our destruction. The S’krells hope to vanquish us with their vicious Ursa creatures which, though blind, can hunt by sensing fear. Cypher discovers how to defeat the Ursas by “ghosting,” which is a method of controlling one’s fears, thus becoming invisible to the creatures. He is legend. Now if only he could connect with his distant son Kitai (Jaden Smith), who strives to prove himself to himself and his doubting father.

Father and son each carry the burden of guilt over the loss of daughter/sister Senshi, who died defending young Kitai from an Ursa. So with the pieces in place, father and son are goaded by wife/mom Faia into using a Ranger training exercise as a bonding getaway. Things get bad when their spacecraft encounters an asteroid shower, worse when it crashes on quarantined earth, worse still when the captured Ursa brought along for training purposes escapes the wreaked vessel.

With the ship’s distress beacon flung miles from the scattered ship, and Cypher critically injured, it’s up to Kitai to traverse the hostile environment, with the Ursa on his tail, to retrieve the beacon. Can the son overcome his fears? Prove himself to dad? Avenge his sister?

Will Smith’s role in this is limited. This is a showpiece for his son. Jaden is serviceable, though he lacks his dad’s effortless charm and needs a few more laps around the acting track. To be fair, he’s younger than his dad was when Will got his start, and Jaden carries the burdens as well as benefits of nepotism. But he doesn’t embarrass himself and involved me in his plight. It’s a decent time-waster, but you can waste that time once it comes to TV.

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