Reel Entropy

Deadpool is everything you ever wanted

Posted on February 13, 2016 by reelentropy

Photos courtesy 20th Century Fox.

There were so many ways Deadpool could have gone wrong, but it doesn’t. It hits the spot and hits it hard. If you know what I mean.

The plot, easily the film’s worst feature but also its least important, starts when Wade Wilson (God’s perfect asshole, Ryan Reynolds, who also produces), already a mercenary, meets and falls in love with Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin). Immediately after proposing, Wilson collapses, and a hospital visit reveals, despite his thorough self-checking regimen, he’s filled with cancer and will die soon. Wilson is offered a chance to last longer by a recruiter from the Weapon X program (Jed Reeds), which he takes. He is relentlessly tortured by Francis Freeman (Ed Skrein) and Angel Dust (Gina Carano) until his latent mutation triggers, granting him an intense healing factor that cures his cancer and makes him effectively immortal, but giving his entire body the texture of a cantaloupe. Convinced Carlysle wouldn’t take him back looking like he does, Wilson hunts down Freeman, who claims he could cure the side effects if he wanted to.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #20th Century Fox, #cancer, #cantaloupe, #david goyer, #deadpool, #ed skrein, #fifty shades of grey, #gina carano, #glory hole, #green lantern, #hi max!, #jed reeds, #leak, #morena baccarin, #paul wernick, #poop, #rhett reece, #ryan reynolds, #self-check, #test footage, #the dark knight, #the hangover, #tim miller, #wolverine, #X-Men, #x-men origins, The Avengers | 1 Comment

Coen brothers find Christ, communism in new period piece

Posted on February 8, 2016 by reelentropy

The most consistent thing the movie does to make fun of the era is in its special effects. Hail, Caesar! mixes modern cameras with ’50s era visual effects, with extensive use of rear-screen projection and Roman armor that looks clearly plastic with 21st century color correction. Like the movie itself, the look is unique, but not necessarily pleasant. Photos courtesy Universal Pictures.

Every great filmmaker eventually makes a movie about moviemaking, and that movie is always kind of weird. The Coen brothers are kind of weird anyway, so it follows that Hail, Caesar! would be a doubly weird movie.

It’s not a doubly weird movie. It’s weirder than that. The affect was multiplicative, not additive. It’s really, really weird is what I’m saying.

The movie follows a few days in the life of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) — the movie is entirely fiction, but Mannix was a real person — a fixer, a Hollywood handyman who solves industry problems before they make it to the gossip columns. He gets quite a big one when Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), a Kirk Douglas/Carlton Heston parody and star of the eponymous Hail, Caesar! A Tale of the Christ, is kidnapped from the set by an organization calling itself The Future. Mannix also arranges the rise of singing cowboy actor Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), graduating from light-hearted Westerns to a drama by esteemed director Laurence Lorentz (Ralph Fiennes) and the marriage of DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), an Esther Williams parody whose out-of-wedlock pregnancy jeopardizes her public image.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #ben hurr, #burn after reading, #busby berkely, #channing tatum, #coen brothers, #francis mcdormand, #george clooney, #hail caesar, #jonah Hill, #josh brolin, #nostalgia, #ralph fiennes, #scarlett johansson, #spartacus | Leave a comment

I’m only doing this because of the Oscar noms: Carol

Posted on February 4, 2016 by reelentropy

There’s a lot of confusion as to which of these actresses should get credit for the lead role. The Academy has gone with Blanchett. Photos courtesy the Weinstein Company.

Any time a movie’s trailer reminds me of that satire Swedish arthouse film from (500) Days of Summer, it’s a bad sign, but Carol rises above the scandalous Oscar-bate nonsense it advertises itself as and becomes the most enjoyable romance of 2015.

Based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt, the film centers around retail temp Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) and her relationship with the eponymous Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett). Aird buys a fake train from Belivet while going through a tough divorce, and they’re immediately attracted to each other. Belivet is similarly frustrated by her overaggressive boyfriend and stunted professional life, and at one point the two simply run off together to get away from it all.

Carol strikes that apparently delicate balance between artistic integrity and unintelligible arthouse-ism with directorial flair and compelling characters placed in a compelling story. It’s always teetering on the edge of becoming the overwrought bate film it was sold as, but only falls over in select spots.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #(500) days of summer, #carol, #cate blanchett, #ex machina, #lesbians, #lgbt, #oscarbate, #oscars, #oscarssoheteronormative, #oscarssowhite, #rooney mara, #sicario | 1 Comment

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies a surprising delight, mostly because of the pride and the prejudice

Posted on February 2, 2016 by reelentropy

Mr. Darcy is so fucking cool. He stalks around the movie with a katana, a period-displaced SS coat and a permanent scowl, ready to kill the mood of every room he enters. He even carries around a vile of carrion flies that he releases as zombie-detecting agents. Photos courtesy Screen Gems.

There are a lot of ways it could have been better, but Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a blast to watch.

Based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2009 parody, the film is set in 19th century England in an alternate history where the zombie plague came across the sea from the New World. It became customary to send youths to the Far East to learn martial arts, and in addition to the prejudices already abounding in this setting, martial strength has become just another tool people judge each other with. In this context, Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James) meets the newly relocated Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley), and the classic love story plays out. The fiery, willful Bennet navigates a world shaped by unwelcome advances, rumors and grudges. And zombies.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #charles dance, #dr who, #jane austin, #lily james, #matt smith, #ppz movie, #prejudice, #pride, #pride and prejudice, #pride and prejudice and zombies, #sam riley, #seth grahame-smith, #zombies | Leave a comment

Dirty Grandpa is a soul-crushing non-comedy, do not go see it

Posted on January 21, 2016 by reelentropy

Don’t start. Whatever you think you have to say, I’ve heard it. Some movies aren’t meant to be thought too hard about. Some movies, you just have to sit back and laugh. Dirty Grandpa is just 100 minutes of raunchy filth, it was never going to have any artistic merit. Just don’t start. The Wolf of Wall Street is three full hours of raunchy filth, and its artistic merit is beyond reproach. Pulp Fiction is 150 minutes of raunchy filth, and it is an unquestioned masterpiece that defines and defies its genre. So don’t tell me that Dirty Grandpa couldn’t possibly have been any good. Don’t tell me that there’s a category of movie that’s meant to be greeted with a vapid, slack-jawed stare that’s retroactively called “entertainment.” The idea that some movies are made to be analyzed and obsessed over and others are made to be enjoyed is a savage fallacy that ignores basic human nature. We don’t analyze and obsess over a movie because someone else said it was good, and we don’t enjoy a movie and watch it over and over again without noticing new things or forming new opinions on it. We analyze and obsess over certain movies because we enjoy them. These two ways of expressing love for a particular film are one and the same. Any time someone excuses a movie by saying it “wasn’t meant to be criticized” or “wasn’t meant to be thought about beyond a surface level,” what they’re really saying is that movie wasn’t meant to be enjoyed. So fuck Lionsgate and director Dan Mazer for so unapologetically applying this mentality that some movies don’t need to be enjoyable in any way because they aren’t trying to please critics to every aspect of this movie, and if you use that mentality as an excuse to financially support this sniveling afterbirth of a film, fuck you too.

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Posted in Entropy | 1 Comment

Reel Entropy

Deadpool is everything you ever wanted

Coen brothers find Christ, communism in new period piece

I’m only doing this because of the Oscar noms: Carol

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies a surprising delight, mostly because of the pride and the prejudice

Dirty Grandpa is a soul-crushing non-comedy, do not go see it

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