Reel Entropy

And then they cast him as Lex Luthor

Posted on August 20, 2015 by reelentropy

This poster has more pot in it than the entire movie. Photos courtesy Lionsgate.

American Ultra has two major problems — it’s completely tone deaf, and the lead is one of the most sloppily written characters of the year.

That lead, Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg), is a stoner living with his girlfriend, Phoebe Larson (Kristen Stewart), who works at a gas station and generally has nothing going on in his life. However, unbeknownst to him, he was trained as a sleeper agent by the CIA, and when he tries to go to Hawaii, young higher up Adrian Yates (Topher Grace) targets him for elimination. When Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton), the agent in charge of his training program, learns of this, she activates him, setting him up for a carnage-filled romp through his sleepy West Virginia town.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #adventureland, #american horror story, #american ultra, #burn after reading, #connie britton, #Dawn of Justice, #jesse eisenberg, #justice league, #kristen stewart, #lionsgate, #that 70's show, #the big lebowski, #topher grace, #twilight | Leave a comment

Straight Outta ways to tell a story

Posted on August 13, 2015 by reelentropy

Right to left: Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.), Eazy E (Jason Mitchell)… who are those other guys? Were they groupies or something? They were part of the band?! Both still alive? Wow! Wow, they’ve gotta be pissed! Photo courtesy Universal Pictures.

Biopics can go one of two ways — a ritualistic re-telling of a historic caricature or an encapsulation of the conflict and triumph in an individual’s life. Straight Outta Compton, perhaps more sadly than any other, is the former.

The movie goes through the astonishing true story of N.W.A, from its start on the streets of the Los Angeles suburb through its success and breakup until the untimely death of Eazy E (Jason Mitchell) in 1995, primarily focusing on E, Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) and Ice Cube (Ice Cube’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr.). The real life Dre and Ice Cube produce the movie.

The best biopics — Bennett Miller is king with Foxcatcher and Moneyball this decade — aren’t accurate, but zero in on the most dramatic aspects of the subject’s life and turn them into a literary masterpiece, then into a cinematic one. Straight Outta Compton does not, and that’s a sad thing, because the lives of E, Dre and Ice Cube are replete with conflict. Filmmakers lacked either the vision or the talent to capture this and make the movie what it could have been.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #biopics, #black lives matter, #corey hawkins, #darth vader, #dr dre, #eazy e, #father and son, #fuck tha police, #ice cube, #institutional racism, #jason mitchell, #keith stanfield, #lube is important, #michael brown, #no justice no peace, #no vaseline, #o'shea jackson jr, #paul giamatti, #rodney king, #snoop dogg, #story structure, #the predator, #time is a flat circle, #vaseline, Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher, Moneyball | 2 Comments

’60s adaptation aggressively, overwhelmingly funny

Posted on August 13, 2015 by reelentropy

They went through George Clooney, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum, Alexander Skarsgård, Ewan McGregor, Robert Pattinson, Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Michael Fassbender, Bradley Cooper, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Kinnaman, Russell Crowe, Chris Pine, Ryan Reynolds and Jon Hamm before settling on Cavill for the lead role. As awful as Man of Steel was, I honestly can’t imagine this movie with a different lead. Photos courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is the perfect date movie, in that I want to take this movie out on a date.

The beautiful and charming movie, based on the 1960s television series, thrusts Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill), a master thief blackmailed into service for the CIA, and Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), a KGB madman, together to stop a group of former Nazis from pulling together the material for an atomic bomb in the height of the Cold War.

If nothing else, and a movie really needs nothing else, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. boasts fantastic characters. The lead duo clash over nationalities, personalities and operating styles, but with passive aggression layered on top of the regular aggression. Many of their most heated arguments are over each other’s attire. The dynamic between these characters and the female leads, Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) and Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki) are hilarious and obnoxious to the point of being endearing.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #Alicia Vikander, #amazing spider-man 2, #ang lee, #armie hammer, #citizen kane, #Fantastic Four, #foreigners, #guy ritchie, #henry cavill, #hollywood, #Hulk, #james bond, #man of steel, #sequels, #sequilitis, #style over substance, #subtitles, #the lone ranger, #the man from uncle, #the shining, #warner bros. | 1 Comment

The Gift one of the best movies I’ve ever seen

Posted on August 12, 2015 by reelentropy

Vulnerable, trapped, isolated in her own home, shots like this one are the crux of The Gift. The movie communicates so much visually that it can focus on entirely other things in the story and not lose any tension. Photos courtesy STX Entertainment.

You can mark Aug. 7, 2015 down as a weekend the critics won the box office. Fantastic Four, initially tracking at around $45 million, went down to $40 million when the putrid reviews hit, and the wheels came off even further over the weekend for what has to be a franchise destroying total of $26.2 million. The Gift went the opposite direction. Initially looking at $6 million, the film has received critical adulation and came away from the weekend with $12 million.

Hopefully, it’ll come out of next weekend with even more, because this movie is amazing.

The Gift starts with Simon and Robyn Callen (Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall) moving into a new home in California, where Simon grew up. They soon run into Gordo Moseley (Joel Edgerton, who also writes, directs and produces), an old friend of Simon Callen’s from high school who gets their address and starts bringing them expensive gifts and showing up when Simon isn’t around and generally creeping up the joint. Social pressures mount, and when Simon eventually tells him off, Moseley’s true motives begin to come to the fore.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #arrested development, #jason bateman, #joel edgerton, #rebecca hall, #STX Entertainment, #the gift | 1 Comment

Fantastic Four one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen

Posted on August 7, 2015 by reelentropy

The most interesting character by far is Dr. Doom, who has a great personal rivalry set up with Richards and an environmentalist complex over which he tries to destroy the world. These are two of many themes Fantastic Four underplays. Photos courtesy 20th Century Fox.

Everyone was wondering why they made the Human Torch (Michael B. Jordan) black, and now we know: it was a distraction tactic, a feature as the only thing even remotely interesting about this boring, grey, sad, husk of a movie.

I’ve had less boring sessions on a treadmill. I’ve genuinely had a better time at a funeral. Insects playing on a dark summer night have drawn more emotion from me, more lasting memories were made by computer crashes. This is the kind of movie that makes me question my own existence, a movie with so little going on I may as well have been staring at a blank screen for its runtime. This movie is rebooting a franchise whose first two installments were universally reviled, looked back on with hatred — after, that is, the poor soul who somehow found a reminder of them has choked the bile down. The bar was set low enough for most movies to trip over. The standard wasn’t even at half-mast — it was folded up and tucked away for the night. Par was set at “bogey.” But this new Fantastic Four, against all probability, is even worse than its gooey predecessors.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #dr doom, #Fantastic Four, #fantastic four movie, #jamie bell, #kate mara, #michael b jordan, #miles teller, #racism, #toby kebbell | 5 Comments

Reel Entropy

And then they cast him as Lex Luthor

Straight Outta ways to tell a story

’60s adaptation aggressively, overwhelmingly funny

The Gift one of the best movies I’ve ever seen

Fantastic Four one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen

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