Reel Entropy

’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

Beta decay: Rogue Cut a disappointment

Posted on August 4, 2015 by reelentropy

*Nerd Stuff — There was a very good reason to include Rogue in Days of Future Past. The sentinels of the future can seemingly take any mutant power they encounter, and we are told this is because of breakthroughs made researching Mystique’s DNA. However, this doesn’t really hold up — Mystique cannot take other mutant’s powers, only their shape. To do this, the sentinels would also need Rogue’s power-absorbing abilities. The thinking was that’s what this plot would revolve around — the sentinels have captured Rogue and somehow need her alive to continue using her powers, and the group had to get her back in order to make the sentinels beatable. That’s not what happened. Photos courtesy 20th Century Fox.

X-Men: Days of Future Past, with its cyclone of conflicts and powerful, emotional rejection of violence quickly became one of my favorite superhero movies last May, but it is far from a perfect film. There are bad pacing problems in the first act, and the audience never really gets to see the holocaust the characters are fighting to prevent. Rumors swirled immediately after the film’s release of a longer cut that would be released on home media more prominently featuring Rogue (Anna Paquin), whose role was reduced to a brief cameo. The thought among fans was that this longer cut would solve some of the movie’s problems.

Well, The Rogue Cut arrived about half a month ago, and that’s not the case at all.

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Posted in Beta Decay | Tagged #anna paquin, #colossus, #days of future past, #hugh jackman, #ian mckellan, #iceman, #james mcavoy, #jennifer lawrence, #magneto, #michael fassbender, #mystique, #nicholas hoult, #patrick stewart, #professor X, #rebecca romijn, #rogue, #shadowcat, #shawn ashmore, #the rogue cut, #wolverine, #X-Men, #x-men: days of future past -- the rogue cut, X-men: Days of Future Past | 1 Comment

Rogue Nation as good as any Mission: Impossible — not great by 2015 standards

Posted on July 30, 2015 by reelentropy

Tom Cruise, despite the Scientology, despite the public, super-weird obsession with Katie Holmes, is still the textbook definition of everything a Hollywood superstar can and should be, but frankly, that concept is starting to look as dated as the Mission: Impossible movies. Photos courtesy Paramount Pictures.

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation delivers the goods, I guess. I mean, if that’s what you call “the goods.”

The movie follows Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, who also produces), after he is disavowed FOR THE THIRD TIME by the U.S. government, which disbands the entire IMF after the events of Ghost Protocol. Despite this, Hunt continues to follow the Syndicate, a multinational crime organization he just heard about at the end of the last movie. After seeing the Syndicate leader (Sean Harris) murder a record shop girl in cold blood, Hunt follows him from Vienna to Casablanca, Morocco to London, picking up old IMF hands still loyal to him personally (Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames) along the way.

Making the trip to the fifth Mission: Impossible movie is a lot like making the fifth trip to the same amusement park. You’ve been planning this for months, you’re excited, it’s going to be so much fun — but when you get there, the rides are all the same. The stuffed animals have been switched out, but the games are the same. They even have the same host to guide you through it all.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #, #babies, #casino royale, #daniel craig, #die another day, #evolution, #jeremy renner, #mad max, #mad max: fury road, #metro goldwyn meyer, #mission: impossible, #mission: impossible -- rogue nation, #pierce brosnan, #quantom of solace, #rebecca ferguson, #simon pegg, #skyfall, #the raid 2, #the raid: redemption, #tom cruise, #ving rhames | 1 Comment

Reel Entropy

’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

Beta decay: Rogue Cut a disappointment

Rogue Nation as good as any Mission: Impossible — not great by 2015 standards

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