Stop what you’re doing and go see ‘Wind River’

Posted on August 14, 2017 by reelentropy

Images courtesy The Weinstein Company.

9/10 Wind River is an intense, smoldering thriller that manages to be as harsh as the endless Wyoming winter and delightfully easy to watch all at the same time.

On the Wind River Indian Reservation where bodies freeze solid and evidence can be eaten by wolves or buried in snow overnight, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) discovers the body of Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Chow) beaten, raped and left to die in the cold. He alerts local police chief Ben (Graham Greene), who calls in woefully unprepared FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen). They search for Hanson’s attacker, with Banner enlisting Lambert for his tracking abilities and knowledge of the area. For Lambert, who lost his teenage daughter under similar circumstances three years prior, the case is personal.

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Fresh director can’t elevate bland horror prequel

Posted on August 11, 2017 by reelentropy

Annabelle: Creation is the prequel to the spinoff of the ripoff of the most famous movie riding Paranormal Activity’s coattails. That’s where we are right now. Images courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.

3/10 The eminent horror production studio has started to inject real talent into its movies, but it’s clearly not always going to be enough.

In Annabelle: Creation, a group of orphans moves into the spacious, rural house of the mysterious Mullins couple, Samuel (Anthony LaPaglia), who cares for the grounds, and Esther (Miranda Otto), who is bound to her bed and covered in a creepy Phantom of the Opera mask. The group soon learns that the house is haunted by their daughter, Annabelle (Samara Lee), who died 12 years earlier after jumping in front of a speeding car like an idiot and whose malevolent spirit bound itself to the series’ iconic creepy doll.

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‘Dark Tower’ is a collection of garbage boxed and sold as a movie

Posted on August 4, 2017 by reelentropy

Now kiss! Images courtesy Columbia Pictures.

2/10 Woe unto you, Dark Tower. You did not deserve this.

The Dark Tower stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey as the gunslinger and the man in black, respectively. The monikers were used in marketing to disguise that they bear the two silliest first names in English, Roland and Walter. The movie is named after a gigantic black tower that we never get to visit, which protects all worlds from darkness — and yes, that is as detailed an explanation as you get.

Walter is an omnipotent immortal wizard who wants to destroy the tower. He does this by bombarding it with the brains of psychic children. Roland is the last of a line of warriors sworn to protect the tower, but became disillusioned long ago when Walter murdered his entire family. They are brought together by Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), the most powerful psychic child in all the world. Walter wants to kidnap him and bombard the tower with his brain, like he does, but Roland decides to protect him.

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New wave of steadycam action continues with ‘Atomic Blonde’

Posted on July 28, 2017 by reelentropy

Harsh contrast, clear composition, striking image. Images courtesy Focus Features.

8/10 Atomic Blonde is an intentionally confusing, icy cool synthpop-noir with some fun gender reversals that turns what was a unique action franchise into a growing movement in the genre.

In November 1989, Berlin is aflame with civil unrest as communism collapses and the wall is about to come down. British intelligence agent James Gasciogne (Sam Hargrave) is killed while in possession of a list of all double-agents in the city, and Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron, who also produces) is assigned to retrieve it. Broughton is sent into a nest of scorpions where nothing is as it should be, a powder keg of agents gone native, botched defections and general buffoonery.

Based on a 2012 graphic novel called The Coldest City, Atomic Blonde screams of source material more interesting than the final product, but its harsh style and a great cast carry it through.

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‘Valerian’ is great, except for the ridiculous sexism

Posted on July 25, 2017 by reelentropy

Alpha. Images courtesy STX Entertainment.

7/10 There’s two things I wanted from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets — immerse me in a fun, visually dazzling adventure full of strange creatures and impossible physics, and don’t be shockingly sexist. One out of two is not good enough.

In the 28th century, Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are federal officers on Alpha, the city of a thousand planets. After recovering the last surviving member of a species that can replicate any material it consumes, they become caught up in a mystery involving a missing planet, a pearl that could power 10 spaceships and a mysterious, growing dead zone inside the city.

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