STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
Ugh, what a joyless slog. Benedict Cumberbatch plays a military genius
who doesn’t know that complex plans almost always fail. Chris Pine plays a Skipper who really needs
to get Division Officer and Department Head jobs under his belt so he can learn
(a) how a ship actually runs, and (b) how to lead a vessel that’s part of a
larger organization. Zachary Quinto does
a fine Spock and the rest of the actors do what they can with what they’re given,
but they aren’t given much.
Lost, this time around, is the joy of Star Trek. The real shame, however, is that the film
doesn’t trade that joy for proper, meaty darkness, but for a by-the-numbers
“things get really bad, and then – fistfight!” actioner.
This puts me in a strange place as a fan. I was all set to hate the first film of the
rebooted series, but wound up loving it.
I was all set to love the second, but wound up hating it. Will NuTrek truly subvert Trek canon and make
the odd-numbered movies the good ones?
ZERO DARK THIRTY
Solid spy picture built on, y’know, actual
spying. We all know the ending, yet this
film imbued it with real tension. Worth
the rental.
DREDD
Well, I’ve seen two Karl Urban movies over the last
few months. I’m glad one of them was
good. Dredd was way more fun than I expected. Urban does great work acting through, vice
around, the mask. Olivia Thirlby sells
her role as the rookie, and cable favorites Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) and Wood Harris (The Wire) create outstanding villains. The movie rocks right along, and it shows
that “grimngritty” doesn’t have to be dull.
Dredd deserved to
be a hit.
END OF WATCH
(Mild spoilers. If you’re
spoilerphobic, just take my word for it and see this film.)
End of Watch
is a great movie. A buddy cop movie
in which the cops start out as buddies (instead of making us sit through the
tedium of watching them bond), End of
Watch sells us by making the two leads people we enjoy spending time
with. Because the film gives the
audience time to get to know these people and begin to bond with them as only
movie audiences can, we find ourselves that much more invested as their lives
get progressively more difficult.
My favorite thing about this movie? I kept waiting for the twist in which the
Lieutenant was actually on the take or somebody doublecrossed the hero cops or
the rot in the system got exposed. When
that twist didn’t come (hey, I warned you about spoilers), End of Watch left us with basically good people doing a hard job in
a dangerous place. That, friends, is a
recipe for great drama.
MODERN TIMES
Hey, if you haven’t seen Modern Times, you need to get on that
right away. Perhaps Charlie Chaplin’s
greatest film, Modern Times is
timelessly funny and ever-relevant.
When we talk about classic
films, the kinds of movies people will still be watching three and four hundred
years from now, Modern Times
absolutely makes that list. It’s funny,
it’s brilliant, and it’s serious. See
this film.
PARA NORMAN
My family loved this
movie. My wife loved this movie. I was distracted that evening, so couldn’t
really get into it. I’m adding the movie
here for my own tracking purposes.
THE LORAX
If there’s one thing I love,
it’s being preached at by some multibillion entertainment company. I particularly love it when that company is
preaching against the evils of capitalism.
Preach it, oh Universal Pictures!
Paint the capitalist villains as Southerners and West Virginians,
because surely “those kind of people” must seem very backward to the
decisionmakers in Universal City! Give
me all $70 million of your production budget’s worth of “profit is evil”
goodness!
Or, on second thought, take
a hike.
