Recently Seen: 1 NOV 13

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.

The Kid

The new year is barely two weeks old, and I already have a movie memory for the ages.

There's a scene in THE KID during which the '20s equivalent of Child Protective Services shows up to deliver young Jackie Coogan from the loving squalor of life with tramp Charlie Chaplin. It's heart-rending stuff, as the kid screams for the only father he's ever known and the tramp tries everything he can think of to save his son. I was into it, as I always am, but I took a moment to glance over and see how it was working for my seven-year-old.

He was horrified and heartsick and totally, completely captivated. I won't forget the look on his face as he whispered, "Go, go!" for a long time.

Later, there was laughter, and the ending sewed everything up nicely. But what a delight to see THE KID capture the imagination of my kid, as it has mine for so many viewings. Surely, this film deserves its place in the canon.

When Comedy Was King

WHEN COMEDY WAS KING is a clip show of silent – era comedies that defeats its own purpose.

Look, there’s no debating that cinema produced a great deal of comedy gold in its early years, and there are very few ways you can go wrong in stringing together a bunch of good bits and putting them out there for public consumption. WCWK, however, does find one sure way to get things wrong: the thing is narrated with condescension and spite by some guy who sounds like a kindly uncle who nurtures a quiet hatred for the world and everything in it. “Where has the laughter gone?” he asks. Hey, jackass – go to the movies, there’s plenty of laughter to go around. Now I know that this, too is an old movie, but hey, there was plenty of laughter to go around when WHEN COMEDY WAS KING was first released, as well.

The movie does a service in splicing together all those clips, however. If you want to introduce yourself or your family to this great genre, you could do worse than fire it up. Just do so with the sound off. Your own laughter is all the commentary these clips need.