THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2014

1- SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR: Crazy that this is even coming out. The first one was released in 2005. Not sure what took so long. Probably Robert Rodriguez's divorce. He didn't make anything for a few years there and now only makes cartoon crap (granted, not that he ever made anything serious or artistic, but I was hoping he'd grow up). I didn't think the original Sin City film was a masterpiece or anything, but it was something new and it looked insane and was fun and I loved seeing the comics come alive. This new one features the tale about a for hire photographer and a cheating wife named Ava. The first film included "Sin City" and "That Yellow Bastard" and "The Big Fat Kill." There are only a few stories left...and I doubt they'd tackle "Hell and Back." Surprise us.

2- THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL: Wes Anderson's latest. The trailer, sadly, gives it all away, but it reinforces the fact that this new one has the same style but seems a bit more light than some of the downer aspects of Tenenbaums and Darjeeling. It looks like a kaleidoscopic candy-color thrill ride of film. It's about a hotel manager, Ralph Fiennes, and a painting and a lobby boy. A popcorn film for the art house connoisseurs.

3- INHERENT VICE: Well now. Paul Thomas Anderson adapting and directing a Pynchon novel, one of his lesser novels, but his first novel to be filmed. Starring the best actor in the world, Joaquin Phoenix, as a pot smoking P.I. Yeah, it's a complete Lebowski rip-off. So what? At least they're ripping off quality.

4- UNDER THE SKIN: After the Toronto film festival, City Paper's film critic wrote about the best film he saw and the one everyone was talking about. He was more excited by it than Gravity. I had never heard of it so quickly watched the trailer (awesome) then read the book (fucking weird...semi-good). The story is basically what if aliens treated humans like Thanksgiving turkeys. They capture, pen, drug, fatten, butcher us. That's the book anyway, written by Crimson Petal and the White's Michel Faber. The film does feature Scarlett Johansson as the alien that picks up hitchhikers in Scotland and kidnaps them. This critic may have loved it for the gratuitous nudity...but it looks incredible nonetheless.

5- INTERSTELLAR: Christopher Nolan's latest featuring Christian Bale is about...space? It's veiled in secrecy, but he always makes awesome films. Bring it on.

6- THE HOBBIT: THERE AND BACK AGAIN: Everyone seemed to hate the last two...not sure why as they're more or less the same as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, albeit a bit lighter. This last one features the final battle against the dragon and some big battle between several armies. Can't wait.

7- THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1: So I didn't even see the second film yet and I loathed this last book (except for the final lines between Peeta and Katniss). I still want to see what they do with this. First off, this last book doesn't feature a Hunger Games and is totally bleak (Katniss' sis dies...Peeta is brainwashed and totally fucked up). But I loved the first film. There is a lot of action in this last book. It'll be cool to see the dystopian world during battle put on screen. I am curious if it'll be as sadistically morbid as the book, though.

8- THE RAID 2: The first one featured a police raid on a drug-dealer owned/controlled apartment building. It was brutal, action packed, wild. Curious about this encore. The first film featured what I thought was the longest kung-fu fight sequence ever. It was exhaustingly awesome. With a sequel I figure they're probably going to try make it even more intense and I can't even fathom that.

9- INTO THE WOODS: Sondheim's fairy tale musical. I've never seen it...and it's not famous enough to have produced any songs I've heard of...but Sweeney Todd is great, Johnny Depp is the Big Bad Wolf and Meryl Streep is in it. Might be a total mess but it's at least intriguing.

10- GODZILLA: A new one, obviously, that hasn't come too far ahead of the last remake, although time flies 'cause Emmerich's debacle hit in '98. This looks awesome. It's not ha-ha fluff, it looks like serious business. No big stars but the f/x look sweet. Might be the surprise of the summer.

THE 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2013- REVISITED

10- NYMPHOMANIAC: Well it was released...in Europe, in an edited, four-hour version. The "real" five and a half hour super porn version is still out there, and it's being released in two parts in the U.S. in the Spring. Looks, sounds amazing.

9- SNOWPIERCER: Didn't come out. The trailer looks intriguing. I have no idea when it's being released.

8- STOKER: Terrible. A really awful, soulless film. 1/2*

7- STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS: You can read my review. Scroll down. **1/2

6- THE GREAT GATSBY: Good. Stylish. It entertained me. Nothing special, really, but worth a glance. **1/2

5- MAN OF STEEL: Semi-entertaining. A truly awful opening on Krypton. The rest has some good action. Pretty forgettable, though. Even comic book writers these days can't figure out Superman, so what chance does Hollywood? **1/2

4- THE WORLD'S END: Glorious. Before the robot apocalypse action stuff it's a terrific film with spot-on dialogue and a dark undertone...then it gets entertaining but sort of falls apart. One of the year's best, though. ***1/2

3- THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG: Not as good as the first one. I'm the only one who thought that. I love these movies, though. The dragon is epic. Some silly action mars it, but I enjoyed the ride. ***

2- BEFORE MIDNIGHT: A disappointment. I adored the second one. This one just feels like walking in place. *1/2

1- THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE: Didn't see it. You would think I would have, since it was the most anticipated...

THE BEST FILMS OF 2013

                   

1- FRANCES HA

                                                             

2- THIS IS THE END

                                     

                                                          

3- THE WORLD'S END

4- JOURNEY TO THE WEST

5- NEBRASKA

6- 12 YEARS A SLAVE

7- HER

8- THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

9- BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR

10- AMERICAN HUSTLE

Review: WORLD WAR Z

 

This film starts in Philadelphia. Instead of shooting this opening sequence in Philly, they filmed that part in Northern Ireland. They even changed the street signs in Belfast in case a viewer was paying more attention to the accuracy of Philly street signs than the zombie apocalypse engulfing the characters mid-chase. And I still wonder now...this film is a mega-budget summer action feature (the budget was reported as $190 million) with one of the biggest stars in Hollywood...and yet they still want to save cash by filming in Ireland? How much could they have possibly saved? Really?
And that's kind of the problem with this film, the newest zombie film on the market. It doesn't know what it wants to be. Filming a sequence that takes place in Philly in Northern Ireland is only a small problem. Is this supposed to be a zombie movie? Then why are the zombies super fast? Is it supposed to be an action movie? Then why is the finale straight out of a horror film but big chunks of the rest feature chase sequences and explosions and even a mid-air catastrophe set piece on a plane? Does it want to be a family film? There is a family drama lurking within. Does it want to be scientific? Realistic? And what was that Budapest sequence that was cut from the film because it was too "political"?
World War Z is, to put it bluntly, a mess. I will say that it's a lot better than I thought it would be, surprisingly. Director Marc Forster previously made Quantum of Solace, a sleek, awesome James Bond film that few liked. I still am baffled how few liked it. Remember that opening sequence? One of 007's best action scenes.
So Forster knows what he's doing and he proves it. The action scenes can be thrilling, the finale is a bit creepy-cool, but, alas, the special f/x of hordes of zombies are typically childish, studio-exec crap that looks "awesome" in a trailer but ends up limp in the grand scheme of things.
Remember how truly awesome zombie films can be? The potential is there, obviously. The sadist factor, the gore, the tension, the thrill. I recall the epic shot of adrenaline that was 28 Days Later (sure, technically a virus film), the black and white scary-as-fuck Night of the Living Dead. The potential is there.
World War Z is an entertaining lark, sure, but just that, a summer popcorn experience featuring various sequences lashed together as if the viewer is being whisked around an amusement park.
I suppose it's apt that there is no ending to the film, as it doesn't really have a beating heart to begin with.
**1/2 (out of ****)

Review: CLOUD ATLAS

"Because a man like me has no business with this substance 'beauty,' yet here she is, in these soundproofed chambers of my heart."
That is the best line, in the best passage, of "Cloud Atlas," a novel written by David Mitchell. Novel isn't really what to call it. A very-loosely linked collection of short stories is more like it. And there's a new film adaptation of the book, written and directed by three people, the Wachowski's and Tom Tykwer. Now the reason this film has any real cachet is the fact that it was at least co-made by the siblings that did the Matrix trilogy. After that they only made Speed Racer, an amusing bomb, so it's kind of a big deal when they show up with a new film. And this is a film based on the so-called "unfilmable" novel.
I will admit that I read this book and found it to be hit or miss. The above line is a part of the beautifully written "Letters to Zedelghem" section, which, alongside "The Terrible Ordeal of Timothy Cavendash," are the only two very good parts of the book. The book & film feature stories in various time periods, so the writing changes from 70's speak to futuristic speak. The book's middle section is near unreadable, and the film veers into cornball territory very easily thanks mostly to having Tom Hanks in it.
The film certainly looks good. It's entertaining, albeit too long. The book is told in a pyramid style; each story is presented once, then a long section set in the distant future unfolds, then we return back to each story again. This means that the opening and closing sections are both of Adam Ewing's Pacific journal. If you're confused, then good luck watching this movie without a road map, as the book's structure is thrown out the window and the film is edited so that it's back and forth, total mayhem between stories.
I guess it's a good accomplishment...but I'd rather have seen Tykwer and the Wachowski's make something original. It doesn't exactly help that the "Somni" story is mostly action in the film, or that the best part of the entire book, Frobisher's foolish love of his composer boss' daughter, has been excised.
I guess to get funding for this expensive picture they needed a name or two, but Tom Hanks and Halle Berry stick out like sore thumbs.
So like the book, the film is hit or miss. But the book does work mostly because of the writing; some of it is so elegant, so poetic, and the film has none of that. It's just a big, glossy, froth of colorful images that combine into nothing. **1/2

Review: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

What an odd, grammatically bad title. It doesn't even work without punctuation. Who does JJ Abrams think he is...God?
The film, Abrams' second Star Trek film, starts off by ripping off Raiders of the Lost Ark. And by now, if you haven't come across a Spielberg/Abrams rant or tangent or article or musing...then you live in a fucking cave. Abrams was a boy and was asked to repair Spielberg's old 8MM films. Abrams is THE new Spielberg. We've all heard it. But Spielberg, at least in the 70's and 80's, made some good films. Abrams makes empty-shell, silly, entertainment machines. The one thing Abrams did that had some heart and some thought and some fully developed characters unfortunately ended up making no sense (it was Lost...if you, as noted, live in a cave).
I will admit that Abrams last two pictures, Super 8 and this, are entertaining up to a point. But they're riddled will ultra-silliness. Remember how cool Super 8 was for like an hour? Then recall that horrendous ET-copy of an ending? Star Trek Into Darkness has some good action and the characters are fun (a bit too cartoonish, though)...but afterwards it rings hollow. There's nothing deep, profound, or illuminating. This isn't like the old Star Trek show. This is frigging Star Wars. Which I guess is good since Abrams is directing the new Star Wars.
The plot for this new film has a bad guy, Khan, waging war on the Star Trek academy in San Francisco and London. Khan, played by the super-serious Benedict Cumberbatch (what a name!), really doesn't have much to do besides glower. &, honestly, he's more hero than villain for no real reason (the real villain turns out to be Robocop). The plot isn't even really worth talking about, nor are the villains (did they really need to re-do Khan?), because the script seems to have been written simply as a way to piece together action sequences. Even the Klingons show up for no good reason.
If you like mindless action, banter, caricatures instead of characters, then you'll have a blast. Otherwise, I now kind of understand why this film made $100 million less than Iron Man 3 on its opening weekend
. **1/2

Review: THIS IS 40

More like This is Crap.
Harsh. &, honestly, this, the latest Judd Apatow film (only his 4th), is an entertaining film. It's funny-cute more than uproarious. It's simplistic. It's certainly not terrible, but once the credits rolled all I could think about was how half-finished it felt. How nothing added up. &, sadly, that Judd Apatow has grown old enough to just not have it anymore.
This is 40 takes Paul Rudd's family from Knocked Up and makes a movie out of them. I would have rather seen another movie with Seth Rogen's character from that film. Not that Paul Rudd isn't funny. He is. But this film incorporates the whole Apatow clan...and the three of them just aren't as interesting or entertaining as Paul Rudd by himself. Rudd's wife in the film, Leslie Mann, is Apatow's wife in real life, which is super creepy because Mann shows her tits twice in the film...and is in love with a different man...and Apatow's kids play the kids in the film...which is very strange (the youngest isn't at the age to be able to make a coherent decision to say no). The plot is basically a family arguing. That's hilarious, right? No. But Apatow has always combined sweetness and real-life with comedy, unfortunately the sap has overtaken the edge. Remember The 40 Year Old Virgin and how exciting and wild and thrillingly alive and fresh it was? Apatow's last two pictures, this one and the almost-awful Funny People, have been too serious minded and thus dull, diluted, stale. This is 40 feels like a Hallmark movie.
The one saving grace is the rest of the cast. Chris O'Dowd and Jason Segal are so amusing that I wish this film was only about them. Megan Fox looks good but proves how much of a terrible actress she is (not a shock). Albert Brooks is great. & that's kind've it.
The big problem is that nothing goes anywhere. Leslie Mann owns a store. Someone is stealing. Um...why? What's the point or payoff? There is none. John Lithgow plays Mann's father who hasn't been in her life for seven years. Does that go anywhere? No. The daughter is enjoying a marathon of the TV show Lost. You could make a whole movie making fun of that. Does that plot go anywhere? No. There aren't even any Lost jokes. What the fuck?
Rudd does have a few funny lines...but they all come off as lines he improvised. Which means Apatow has lost his spark since he wrote this thing. They all lose it. Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is the latest example. Both Django and This is 40 aren't bad films. They're entertaining. But the earlier greatness is gone from these guys. It's sad. ** (out of ****)