Category Archives: Pop Culture

About Southside with You

Southside with You

Shortly after the 2008 Presidential election, South Park aired one of their greatest episodes of all-time, About Last Night. With their usual juvenile yet savvy aplomb, Trey Parker and Matt Stone gleefully eviscerated both sides of the aisle, but their coup de gras was that the entire election was an elaborate jewel heist. Heck, it turned out that Barack and Michele weren’t even married…they were just two crazy kids, who through the course of the heist fell in love. And with DeBussy’s “Clair de Lune” playing over the closing scenes, those two crazy kids decide to give it all…love…marriage…the presidency…a chance.

Even the crudest of satirists could see that the real-life Barack and Michelle were in love. And that love’s first glimmers spark over the course of 84 minutes in writer/director Richard Tanne’s quasi-fictionalized account of one fateful summer day in Chicago in 1989. The compact film is full of small pleasures and big dreams. Small talk and big dialogue.   Continue reading →

Franchise Frenzy with Star Trek Beyond and Jason Bourne

It wouldn’t be the summer movie season without franchise entries galore, and although I proudly shirk most, two series I have always enjoyed are Star Trek and Jason Bourne. The latest episodes opened on back to back weekends and both are entertaining, serviceable entries providing escapism that hit all their required marks. But it was interesting to see how one was almost undone by its director’s ambition with action sequences, while the other was so taut and perfectly executed in its action as to take the film to another level. If Justin Lin’s smash-and-grab acrobatic incoherence is the perfect example of what not to do with action sequences, then Paul Greengrass’ intense hand-held location shooting is the masterclass of modern action direction.

Star Trek Beyond Damnit Jim Its Bright In Here

Being with the same cast for the third time around gives Star Trek Beyond a nice lived-in feel. We know the characters so well, as these actors have come into their own doing great jobs with Simon Pegg’s scripted witty and goofy banter that harkens back to classic Treks, especially Karl Urban as Bones. The plot is pretty basic. And since it seems like The Enterprise needs to get destroyed every time now, they wisely dispense with this in the beginning when the crew crash lands on an uncharted planet after having fallen into a giant space booby-trap. On hand as the villain, is a growling Idris Elba who seems to be the go-to guy for villains with crazy accents these days. The flick is fun and quick paced, and the special effects (especially the giant space station/city Yorktown) are colorful, bright and dazzling.

I was happy to see J.J. Abrams move on from the franchise, but Justin Lin was not the right choice to replace him. Lin made quite a name for himself orchestrating some of the most gleefully over-the-top car/truck/tank/plane/whatever smash-em-ups in the otherwise brain-dead Fast & Furious franchise. Sadly, his flair for the outlandish stunt doesn’t translate as well into space.   Continue reading →

Woman vs. Shark in The Shallows

The Shallows

The Shallows could be easily dismissed as a guilty pleasure if it weren’t so competently constructed and self-serious.

Nancy (a believable and shockingly likable Blake Lively) is a med-student at a cross-roads in life wondering if she will or won’t become a doctor?  She’s also still emotionally scarred by her mother’s cancer-related death. Therefore, she does some soul-searching in Mexico where she successfully finds a secret cove and beautiful beach where her mother spent some time shortly after learning she was pregnant with Nancy.  There she takes to the surf and stays out in the shallow waters just a little bit too long…accidentally stumbling upon one insatiable shark’s feeding spot.

It’s not often you get such depth in a character leading a monster movie.  So when things get silly and over-the-top (especially in the deliciously inane third act), the viewer is invested enough in Nancy to not give a damn about how patently ridiculous her tete-a-tete with one nasty shark gets.  I imagine some animal rights activists will not be happy with the unfair portrayal of sharks…though seaguls (in the form of Nancy’s injured companion “Steve”) certainly get a nice image make-over here. Continue reading →

The Spin’s Top 40 Sci-fi Films of All Time

LEPRECHAUN-IN-SPACE

Well, those ever-expanding genre polls over at Wonders in the Dark continue…and next on their docket is the Top Sci-fi films.  Below is the list I submitted, and in the coming weeks and months they will be unveiling their list after all the votes are tabulated.  I went with a fairly liberal definition for sci-fi, hence some genre-bending monster and horror films made the cut (but alas, no Leprechaun in Space!).  Also making the cut are films like Being John Malkovich, as I saw in the film a “scientific” explanation for how people were able to enter the head of John Malkovich…an unnerving “fiction” for sure!

Sci-fi films from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s (along with Universal Monster movies from the 30’s) ruled my childhood as they were shown in endless loops on local television on the weekends…so there are many sentimental favorites here.  The list topper, from one Stanley Kubrick, should come as no surprise for my readers, as it is also a film I routinely name in my revolving Top Five Films of All Time.  Coming in at number 2, might surprise some, as it’s also a Universal Monster classic…James Whale’s Frankenstein, a great film based on Mary Shelley’s trailblazing sci-fi-by-way-of-parental-wish-fulfillment-nightmare gothic novel.

The best science fiction films typically tap into some disturbed psychology and common fears…hence its natural and seamless blend with horror (see Alien).  Satire, both gentle and militant, mixed with science fiction can also be potent (see the works of Jonze and Verhoeven and Miller).  At its most noble, science fiction allows us to dream bigger dreams (see the best of Spielberg and Nolan).

I’ll let the rest of the list below speak for itself – links provided to more detailed write-ups and reviews of applicable films provided by clicking the title. Continue reading →

The 10th Annual Davies Awards in Film

A Look Back at 2015:

Speak low…when you speak love…when you speak of the films you love…

There’s a film that was released in 2015 that hardly anyone is mentioning at year’s end.  It’s a film that for fans of a certain type of old-school cinema…those who love noir, Lang, Hitchcock and The Third Man…soared wafting in on the summer breezes to art-house theaters like a fresh breath of cool lake air.  And it features a singular performance (from the one and only Nina Hoss) and a closing scene, so haunting, so complete, so cinematic, so classy…it made those lovers of that refined kind of retro flick gasp.  “We didn’t know they could make them like this anymore…” we communally thought.  Oh, but they do…and it’s so very rare and precious when they do.  Phoenix (and for the legions who haven’t seen it, please do…it’s currently streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime) is the film of the year – hell, maybe of the decade.  My wife and I loved it so much we had “Speak Low” play as one of our wedding songs.  It’s that damn good.  And unforgettable. Continue reading →

The Force Awakens But I Think I’ll Go Back to Sleep

The First Order

May the force be with you.

And also with you.

We lift up our wallets.

We lift them up to you…our lord…Lucas…Disney…Snoke (wait, seriously, Supreme Leader….Snoke?)

I originally planned to write about how for so many Star Wars has become a religion, but, if this new Disney backed sequel, The Force Awakens, accomplishes anything, it’s that it successfully (and thankfully) wipes away the cartoonish reverent silliness of the prequel trilogy and returns the series to the rollicking space opera action of the originals.

Thirty years after The Return of the Jedi, Resistance leader Leia (Carrie Fisher, looking more and more like her mother with each passing year) has dispatched her star fighter pilot Poe (a game Oscar Isaac) to the Tatooine-esque Planet Jakku (not to be confused with Planet Jacko, where the King of Pop’s hologram rules supreme) to retrieve a map that will allegedly lead them to Luke Skywalker, who after the rise of the Dark Side supported First Order went into hidden exile.  There Poe and his charismatic soccer-ball droid BB-8 (an instant new fan favorite) receive unlikely aid from a Storm Trooper with a sudden change of heart he calls Finn (John Boyega, in what should be a star-making turn) and a scrappy scavenger who just might have a bit of The Force in her named Rey (played with moxie by Daisy Ridley, who comes across as a more likable version of Keira Knightley). Continue reading →

Inspecting Spectre

Spectre Daniel Craig

Is it just me or does Daniel Craig, with each passing Bond film, look more and more like the William Shatner mask worn by Michael Myers in Halloween?  For me, the biggest problem with the Craig Bond Era has been Craig…he showed a promising range initially but was never quite right for the role.  But I digress.  He does fine here (I guess) in his fourth outing.  So apart from Craig saddled with being Craig and a snooze-inducing Sam Smith Bond theme (man, what a step down from Adele who knocked it out of the park with Skyfall!), let’s inspect all the good stuff in Spectre…because, boy, there’s a lot of it. (SPOILERS AHEAD)

Continue reading →

The Spin on the Most Anticipated Films of Fall 2015

fall-movie-preview

While the best film of 2015 may very well have already been released (haven’t seen Phoenix?  well, you must), it doesn’t mean Hollywood won’t be crowding the autumnal multiplexes with high-end genre pieces and prestige flicks stacked like fallen leaves piled up at a suburban curb.

Here’s my Spin on the most anticipated films of Fall 2015:

10.  Spectre – d. Sam Mendes – November 6th – It’s the latest Bond after what many feel was one of the greatest Bonds.  I’m tired of Craig, but Mendes is a force to be reckoned with. And with Blofeld added to the mix finally, this one should set off like a Molotov cocktail.

9.  The Witch – d. Robert Eggers – Wait, this isn’t until 2016 maybe? What the hell, this screams Fall! – Exactly…what in the hell is this?  First time director Eggers displays a style in the trailer that answers the question, what if Terence Malick directed a horror movie?  Well, I’m intrigued.

8.  Beasts of No Nation – d. Cary Joji Fukunaga – October 16th – This will be an interesting one to watch, as this tale of child soldiers in Africa is Fukunaga’s first stab at cinematic greatness coming off True Detective, and it’s the first original film released by Netflix who will be playing it in limited theaters and streaming.  This could change the game on multi-platform releasing (especially of independent films), or it could be met with a shrug.

7. Suffragette – d. Sarah Gravon – October 23rd – Buzz is good, the cast is great, the story is powerful and the trailer is strong.  It would be hard to imagine this one going wrong, but stranger things have happened.  Wanna see Mulligan in another great part?  Check out this year’s earlier Far From the Madding Crowd.

6. Black Mass – d. Scott Cooper – September 18th – Johnny Depp tries to erase bad memories of Pirates, Tonto and Transcendence (oh dear lord what in the world was that piece of crap supposed to be apart from a cure for insomnia?) in this movie that has the right look and swagger to be a mob genre classic.  Will Cooper finally knock one out of the park and join the big boys? Continue reading →

Yes, Virginia, Season Two of True Detective was Better than Season One

…but there is no Santa Claus.  If I’m gonna be controversial, might as well go whole hog.

Umm…obviously there are spoilers here, so if you didn’t watch all of Season Two yet, go watch it, and then come back and read and share your thoughts with The Spin.

True Detective Season 2 Highways

With the finale of True Detective’s Season Two now in the books, everyone is playing Monday morning quarterback.  Some, like Vox Culture’s marginally clueless Todd VanDerWerff, have gone as far as saying the whole season (finale included) was an utter disaster.  I have to ask what the hell he was watching?  While he does make a few fair points (that he then overstates), his point #3 that, “The plot was way, way too complicated” is utter hogwash.  Complaining that a noir detective series has a plot that is too complicated is like ordering a burger topped with a fried egg and complaining that the yolk got all over the meat.  The general consensus, however, is that it paled in comparison to Season One and for the most part (despite some intriguing individual sequences, like the shoot-out cluster-f*** or the much ballyhooed orgy party) was a mess.  Well, if it was a mess (and by some measures it was, especially in the early going), then it was one helluva entertaining mess: a sprawling, dark, lurid, occasionally brilliant, always fascinating, mess that was more twisted than the LA area highways crosscutting the seedy badlands (and fictional Vinci) where our characters lived and died.  Many complained throughout the season that the most intriguing character on the show was the LA highway system.  It was one of the characters, and like, hello, it was also symbolic. And, sure, the symbolism on the show hit ya with a sledgehammer sometimes.  But at least it had the brains to be symbolic.

Though it lacked the singular cohesion that director Cary Fukunaga brought the eight episodes of Season One, this new season still brought much of the same in tone and style (from the freaky opening credits done this time to the creepy Leonard Cohen dirge “Nervermind,” to the great music both in terms of score and Lera Lynn’s haunting bar tunes, to the stunning cinematography).  Sadly, “much of the same” is seemingly all most fans wanted, and even though creator, writer and producer Nic Pizzolatto made it very clear this was an anthology series where the seasons would all be stand alone self-contained stories with a fresh cast playing all new characters each time, people lamented the absence of Rust (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty (Woody Harrelson), whose chemistry, banter, philosophizing and ultimate bromance turned them into mythic pop culture characters.

Yes, here in Season Two we had more characters with more complications and a convoluted plot involving crooked cops, secret identities, repression, sex, politics, drug lords and cover-ups that made viewers work for the payoff.  And while the season started off confusing and meandering, all those twisted highways and plot points converged in a finale that brought everything to a rousing close.  Continue reading →

I Would Rather Watch a Real Trainwreck

I’m just kidding!  (Or am I?)

Seriously, the stars are aligned for Amy Schumer right now and nothing I could write about her Judd Apatow directed movie, Trainwreck, will change anyone’s mind about this thing.  So get ready for some free-blogging as I just spew out my thoughts.

1.  Amy Schumer is hilarious (although am I the only one who thinks her usually spot-on and delightfully satirical Comedy Central show derailed into absurdist raunchy boredom the last few episodes this season?).  As the author of her own star-vehicle, she provides herself material in Trainwreck that proves she can act, too.  I just have to wonder, though…what’s next for her?  Will she end up getting typecast?

2.  The first hour or so of the move is episodic, raunchy, edgy, full of great lines, and riotously awkward moments as we watch Amy stumble through her love life and job at a men’s magazine until she meets a sports doctor (Bill Hader, good at playing the straight man to Schumer’s shtick) who changes her view on everything.  And the fact that all that funny, edgy stuff leads into the “we’ve seen this a thousand times” romantic comedy garbage is what makes the film so frustrating.  The last 45 minutes are an actual trainwreck of storytelling ping-ponging from comedy to pathos with little sense of making any meaning out of it beyond the “we can see it from a mile away” denoument. Continue reading →