Movies – Page 12 – Cinesnark

Man of Steel brings Superman back from the dead

ETA: I still like this movie better than most but I’m retro-actively down-grading it. At first pass it works but upon revisiting it, it just doesn’t hold up. Henry Cavill as Clark/Superman is still spot-on casting and I still like the decisions made re: Jonathan Kent and Slightly Ambivalent Superman, but I think Zack Snyder & Co. compromised Superman’s innate hopefulness too much. Also, the length of the movie and the incoherent disaster porn of the third act render it virtually un-re-watchable. But mostly what killed this one for me is Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie which managed to make an innately moral and good superhero interesting and complex without compromising his inherent charcteristics.

There will be SPOILERS.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Superman, thinking him boring (for many of the same reasons I find Captain America boring), but Man of Steel changed my mind. But it was a calculated risk as the things I enjoyed about a twenty-first century Superman are the things that have the Superman fanboys (and girls) unhappy with producer Christopher Nolan’s take on Clark Kent. We’ll get to that in a minute. First let’s talk about Zack Snyder’s partial redemption as a director.Continue reading “Man of Steel brings Superman back from the dead”

The Hangover is actually really dark

The Hangover Part III got crushed at the Memorial Day box office by a record-setting opening from Fast & Furious 6: Revenge of the Fast, which, I don’t care how you approach that statistic, says nothing good about our society. It was the kind of slim pickings at the cineplex that inevitably leads to someone saying, “Cinema is dying/all movies suck now”, to which I would respond that Iron Man 3 is good and still in theaters, and there is a wealth of fair-to-excellent films on offer at the arthouse. In fact, because I cannot in good faith recommend either The Hangover Part III or Fast & Furious 6: Fall of the Furious, the “What to Watch” on the home page is made up entirely of arthouse options—at least one of those movies is bound to be playing near you. (I also can’t recommend Now You See Me because it’s either not screening for critics or the screening will be pushed late so as to limit the damage early reviews can do, the schedule is still up in the air, but it’s not a good sign either way.)Continue reading “The Hangover is actually really dark”

More like Star Trek Into Disappointment

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS – Don’t get mad, I warned you, SPOILERS

Having never been a Trekkie, no one was more surprised than me when I loved the 2009 franchise reboot from JJ Abrams. I kind of love it a lot. I own it and watch it sometimes and enjoy it immensely every time. Abrams made Star Trek accessible, trading in the Deep Thoughts with Kirk and Spock for fast-paced action grounded by very humane character moments. I know a lot the Trek fandom was annoyed at Abrams’ tone and just, everything really, but Star Trek had for so long been the tiniest kid given the biggest wedgie and stuffed in the grossest locker, and Abrams made it cool again. He made it okay to like Star Trek.Continue reading “More like Star Trek Into Disappointment”

The Great Gatsby is as beautiful and hollow as Jay Gatsby’s world

Take this review with a grain of salt: I am not a huge F. Scott Fitzgerald fan. He’s arguably the most overrated author in the American canon. That said, his seminal work, The Great Gatsby, is definitely one of his best efforts (Bernice Bobs Her Hair is his best work, period). And before you start yelling at me, I know that’s an unpopular opinion but I do base mine on having read every single thing Fitzgerald has written, all hundred-and-whatever stories, and ending up underwhelmed by the sum total of his output. Still. Gatsby is good.Continue reading “The Great Gatsby is as beautiful and hollow as Jay Gatsby’s world”

Tony Stark finds new ways to surprise on his third time out

Iron Man 3 is the fourth time—fifth if you count this—that we’ve seen Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark. At this point, there is no avoiding the touch of franchise fatigue that haunts the latest in Marvel’s “Cinematic Universe”, Iron Man 3. But, amazingly, for all that Tony and his world feel well-worn and lived in, Iron Man 3 manages to surprise and delight in turns, bringing an unexpected freshness to the official start of Marvel’s Phase Two. It’s a bit like a pair of old jeans you’d forgotten fit, only to put them on one day and realize—hey, these jeans make my ass look great! Iron Man 3 makes Tony Stark’s ass look great.Continue reading “Tony Stark finds new ways to surprise on his third time out”

Pain & Gain is so Michael Bay it hurts

If you think you know Michael Bay, let me tell you, you don’t know Michael Bay until you’ve seen Pain & Gain. You haven’t even begun to tap into the Michael Bayness of the world until you’ve stewed in two hours-plus of pure, unadulterated Michael Bay.

Pain & Gain sucks. It takes sucking to new, previously unexplored heights. It sucks so hard that the only logical explanation for its unmitigated suckitude is that Michael Bay must, in fact, be the son of Mega-Maid. Because he only has two settings: Suck and blow. And once Pain & Gain has sucked so much that its eyeballs implode from the internal pressure, it switches gears and blows. It blows hard, and long, and with the unrelenting precision of projectile vomit.Continue reading “Pain & Gain is so Michael Bay it hurts”

iSteve: The uninformed biopic experiment

If someone walked up to me today and said, “Make a biopic of Mother Theresa but don’t do any research and you only have ten thousand bucks and two months to make it,” the result would look something like iSteve, the first feature film—though at a lean 78 minutes we’re pushing that line—produced by internet comedy site Funny or Die. I know Mother Theresa was a nun, and she helped poor people, but that’s all I’ve got. If I had to flesh out a three-act story with no research, there would be a lot of made up shit and an over reliance on the tropes of bildungsroman. Which is how iSteve played out. Written and directed by FoD regular contributor Ryan Perez and starring Justin Long as Steve Jobs, iSteve is a multi-part experiment that works, for the most part, and even hits on a few truly inspired comedic moments.Continue reading “iSteve: The uninformed biopic experiment”