Alien: Covenant

2017 sci fi horror directed by Ridley Scott and starring Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Callie Hernandez, and Jussie Smollett.   In terms of franchise timeline, this takes place between the events of Prometheus and Alien.  Minor spoilers ahead.

 The colonization ship Covenant is en route to populate a remote planet when it’s damaged by a neutrino burst, which forces its crew out of stasis to repair it.  During the repairs they intercept a signal of a John Denver song (seriously) coming from another nearby planet, which they decide to investigate.  Because they’re geniuses they send all but three crew members on the recon, none of them wearing any sort of garb that might protect them from the dangers of the planet, like unknown flora and fauna that might totally fuck with their biology.  Even though they’ve already lost a crew member by this point and should all be on the highest of alerts.  Even though they have an android they could send with one pilot to minimize loss of life.

 

 On the new planet they encounter David (Fassbender) an android who is an earlier model of their own android Walter.  Turns out he’s been there for a decade (since Prometheus) just twiddling his thumbs and playing God.  The crew realizes they are totally boned and attempt to return to their ship.

The good:  a diverse cast who acted their asses off.  I was really impressed with McBride and Waterston in particular.  And it ties together the prequel and the rest of the franchise so theoretically it’s finally done.  Right?

Other than that I ultimately just wanted it to be Alien.  I would have strongly preferred less special effects and more practical effects.  I loved the casting but it’s hard to hold a candle to Weaver, Skerritt, Cartwright, Stanton, Hurt, Holm, Kotto, and Badejo.  I cared less about the story of the alien’s origin and more about the action.  I wanted it to be scarier.

If you go in with fairly low expectations I think you’ll be pleased.  I would put it on par with Prometheus, so if you enjoyed that then give this a shot.

Two with KBecks

Underworld: Blood Wars:  2016 action horror (?) continuation of the franchise (please make it stop) directed by Anna Foerster and starring Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Lara Pulver, Tobias Menzies, Bradley James, and Charles Dance.  Selena (KBecks) is still on the run because the vampires and lycans all want her blood to start a Super Immortal Hybrid Race.  Or something.  Selena is brought before the Eastern Coven supposedly to train their Death Dealers in an effort to ensure their survival in the ongoing war with the lycan clans.  She’s betrayed, she goes into hiding AGAIN with the Nordic Coven, Thomas (James) finds out he’s the true heir to the East, there are magical naps that give you blonde highlights, it’s a whole thing.

            I just need this to be over.  I absolutely love the first movie, and it’s been a depressing slide into mediocrity ever since.   At this point the franchise is either removing unpopular characters altogether, like Selena’s hybrid daughter Eve, or replacing much beloved characters who have died/actors who have refused to return to the series.  But Thomas is not Michael, and Marius is not Lucian.  Semira (Pulver) is a serviceable villain, and Varga (James) has an interesting character arc all things considered.  But desperately clinging to the few shreds of good made it a bummer to watch.

The Disappointments Room:  2016 horror (really though?) directed by D.J. Caruso and starring Kate Beckinsale, Mel Raido, Duncan Joiner, Lucas Till, and Gerald McRaney.  Dana (KBecks), David (Raido), and their son Ben (Till) have purchased a run-down mansion in East Jesus Nowhere, hoping that a fixer-upper project will distract them from the death of their daughter.  Dana finds a “disappointments room,” where the first owners of the house hid their disfigured child from the public.  Dana sees ghosts but also is maybe crazy, Major Dad kills her cat and the neighbor boy but maybe she’s just seeing things, and also Angela from Bones is there.

            It wasn’t scary; it was lazy and obvious.  At one point there is a subtle reference to Poltergeist that I thought was slightly clever – and then they went ahead and made a literal reference to Poltergeist and I laughed out loud.  The actors all do fine with the material they’re given, but it all adds up to nothing.  Definitely skip it.

 

Mini Reviews: Mame Red Mitty Fish Hate Bigger

Auntie Mame:  1958 comedy directed by Morton DaCosta and starring Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne, Peggy Cass, and Joanna Barnes.  When young Patrick is suddenly orphaned he is placed in the care of his free-spirited, lively Aunt Mame, his father’s sister who lives in Manhattan.  The trustee of his inheritance becomes concerned about Mame’s lifestyle and the influence it’s having on the boy – Mame’s drunken Broadway actress friend Vera who instructs Patrick on how to mix cocktails, the progressive bohemian school he’s enrolled in – and insists he be taken to boarding school.  So Patrick leaves and joins the patrician elite.  He and Mame stay in touch, but she becomes increasingly concerned that he’s growing up to be stuffy and ordinary.  How ever will she keep him from becoming a bore? 

It’s fantastic – I love Rosalind Russell (or simply Rozz, as my mother calls her), Peggy Cass is hysterical in her small role as Agnes Gooch, and Joanna Barnes is an absolute stitch as Patrick’s WASP-y girlfriend.  It’s light, frivolous even in its more serious moments; I just smiled through the whole movie.

 

Red 2:  2013 action comedy sequel to Red directed by Dean Parisot and starring Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Anthony Hopkins, and Helen Mirren.  SPOILERS AHEAD if you haven’t seen the first movie!  Sarah (Parker) and her ex-spy paramour Frank (Willis) have settled into a nice suburban existence three years after the hijinks of the last movie – in which Frank and his retired spy pals were marked for death for being unknowingly involved in the cover-up of a mass murder several decades ago and had to fight corrupt forces in the CIA.  But all that danger is past them now.  And Sarah is clearly bored.  Thankfully the ever-paranoid Boggs (Malkovich) shows up with news that they’re being hunted again!  Frank tries to ignore him, but then Boggs is murdered and the game is once again afoot.

Did you see the first movie?  It was easy and and funny and cute and I loved the cast.  This is much the same, but with not quite the same level of charm.  See the original, maybe skip this one.

 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty:  2013 action-romantic-dramedy directed by Ben Stiller and starring Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, and Sean Penn. Walter Mitty is a dedicated employee of Life magazine, managing the film negatives of its photographers and daydreaming of adventures while spending his days in a storage facility.  Then the magazine’s top photojournalist sends Walter a valuable negative to be included in the last print copy of Life before their digital transition, and he can’t find it.  He is convinced by his office crush (Wigg) that he should track down the negative – all while avoiding the douchebag (Scott) in charge of downsizing the office so he doesn’t lose his job.  Suddenly he’s taking risks and travelling and getting way out of his comfort zone.

I never read the story, so I had no frame of reference.  I liked the cast, and it’s one of Stiller’s better acting performances.  There is really heavy product placement and it’s very predictable, but still enjoyable.  Like a travelogue - not a ton of substance but very pleasant to look at.

 

Blackfish:  2013 documentary about captive killer whales, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite.  The film focuses on Tilikum, a male orca held by SeaWorld Orlando who has been involved in the death of three people, most notably trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010.  It also explores the history of keeping marine animals in captivity, disputes claims made by SeaWorld and similar organizations about the health of its animals, and interviews current and former trainers and SeaWorld staff.

                  I saw an orca show at SeaWorld when I was seven and it was magical, honestly.  I just had no clue about any of this.  Many of the claims the doc makes have been hotly contested, even by Brancheau’s family, but even if only a few of them are true it’s still deeply upsetting.  SeaWorld has had to make major changes to the way it treats its animals and has suffered steep financial losses, bills have been introduced at the state and federal level to address public concerns; this movie has had a major impact.  It’s worth seeing for the zeitgeist factor alone, just prepare to be upset by it.

 

Erasing Hate:  2011 MSNBC documentary directed by Bill Brummel, about the efforts of a reformed white supremacist to remove the racist tattoos covering his body.  Bryon Widner joined the White Power movement at 14, eventually co-founding his own group called the Vinlanders Social Club.  The Indiana organization grew quickly and gained a reputation for extreme violence.  Once Bryon married and became a father, he and his wife decided to leave White Power behind, and faced death threats, harassment, and a difficult transition back to Normal Midwestern Suburbia.  The racist tattoos covering his face and neck made finding a job difficult, so with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center and an anonymous donor he underwent many painful procedures to have them removed.

There.  Now you don’t need to watch the documentary.  Honestly, I didn’t get much out of it beyond that synopsis.  The narration is kind of obnoxious, it violates my First Rule of Documentaries (confusing timelines are verboten), and reading this article covered the same ground.  Skip it.

 

Bigger Than Life:  1956 drama directed by Nicholas Ray and staring James Mason (who also produced and co-wrote the film), Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, and Christopher Olson.  Mild mannered teacher and loving father Ed (Mason) is diagnosed with a rare disease.  Told he may have only months to live, he agrees to take an experimental drug that miraculously cures his illness but has unforeseen side effects that threaten everyone around him.

Godard and Truffaut both praised the movie.  Most critics of the time felt it was overwrought.  I agree with the latter group.  I know that Mason doesn’t really do subtle, but when coupled with Rush’s performance it was just melo- on top of –drama.  Matthau was great, though.  Viewed in the context of its time, it is a forward-thinking approach to addiction and mental illness.  And it’s fine, just not great.  

 

Mini Reviews: 4/18/15

Whatever, I've been busy.

Sons of Perdition:  2010 documentary about teenagers exiled from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church).  In case you’re not familiar with the infamous Warren Jeffs, here’s the rundown:  he’s a self-proclaimed prophet and former leader of one of the largest Mormon fundamentalist factions that still practices polygamy. And in what many former FLDS members see as an effort to gain additional wives for Church leadership, many young boys are exiled for such wild infractions as speaking to girls, listening to pop music, and wearing short-sleeved shirts.  Some also flee the community on their own.

These kids are so sheltered and their lives so controlled that when they first leave many don’t know what the nation’s capitol is, or what comic books are.  Free to make their own decisions for the first time, struggling with a new culture, and cut off from their family and friends, they all party pretty hard.  It’s a fairly good documentary, but deeply sad.

Fame High:  2012 documentary directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, about four students at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA).  Grace is a senior ballet dancer with amazing technical abilities who is seeking to add emotional depth to her dancing while balancing wanting a boyfriend, excelling in her other classes, and meeting the demands of her conservative Korean family.  Brittany is a senior singer-songwriter who moved from Wisconsin to attend LACHSA but now wonders about the value of an arts education versus real-world stage experience.  Zak is a jazz pianist prodigy with a soft demeanor and a serious Stage Dad.  And Ruby is the quirky freshman drama major who annoyed me half to death.

It shows all the normal drama of high school plus actual Drama.  Amazing teachers, stage parents both supportive and terrible, students both talented and delusional - teenagers earnestly reciting Shakespeare is like my nightmare.  It’s edited well, it draws you in (albeit very slowly) and it had me by the end but man did it take a while.  I’d totally watch it again.

Ender’s Game:  2013 sci fi action film based on the book by Orson Scott Card, directed by Gavin Hood, and starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, Abigail Breslin, and Ben Kingsley.  In the future, citizens of Earth are locked in a struggle against an alien race and prepare gifted children to be the potential new commanders of the space fleet.  Ender Wiggin is selected for Battle School, and has to fight his way to the top against hyper-competitive fellow students and the machinations of his teachers.

                  This summary really doesn’t do it justice.  It’s a decent adaptation of an excellent young adult sci fi novel, which I would highly recommend reading first.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug:  2013 fantasy action epic directed by Peter Jackson and starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, and Orlando Bloom.  When last we left our intrepid group of adventurers, they were being tracked by a party of Orcs on their quest to retrieve the Arkenstone from the lair of a dragon and reunite the fractured community of Dwarves.  This second movie of the three-part series (don’t get me started) involves a dude who can morph into a giant bear, huge scary spiders, elves, and Smaug the dragon.  Look, you either like these kinds of movies or you don’t.  It’s a CGI spectacle, highly entertaining, and Lee Pace as Thranduil alone is worth seeing it.  If you like this sort of thing.

Holes:  2003 dramedy based on a young adult novel by Louis Sachar, starring Shia LaBeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Patricia Arquette, Jon Voight, Eartha Kitt, Henry Winkler, and Khleo Thomas.  Stanley Yelnats IV is a sweet teenager from a quirky family with uncommonly bad luck.  A misunderstanding over a stolen pair of sneakers lands him in a juvenile detention work camp, where he and other tween offenders spend their days endless digging holes in the desert. Through a series of flashbacks and encounters with the warden, Stanley learns the true story of his family’s unlucky past and begins to set everything right.

         The soundtrack is obnoxious almost to the point of distraction, but it’s otherwise a cute movie.  The plot is interesting, the acting is decent, and it’s so nice to remember the LaBeouf of this era rather than the man-bunned Poor Man’s Culkin he’s become.

 

Mini Reviews: 7/7/14

The Day the Earth Stood Still:  1951 science fiction movie directed by Robert Wise and starring Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Billy Gray, Hugh Marlowe, and Sam Jaffe.  A flying saucer lands in D.C., and the government is understandably freaked.  When a humanoid figure emerges with a message of peace, a twitchy soldier shoots him.  He’s taken to Walter Reed Hospital, where he announces that his name is Klaatu and that he has a notice that affects the entire world and must be allowed to speak to all major political leaders at once.  This is vetoed by the President’s secretary, and he’s placed under armed guard.  He escapes and takes up lodging at a boarding house while his giant robot stands menacing sentinel at the spaceship.  He spends the next few days befriending people, learning how Earthlings think and act – so this will totally end well, right?

                  It’s definitely worth seeing once.  I didn’t know too much about it before I watched it, which helped.  Despite its age and now well-worn sci fi tropes it wasn’t what I had expected and was unpredictable enough to keep me engaged.

Friday the 13^th Part 2:  1981 American horror movie directed by Steven Miner and starring Amy Steel, John Furey, and Adrienne King.  It’s been five years since a brutal massacre occurred at Camp Crystal Lake.  An enterprising young man has decided to open another summer camp nearby, and has recruited your average amalgam of Camp Counselor Archetypes to join him.  As they gather for training before the camp’s official opening they are warned by the local crazy oracle that there’s trouble on them thar’ shores!  Sure enough, Jason Vorhees shows up and misbehaving teens start dying off like flies.

                  I was never into this franchise in my youth, and really only started watching them because I felt like I should.  It’s fine.  It’s your average 1980s teen slasher flick.  I much preferred the first movie.

The East:  2013 thriller directed by Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgard, Ellen Page, Toby Kebbell, Shiloh Fernandez, Julia Ormond, Patricia Clarkson, Josh Ritter, Aldis Hodge, and Hillary Baack.  Jan (Marling) is an operative at a private intelligence firm.  She has been tasked with infiltrating The East, an underground anarchist organization that is threatening the firm’s corporate clients.  As Jan gets deeper and deeper into her assignment she starts to develop an ambivalence towards her job, her lifestyle, her boyfriend, everything.  And she is drawn deeper into their world by The East’s magnetic leader, Benji (Skarsgard).

I frequently watch movies that I like.  Occasionally I’ll find something that I like like.  Rarely do I love a movie.  But this?  I would marry this movie.  I would have babies with this movie.  I would grow old and retire and buy a fake adobe cottage in Sedona with this movie.  So yeah, I don’t want to oversell it but HOLY FUCK you guys.  The story is compelling, the acting is exquisite, the characters are multidimensional and empathetic, and the bittersweet ending is appropriate.  There are so many little moments and tiny details to appreciate; like when Izzy (Page) confronts a new corporate target, a man she has a personal connection to – her eyes flash up and it just hits you in the gut.  You must see it.

Somm:  2013 documentary directed by Jason Wise, which follows four men as they prepare for the master sommelier exam.  A sommelier, or “somm” in the vernacular, is a wine expert.  They typically work in fine restaurants or with collectors and are involved with purchasing, storage, cellar rotation, the development of the wine list and recommended pairings.  A Master Sommelier diploma gets you serious cred in the food world and a HUGE pay-bump – all you have to do is learn literally everything about wine.  In the 40-plus years since the Master Sommelier was introduced, 214 people have earned a diploma.  That’s about four people per year.  And so we watch Ian, Dustin, Brian, and DLynn drill and practice and memorize to pass the grueling three-part exam: theory examination (every fact there is to know about wine), service (salesmanship, pairing, dealing with asshole patrons), and the blind taste test (name the grape, region, vineyard, and year).

I barely care about wine and still found it fascinating.  It’s beautifully shot, nicely paced, and I found myself rooting for these Type-A dudes – well, most of them.  The fact that it was all guys and that the girlfriends and wives were presented as long-suffering worriers did get a bit old at times.  Still, definitely worth seeing.

Skyfall:  2012 James Bond movie directed by Sam Mendes and starring Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Albert Finney, and Ben Winshaw.  MI6 is under attack from a former agent with a serious chip on his shoulder.  That’s pretty much all you need to know.  This is my favorite of the Craig-era Bond films so far.  I found it more interesting than Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace – mostly because they’ve sort of blurred together.  Bardem was brilliant, and I love Naomie Harris and hope she sticks with the franchise.  Winshaw as the new Q was irksomely cocky at first but he grew on me.  It was a bit heavy-handed with the whole meditation on aging theme but at least it acknowledged it?  See it.

 

Mini Reviews: 6/18/14

Dead Fall: 2012 crime drama directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky and starring Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde, Charlie Hunnam, Kate Mara, Sissy Spacek, and Kris Kristofferson.  Addison (Bana) and Liza (Wilde) are siblings on the lam after a casino heist, and when their car crashes and a run-in with a state trooper goes sour they decide to split up and meet in Canada.  So Addison heads off into the frozen woods, and Liza is picked up hitchhiking by Jay (Hunnam), who has just been released from prison.  Sparks fly, and suddenly Liza’s creepy attachment to her brother/father figure is thrown into question.  Meanwhile, state troopers are closing in on both siblings, and a confrontation looms.

                  It was decent.  I was drawn to it for the Hunnam and the Spacek and the Mara of it all, and they did not disappoint.  I still don’t get why everyone is so nuts about Olivia Wilde, but she was fine.  There were no major twists, a few unbelievable but forgivable turns, it didn’t annoy me, and dear god Charlie Hunnam.  Just damn.

Iron Man:  2008 action movie directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey, Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Shaun Toub.  Tony Stark, the charismatic head of the defense contractor Stark Industries, is in Afghanistan showing off some fun new missiles when he’s kidnapped by the terrorist group Ten Rings.  He’s injured in the process, and a fellow prisoner grafts an electromagnet to Stark’s chest to keep shrapnel shards from penetrating his heart.  When he’s well enough, Ten Rings demand he build weapons for them.  Instead he creates this fancy arc reactor for his heart and a suit of robotic armor, escapes, and wrecks all their shit.  When he returns home he decides to shift his company away from the arms trade, much to his partner’s chagrin.  He retires to his personal workshop and improves the suit, just in time to fight another battle with Ten Rings, but now he has an angry board of trustees and the U.S. government on his ass.  Being an entrepreneurial genius playboy must be so tiring, right?

                  It’s pretty cute; a serviceable action movie with good exposition and impressive action sequences.  The chemistry between RDJ and Paltrow rings true and the character of Tony Stark is sufficiently charming yet vulnerable enough to keep one engaged when things start to drag.

Iron Man 2:  2010 action movie directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey, Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson.  It’s six months later, Stark has come out as Iron Man, the Armed Forces are salivating (and holding congressional hearings) over the thought of getting their bureaucratic hands on the technology, the palladium core in the arc reactor that’s keeping Stark alive is also slowly poisoning him, and a Russian with terrible hair has a serious vendetta and is looking for a robot-suit-on-robot-suit showdown.  Plus ScarJo.

                  Second verse, same as the first.  I think I liked this one a little more.  Rourke pulls off the scheming, crazy scientist thing rather well, Johansson is a badass, and I was surprised but not disappointed with the Cheadle-Howard switcheroo.  If you liked any of the Avengers-related movies then give both of these a shot.

Child’s Play 2:  1990 horror movie directed by John Lafia and starring Alex Vincent, Christine Elise, Brad Dourif, Gerrit Graham, and Jenny Agutter.  In the first movie, a dying serial killer transferred his spirit into a doll, which young Andy Barclay then received as a gift from his mother.  The Chucky doll goes on a murderous rampage, set on transferring his spirit again into poor Andy.  The first movie ends (SPOILER!) with Chucky getting shot and theoretically killed by one of his former accomplices.  The sequel begins with Andy (Vincent) being adopted - his mother was locked up in a mental ward after testifying that Chucky was real.  He’s settling into life with his foster parents and new stepsister Kyle (Elise) when Chucky returns to exact revenge and start that whole spirit-transfer nonsense up again.

I haven’t seen the original since I was a kid, but I feel like this is fairly similar.  At this point the Child’s Play franchise takes on it’s slightly more comedic bent, so keep that in mind if you have strong feelings about the comedy horror subgenre.  I liked it, but largely because I liked the first movie and very much enjoy Christine Elise, who you may remember from such TV programs as Beverly Hills 90210 (Emily Valentine 4-EVA!) or ER.

Darkness Falls:  2003 horror movie directed by Jonathan Liebesman and starring Chaney Kley, Lee Cormie, and Emma Caulfield.  The sleepy Eastern Seaboard hamlet of Darkness Falls is home to the legend of the Tooth Fairy, a woman who was murdered by an angry mob and now returns as an angry ghost whenever a child in the town loses a tooth.  If you catch a glimpse of her you are cursed, and she will hunt you down with no regard for collateral damage.  When Kyle (Kley) was a teenager, he was unlucky enough to look upon her creepy visage and in her rampage the Tooth Fairy killed his mother.  Twelve years later, Caitlin (Caulfield) tracks Kyle down because her little brother has suddenly developed a severe phobia of the dark, and didn’t . . . wasn’t there . . . something about Kyle being carted off to a mental institution because of a similar thing?  Kyle reluctantly returns to Darkness Falls and discovers that young Michael (Cormie) has also been marked by the Tooth Fairy, who has been waiting to exact her vengeance on them both.

                  I realize that attempting to apply logic to a supernatural horror film is a fool’s errand, but there was a lot of stupid happening in this movie.  I don’t get the Tooth Fairy’s whole deal.  Does she just leave after she kills a kid who sees her?  And if Kyle has eluded her for this long does that mean she’s been hanging around for a decade?  Does she travel, or can she only kill within county limits?  And the whole threat in this movie (her ability to kill only in the dark) seems to be possible only due to the convergence of a thunderstorm and this town’s shitty wiring.  It’s fine, but a little boring.  I mostly watched it because I love Emma Caulfield.  It might be nice to revisit around Halloween if I need something mindless to watch.  Maybe don’t go to great lengths to seek it out.

Mini Reviews: 6/11/14

First Circle:  2010 documentary about the American foster care system directed by Heather Rae.  It centers mostly on children being removed from homes with meth labs in Idaho.   It was interesting, but perhaps too narrow in focus.  There was a lot I didn’t know about the foster care system – babysitters and sleepover require background checks, and even haircuts have to be approved – but it felt like just dipping a toe in.  I wish there had been more, but it was decent.

The World’s End:  2013 sci fi comedy directed by Edgar Wright and starring Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, and Pierce Brosnan.  As teenagers, Gary King and his chums attempted and failed at an epic 12-stop pub crawl known as the Golden Mile.  Now in his late 30s, Gary hasn’t really moved on – I mean, he’s still wearing his Sisters of Mercy T-shirt – while the other boys have grown into responsible, relatively sober adults.  He convinces/guilts the old gang into taking another shot at the Golden Mile, but when they arrive back in their hometown it seems a lot has changed.  The townsfolk seem strangely . . . robotic?  Soon their pub crawl turns into a night of reopening emotional wounds, revisiting past crushes, and, you know, fighting for survival.

            It was really good, but my least favorite of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (the other two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).  The acting is brilliant – Frost and Pegg continue to impress me.  And Eddie Marsan is just fantastic; he’s been given smallish roles in blockbuster movies like the Sherlock Holmes redux with RDJ, but he shines brightest in smaller films like this.  The scene where he’s confronted by his former bully was an emotional sucker punch and it just made me so happy to see him with enough of a role to stretch his legs.  Anyway definitely see it, but be prepared for it to fizzle out at the end.

The Grey:  2011 thriller directed by Joe Carnahan and starring Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, and Dermot Mulroney.  John is a solitary, melancholy hunter at an arctic oil drilling site, literally keeping the wolves at bay while working side by side with guys he describes as “men unfit for mankind” – fugitives, roughnecks, drifters, and the like.  During a flight back home the company plane crashes, and he has to get his fellow survivors organized if they're going to make it back to civilization and fend off the wolf pack that's closing in on them.

It wasn’t what I had expected.  At all.  There’s a lot of waxing philosophical about death, religion, and family.  It was better than I thought it would be, but not amazing and fairly predictable.  Maybe give it a shot if you’re looking for an action movie filled with bearded men scrapping in the hinterlands and talking about atheism.

The Last Days of Disco:  1998 dark ensemble comedy directed by Whit Stillman and starring Kate Beckinsale, Chloe Sevigny, Chris Eigeman, Mackenzie Astin, Matt Keeslar, Jennifer Beals, and Robert Sean Leonard.  Alice and Charlotte are twenty-something’s in early 1980s New York, working at a publishing house together, living in an apartment together, going to awful clubs together, and secretly competing with each other while surrounded by Wall Street assholes and Studio 54 assholes and whatever.

I kind of hated it.  Charlotte (Beckinsale) is an insufferable human being, and Alice (Sevigny) has no personality and no spine.  Was I supposed to empathize with these people?  I only kept watching because I hoped something awful would happen to them.  But instead I had to sit through a series of endless speeches delivered flatly by shitty characters.  Eigeman as the lady-killing scoundrel Des is the only redeeming part of this movie, and only because he provided occasional comic relief.  It was depressing and pointless and you shouldn’t bother.

I can't even look at you in that dress.

 

Tonight You’re Mine (a.k.a. You Instead):  2011 romantic comedy directed by David MacKenzie and starring Luke Treadaway, Natalia Tena, Mathew Baynton, and Gavin Mitchell.  Adam and Morello are lead singers in two bands performing at T in the Park, a Scottish music festival. When their initial meeting immediately turns into a tiff, a passing preacher decides it would be cute to handcuff them to each other.  Now they have to get their bickering in check long enough to find someone who can remove the handcuffs, all while dealing with their significant others, performing, and handling band conflict and drunk managers.  Will they learn to cooperate?

            Despite my aversion to music festivals (too hot, too loud, too many people) and the fact that it’s REALLY predictable, I still liked it quite a bit.  Tena, who you may recognize from her role as Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter movie series, is always a delight.  And the skinny indie electropop front man character suits Treadaway nicely.  Give it a try.