December 2014

Unbroken

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Unbroken
  • IMDb: link

UnbrokenMash-up The Bridge on the River Kwai and Rescue Dawn, while oversimplifying it for mainstream audiences, and you’ve got something that looks quite a bit like Angelina Jolie‘s directorial debut. Unbroken isn’t a bad film, but unwilling to color outside the lines Jolie takes a remarkable story and offers us a paint-by-number hero tale that only marginally entertains while struggling to celebrate a man’s inspirational journey as a prisoner of war during World War II.

After clips showing us what a punk kid he was before falling in love with track and field, the film centers around the war experience of former Olympian Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) whose Olympic moments and life following WWII are glossed over and ignored. Instead the screenplay by the Coen Brothers (in the most un-Coen Bros. script you’ve ever seen), Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson is a somewhat unfocused look at Louis’ life in war spending an inordinate amount of time focused on the weeks he was lost at sea before skipping ahead to offer highlights of his P.O.W. experience which by on-screen time you may mistakenly feel were of near equal length (rather than weeks on the raft versus the years spent in the camps).

…

UnbrokenRead More »

Unbroken Read More »

Into the Woods

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Into the Woods
  • IMDb: link

Into the WoodsBased on the stage musical of the same name by Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods offers a fairy tale adventure featuring a host of well-known characters whose stories all begin to intertwine over three days in the mysterious woods filling the space between their various homes. The story begins when the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) learn their inability to have children was caused by a curse put on his family by an evil Witch (Meryl Streep). The Witch, however, offers the couple a way to break the curse if they can gather an odd assortment of items before the blue moon in three days time. And that, as you might expect, is where the other characters come in.

To gather the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold the Baker and his wife will come into contact with Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) and his mother (Tracey Ullman), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), and a pair of princes seeking true love (Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen).

…

Into the WoodsRead More »

Into the Woods Read More »

Samurai Jack #15

/ / Comics

Samurai Jack #15The final issue of “The Quest of the Broken Blade” pits Samurai Jack against Aku without the magical sword which is the only weapon the evil demon fears. Those waiting for a big throwdown between the pair are not going to be disappointed as the entire comic is a single battle between Jack and Aku that ends with the samurai’s sword restored and Aku’s relentless attacks paused as the evil shape-shifting master of darkness escapes once more.

How the sword reappears is a bit of a surprise but certainly fits into the metaphysical aspects of the comic and the animated show which spawned it as the character not only finds the strength to keep fighting from within but the weapon by which to do so as well.

…

Samurai Jack #15Read More »

Samurai Jack #15 Read More »

Obvious Child

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Obvious Child
  • IMDb: link

“I think a lot of people learned a lot about the Holocaust tonight.”

Obvious ChildWritten and directed by Gillian Robespierre, Obvious Child is the harsh look at modern life and romantic relationships that the more ballyhooed Enough Said never had the balls to be (choosing instead to fall back on basic romcom clichés). Jenny Slate stars as a struggling stand-up comedian whose recent break-up leads to a drunken hook-up with a man (Paul Briganti) she barely knows. Despite having the best night she can remember (even if she can only remember tiny pieces of it) the shamed Donna attempts to move on which becomes more difficult when she discovers she’s pregnant weeks later.

What could easily have been made in an unwatchable Hollywood tripe, Robespierre steers clear of the pitfalls of the genre focusing almost entirely on Donna and her friends and family, keeping the romantic possibilities on the back burner. The movie is about Donna’s reaction to a pivotal moment in her life not an excuse for pratfalls and over-the-top romantic gestures.

…

Obvious ChildRead More »

Obvious Child Read More »