Whatever narrative nugget come from the mind of Shane Black, it is most likely guaranteed to be gold – comedic, dramatic, or something in between. Given that this hilarious detective yarn seems culled from any number of buddy cop films, or seminal TV shows, The Nice Guys is an uproarious outing, and one that allows Black to prove that what’s old is new again. Filmmakers can fall into a rhythm (or a rut) where they more or less make the same movie. The Nice Guys seems familiar, but Black is able to make this different by making it what he wants it to be. That does however mean a few too many…
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Off the Shelf…’Star Wars: The Force Awakens’
J.J. Abrams, after years in TV, proved his mettle revitalizing the Star Trek franchise on the big screen. He later left the galaxy where people boldly go, and ventured into another – this one far, far away. The first non-Lucas involved Star Wars episodic story expands on everything which came before. However, Episode VII, smartly, does not rely on nostalgia. The Bad Robot team knows this universe well, and they pick up on the previous saga’s material in ways both reverent and forward-thinking. Here, with a seemingly limitless canvas, Abrams and company offer, more or less, a new origin story and a true passing of the torch, err lightsaber to the likes of Daisy…
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G-S-T Review…Midnight Special
When it comes to Jeff Nichols, the man knows how to keep you in suspense while teetering on the edge of boredom. That’s meant to be a compliment, not an insult, but the banality, or better, normalcy in his films help ground both the protagonist and the viewer in the real world. A combination of roughly 85% practicality, and a very alluring 15% sci-fi, he repeatedly succeeds in these dream-like narratives because his stories draw on viewers’ imaginations and really hit home on an emotional level. Midnight Special, an homage as much as it is a stylized throwback, is light and fast, and gets the job done with nothing more…
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G-S-T-Review…Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
If you saw one movie last weekend, it was most likely Zack Snyder’s follow-up to Man of Steel. A cinematic event both hotly anticipated and highly divisive in the movie-going community, this iconic “match up” is something of an anomaly. On paper (both the story from David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio, and the various seminal comics they culled from) this big screen throw down was a grapefruit that Snyder and company should have knocked out of the park….but sadly, BvS is a bit of a mess. While the intent was to craft a reverent adaptation, what fans got was a sluggish affair – one mashed together so hastily that very…
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G-S-T Review…Zootopia
You really have to give Disney a hand for getting back in the animation game. Thanks to hits like Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and last year’s Big Hero 6, Disney is once again a major force in the industry. Change is inevitable, and as things go, producing features using drawn animation could only have lasted so long. CGI powehouse Pixar hit their stride long ago, but now it is the Mouse House who is seemingly ahead of the curve when it comes to pixels and the digital arts. As the studio has come in and out of greatness, one thing has been constant – they are fantastic storytellers who are able to draw in…
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G-S-T Review…Lazer Team
One of the darlings of Fantastic Fest, and others like it, this sci-fi buddy comedy – about four morons being Earth’s only hope against pending galactic doom (would you expect any less from a genre film?) – is everything you could want in a midnight movie. As such, it joins a long line of preposterous romps, namely Idiocracy, Hobo With A Shotgun, Machete Kills, and Turbo Kid, and all the zaniness they can deliver. Lazer Team is a modern yarn, but the premise has a decidedly throwback vibe which will make any fan of the ’80s happy – especially the absurdly over-the-top elements. It’s highly irreverent, and tries to channel a Nation Lampoon level of humor, but sadly, the results…
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G-S-T Review…The Revenant
In what might be the best film of the year (not the most popular – that’s a toss up between Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mad Max: Fury Road, and, for us, The Martian), Alejandro González Iñárritu one-ups his stellar Birdman with an equally compelling narrative which is, shockingly, a true one to boot. The Revenant has echoes of what other filmmakers might have done with their own surreal Western (Kubrick, Malick, and Refn to name but a few) and yet Iñárritu makes this his own, replete with stand-out visuals that say more than the characters ever could. The dialogue is kept brief, and the scenery/imagery tells us all we need to know. After…
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Off the Shelf…’Ant-Man’
These days, the world of home video sees trends come and go with the arrival of each subsequent “big thing”. 3D is falling off fast, almost non-existent at this point, but once in a while it translates well from the big screen to the small(er) ones. Ant-Man, Marvel Studios’ little engine that could made a big splash earlier this year, and it is just as welcomed at home in this Blu-Ray release. Even if you don’t have a 3D set up, the film and its supplements won’t disappoint. Now those that do have the already outdated technology will revel in scenes that simply sing in the third dimension. As far…
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G-S-T Review…Brooklyn
With Brooklyn, John Crowley (from the novel by Colm Tóibín) tells the story of an ambitious Irish immigrant, Eilis (played by Saoirse Ronan), who makes her way to New York in the 1950s. After arriving, her life changes completely, but the longing for her homeland never subsides, and the tale of determination so far from home touches on the immigrant in all of us. But Crowley’s film is a bit of an oddity, a bittersweet emotional tale, and because of it, the film is an unexpected triumph. The film has the charm and humor of a Woody Allen movie with the heart and honesty of a Raymond De Felitta story, and that…
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Off the Shelf…’Tomorrowland’
Brad Bird has an affinity for telling heartfelt stories and infusing them with incredible amounts of whimsy and delight, charm and inventiveness. The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and now Tomorrowland, Bird is proficient in spinning yarns that are as nostalgia-fueled as they are forward-thinking. Tomorrowland presents itself as a duality, which is to say Bird shows us the best we as a society might hope for in a distant future, but also offers a cautionary tale about not taking action while we have the chance. Now it’s not doom and gloom. In fact, it’s fun and fanciful and more so because of the characters, not just the inventions. We are thrown…
