Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

I realize that the vast majority of the people who come across this review will have never even heard of the movie The Crow, much less have seen it, but you should know that that film is basically The Godfather to quite a few goth kids (I should say goth parents at this point) out there. It was a dark superhero film that allowed everyone who has ever felt as though they were an outsider to live vicariously through Eric Draven as he exacted revenge on those who took everything from him. You cheered every time he took out an adrenaline seeking conformer and rocked out while doing so because this film also had a killer grunge and industrial soundtrack, music that was considered to be weird in a Country Music loving society. Tim McGraw and George Strait were really big back then.

It didn’t take long for this movie to become a cult hit and when that happened the studio decided to try and cash in on our pain. What sucked is that the film’s main star Brandon Lee died tragically during the filming of this classic so the studio had to scramble to find a way to make a sequel. So they decided to move the story to Los Angeles and just painted some white looking Hispanic dude’s face even whiter and tried to push that off to us as a cool continuation of the story. They even brought in Bush and Hole to add some sexiness to the screen. Those are bands that were on the soundtrack by the way, not my adolescent way of saying there were some cool sex scenes in it; although if this blog has proven anything it’s that I’m certainly not above doing that.

The point of all of this is that Hollywood didn’t learn its lesson when this film flopped, they proceeded to make two more awful sequels that were hated by both the diehard and the casual fan. And believe it or not, they still plan to reboot it with Jason Mamoa in the next year or two. Will someone please tell those greedy bloodsuckers to let it go and just let us have that one moment in time? Well the sad thing is, The Crow wasn’t the only childhood memory that Hollywood stepped on, they’ve also been killing the memories of every science and anthropology nerd out there by releasing terrible sequels to Steven Spielberg’s classic film Jurassic Park. I, like every other kid, grew up with this fascination of dinosaurs and never believed that we’d ever get to see them outside of a museum. That is until Spielberg brought to life every kids dream, an amusement park where you could actually see live dinosaurs doing dinosaur things in their natural habitat. We sat in awe and then terror as the Velociraptors and the T-Rex wreaked havoc on everything that got in their way, and we simply couldn’t get enough of it.

So even though we knew the sequel was probably going to be terrible, we all lined up to see The Lost World, and guess what, we were right! Now you would think that Hollywood would have learned its lesson but we all know how this story ended, they came out with a part three that no one saw and they had no choice but to finally put Jurassic Park to bed. That is until Chris Pratt and Colin Trevorrow came along and gave us Jurassic World, a silly movie that we wound up putting up with for nostalgia purposes only. Anyone with a half a brain knew the movie wasn’t that good (pretty sure I gave it a rating of Fresh but I was drinking a lot back then) but it was something to take your kids or nieces and nephew to see. And even though it was both fun and ridiculous, we were all hoping that there wouldn’t be a sequel.

Well here we are, talking about Fallen Kingdom; a film where Trevorrow reached out to a 13 year old intern to write the story for. In it, the island that hosted the killer dinosaurs is on the verge of destruction due to an explosive volcano that’s about to erupt. So one of the co-creators of the original park, James Lockwood, has his assistant and apparent heir, Eli reach out to Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt) to help rein in as many of the dinosaurs as they can so they can save them from extinction. There is a party of hunters on the island that have already captured a few of the dinosaurs but they cannot reach the most difficult species, the Velociraptor; and more specifically Blue, Owen’s pet project and the smartest of them all. Owen reluctantly agrees to go along but once he does he immediately realizes that this mission isn’t what it was presented to be. Eli has basically hired poachers to come in and steal the most dangerous dinosaurs so that he can turn around and sell them on the Black Market to be used as weapons. There’s even an underground auction that takes place with some of the world’s worst human beings in attendance. Well as you can imagine things go south and everyone involved has to fight for their lives.

Now just like the new Burger King Beer Burger that recently came out, on the surface it doesn’t look or sound that bad but the second you bite into it, you immediately become sick and cannot believe that you’ve wasted your money. Damn that creepy king! The underground auction is as stupid and as cheesy as you imagine it would be simply because it’s a bunch of old white and Japanese men in suits sweating and salivating over these dinosaurs as if they were 18 year old strippers who had just been sex trafficked into their creepy lairs. And for some reason they portray anyone who’s young as an annoying Millennial who cannot stand to be outside and is afraid of absolutely everything. It’s as if my grandfather was brought in to be a consultant for that piece of the film. Every joke is lame and falls completely flat and the action scenes are so derivative, it honestly feels as though you’re watching The Lost World again. There’s nothing remotely original or engaging in this film with the exception of the unintentional comedy that’s provided every time they try and add drama to the story. I literally broke out laughing every time a dinosaur climbed to the top of a house or ran through a cage to the backdrop of an operatic crescendo. It was as if I was watching Van Helsing with dinosaurs. But that sadly wasn’t enough to make me feel as though I got my money’s worth.

I strongly suggest avoiding this film at all costs as I give it a rating of unbelievably WEAK!

Ready Player One

As I celebrated my 86th birthday this week, I had the opportunity to reflect on some of the better birthday celebrations I had when I was still a bright eyed and hopeful youth; the best of which was a fish fry my dad threw for me in his best friend’s epic backyard. I’m from a small town where there wasn’t much to do, so fish fries were a big deal; they gave everyone the chance to unwind from a long week, catch up with old friends, gaze at the stars, listen to some of the best artists RnB and Jazz (at least for my family) had to offer, and of course drink all of the Bud Light, Budweiser, and Crown Royal the local market had to offer. I mean, if I were old enough, I definitely might’ve impregnated someone that night but at that time my game was pretty weak, so sadly I was dateless at my own party. All I could do was enjoy the family and friends who gathered there and temporarily forget the fact that I lived in country Texas.

And this is why I think Ready Player One is even more of a fantasy than the writers intended it to be. Again, I was in a small town and this was 70 years ago, so this was well before the days of virtual reality. In order to escape my daily misery, I had to rely on ghetto VR which consisted of me day dreaming about hitting the game winning shot in the Final Four and then banging every woman from the James Bond movies as a reward afterwards. And trust me, I can feel your judgement as I write this but I think I deserve some credit for not turning into a Children of the Corn psychopath who stored bodies in his closet just before running off to get some late night Taco Cabana. Victoria was that awful of a place.

The point is, if Ready Player One was a nonfiction story, it would’ve been the most boring movie ever made because all teenage boys care about is Pikachu and getting laid. You seriously would’ve had 2400 hours of footage that focused solely on some dude chasing a yellow looking doll around a park while finishing way too quickly once a girl sticks her hands down his pants. I guess there’s the off chance that he’s an early developing Furry and you see Pikachu sticking its hands down his pants but that’s seriously the best you can hope for.

Well thankfully they decided to go the route of fiction and gave us the story of Wade, a kid who lives in a depressing version of our future where the only escape from the poverty and awful living conditions is the virtual reality world called Oasis; a place that was created by the genius programmer, Halliday. Halliday loved 80’s and early 90’s pop culture and most of his VR world featured some of most iconic things from those eras. It was such a great escape that literally everyone played his game, especially after he made the announcement that whoever found his three hidden Easter eggs would not only inherit his fortune but would have control over the Oasis.

Wade and his best friend Aech are two of the remaining few who continue to try and solve Halliday’s tricky puzzles. And in the process, Wade falls for the mysterious Art3mis, another gamer who has a shared hatred for the big corporation that’s trying to not only win the game but also have even more control of this dystopian society. Will they find the eggs before the corporation does? Can Wade even trust Art3mis? And is his friend Aech hiding the fact that he’s really a Furry who’s trying to lure him into his dark underworld? These are all things you must find out on your own.

But in the process you’ll have fun doing so because the VR world Halliday has created is so cool. It’s not all about the game; in his world you can literally make all of your dreams come true. Whatever you can imagine is brought to life in his world, so even if you don’t get all of the 20 and 30 year old references, the visuals in this movie alone will keep you engaged. Not to mention the fact that the challenges Halliday requires you to pass before you find each egg are fun; the first of which was the most exciting of the film. It’s a race that you must win, which sounds easy enough, except for the simple fact that no one has ever been able to actually finish the race. You not only have to fight off your opponent but the tons of obstacles that are thrown in your way, like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park or King Kong who basically destroys the entire race track. And it’s in this race that you see the bulk of the pop culture references Halliday implements, 70% of which are all from Spielberg movies; the same guy who directed Ready Player One. I personally thought that if he were really fresh, Spielberg would have also included a few nods to some of his depressing films like Schindler’s List or The Color Purple. You too can have sex with Whoopi Goldberg or mow down Nazis while trying to free people from a concentration camp. Admit it, you were expecting a more offensive joke than that, weren’t you? Come on, I’m not a monster!

Anyway, even without those additions, this movie was highly entertaining and I strongly suggest that you go see it in the theater. I give Ready Player One a rating of FRESH!


　

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

As I watched for the first time this week what most would consider to be American classics in Robert Deniro’s Raging Bull and Beyonce’s Lemonade, I wondered to myself, "Would I even like the original Star Wars movies if I was just seeing them for the first time as an adult?" I mean, characters like Han Solo, R2D2, Yoda, and of course Billy Dee Williams (who cares what his character’s name was) will always stand the test of time. But looking back, it took a while for me to like Luke because he was kind of a whiny little bitch in A New Hope. And along those some lines, furry giants like Chewbacca and furry midgets like the Ewoks might have been a little disturbing at first but I would have eventually come around on them as well. But we all know that the first time Darth Vader graced the screen with his cool voice and evil death grip, I would’ve instantly been sold. Sure there’s a ton of cheesiness in these films but there’s a reason why The Godfather is the greatest American trilogy alive and Star Wars is the world’s greatest trilogy; everyone can find something they love and identify with in these films.

Maybe this is why I can’t fully get on board with the last two installments of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Rogue One is probably the third best of any of the Star Wars movies because unlike TFA, it actually added something to the franchise while giving a nod to its predecessors, instead of just copying A New Hope’s storyline word for word. The Last Jedi did add quite a bit, most of which I liked, but the flaws in this film are so glaring that they overshadow any good that came out of it.

Now this review is mainly for those who have already seen the film so I won’t spend much time giving you a synopsis of the plot; but for those who haven’t, here’s basically what you’re getting yourself into. The First Order is on the attack after finding out the whereabouts of The Resistance; and for the most part they have them cornered and on the verge of destruction. That is until hot shot Poe Dameron somehow outsmarts them and destroys all of their big guns to help buy The Resistance some time; or so he thinks. The First Order has found a way to track their enemy through light speed, which basically means it’s impossible to escape them. So now The Resistance must find a way to stave them off long enough to regroup and reestablish a potent army.

Everything up until this point I am ok with. I am even ok, for the most part, with the 45 minute subplot that involved Finn and the socially awkward tech/engineer Rose sneaking off to a random planet with the hopes of finding the master code breaker. They need his help to break into and disable The First Order’s revolutionary tracking device to help keep The Resistance alive. Now the problem I do have is not only the fact that this subplot is 45 minutes long but that it shows that we as a society are still stuck in the 1960’s. Forget for a moment that their little adventure wound up being completely pointless, what I’m more concerned with is that it showed that Disney has no spine.

They didn’t back down when the internet lost its collective mind over the fact that there was a Black Stormtrooper but they did cave in when people started complaining that said Black trooper and the movie’s white female lead in Rey were falling for each other. Did they not realize that people in Alabama just got the internet like a year and a half ago? Of course they’re going to troll the message boards! What else are they going to do in between Alabama football games? So what does Disney do after spending the entire first film setting up Rey and Fin? They force another love interest on him because Black and Asian is cool but not Black and White. If only Michael Jackson was alive to see this! I mean, really??? It’s ok for a giant fat lizard like Jabba the Hut to have Leia as a sex slave but a Black guy, well that’s taking it a little too far! Although my buddy did have an awesome take on this when he said "Please! Fin is just happy to get the attention of any girl. Janitors in the First Order get no play!" See, I think he’s wrong, I think Captain Phasma was so sexually frustrated that she would’ve pulled Matt Lauer, locked the door, and made him do a little late night cleaning; if you know what I mean. Now before you start complaining, yes, I totally realize that they could be setting up a love triangle that will work itself out in the third but even if they do, was it really worth almost ruining the second film to force this storyline? The answer is no.

But outside of this, there were bigger issues. I know I said that Luke was kind of a little bitch in A New Hope but you would think that after saving the galaxy and having a universe of groupies at his disposal, he’d put that behind him and finally turn into the man. Even after failing at his attempt to set up a Jedi school, he still had an entire planet to himself that came with his own little minions and fresh milk from the teat of some weird looking animal. Well instead we get more whining about how religious leaders who are in political control allow their hubris to get the best of them and ultimately fail. Thanks for your religious and political views writer/director Rian Johnson but this is a Star Wars film, stick to light sabers and gender confused robots like C-3PO. Luke tried to be cool at the end but instead he went out like a little scrub after Yoda talked shit to him and he used too much of the force. I guess if you use too much of the force, you just disintegrate? At least Obi Wan went out like a straight G! Oh well, that was yet another 25-30 minutes of wasted screen time. Make Luke fresh! At least give the dude one cool light saber scene before he goes away. Instead, they for some reason decide to keep Leia alive by turning her into Superwoman. She’s the only human alive who can fly through space without a spacesuit after being blown up in an explosion. I cannot express how hokey this scene was.

I have a few more issues like Kylo continuing to be a little shouting brat who sucks at using the Force but I’ll stop there. There were some cool parts like the weird connection that existed between Kylo Ren and Rey. The fact that they were able to communicate via the force was a cool little wrinkle and a welcomed addition to the franchise. Also the scene where Rey and Kylo take out Snoke was by far the coolest thing I’ve seen since Spaceballs the Flamethrower! And from a visual standpoint, this film is breathtaking. Every scene on the salt planet was cool with the red residue and the salt jackals or whatever they were. And the weird birdlike animals that befriended Chewbacca were adorable; something that every kid will love. So all wasn’t lost in this film, especially when you consider the fact that there will be a generation of kids who will grow up wanting to be the next Rey or Fin; it’s just too bad they won’t think that a relationship between the two of them is a realistic possibility.

This film probably requires multiple viewings but it’s going to be quite some time before I invest 2 and a half hours again. If only they had that one badass moment that everyone could take away from it like Empire did. "Luke, I am your father!" was something that made up for quite a few issues in that film but sadly, that moment never materialized in Last Jedi and that is why I rate this film as WEAK!
 

The Shape of Water

"I am human and I need to be looooooooved! Just like everybody else does!" For those of you who have never heard The Smith’s song How Soon is Now, do yourself a favor and check out what my friend calls the most uplifting yet depressing song ever recorded. Most of the music in the song makes you think of a fun time but the crying guitar and the lyrics that accompany it make you want to sulk in a dark corner with a razor blade and a chocolate bar. "There’s a club if you’d like to go, you could meet someone who really loves you. So you go and stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home and you cry and you want to die"

Now naturally this is my favorite song of theirs; not because I never get any love in the club like Ice Cube but because I grew up a decade too soon. And this is important because anyone who has ever read any of my reviews knows that due to the transcendent acting skills of the Cinemax softcore porn queen Shannon Tweed, I have an affinity for white blonde girls with big boobs; it’s just a part of my DNA now. But growing up in the 90’s and in Texas, it was still a little taboo for a black man and a white woman to hook up. I mean, you could do so on the down low but when it came time to finally meet the parents, you would always hear that slow gospel music playing in the background while walking up to a house in the country that had a burning cross and dudes in white sheets standing in front of it. That’s why I never felt sorry for Ben Stiller in that stupid movie of his, if he thought Bobby Deniro lost his cool over him losing his cat while it was in his possession, then there’s no way he could handle how Jethro Tull felt after he saw his daughter lose her virginity while it was in my possession! I must admit though that I wanted to Crypt Walk every time I saw their faces. "That’s right son! Pay back for slavery!" And yes, I know that Jethro Tull is British but it’s such a country name that works here. And no, I don’t really think I own a girl’s virginity, these are just jokes…for the most part.

What was really sad was the fact that no matter how much we loved each other, her parents never saw me as an actual human being. Oh, if I was holding a football for their favorite team or working for their construction company while going home to my Black girlfriend, then everything was fine but once I crossed the proverbial line, so to speak, all bets were off!

Well this speaks to why I and anyone who has ever felt rejected by humanity can connect with Guillermo’s del Toro’s The Shape of Water. In it you meet Elisa Esposito, who was played by the wonderful Sally Hawkins in an Oscar worthy performance. Elisa is a mute janitor who works in a secret government facility. For the most part she goes unnoticed by most of society with the exception of her neighbor and in the closet gay friend Giles (Richard Jenkins) and her coworker and de facto translator Zelda (Octavia Spencer). Every day she goes through the same boring routine finding simple pleasures where she can in musicals, daydreams, or early morning masturbation (you’re sold now, right?). She seemingly has accepted the fact that she will never be seen as normal but strives to help her neighbor Giles finally achieve his dreams and become comfortable in who he is. Life is just hard for them and Zelda as they live in the middle of Cold War America where if the color of your shoes are too red you could be brought up on charges, let alone date someone of the same gender or of a different race or even species. Species, you ask?

Yes, one day the overly ambitious bully Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) brings into Elisa’s secret lab a mysterious amphibian man who is instantly classified as dangerous. Is it a potential weapon or is it simply a scientific experiment? Either way, this thing must be kept from the public until they know what to do with it. Well little did Strickland know that Elisa would be the one to finally strike a connection with the creature while cleaning the lab at night. And in doing so, she finds out that he can not only communicate but is also able to express humanlike emotion. She finally has found someone who sees her for who she really is! This not only lights a fire in her but once again gives her hope for what life has in store for her. The problem lies in Strickland, will he destroy the Amphibian Man or even her if he finds out about the two of them?

Now I know this sounds like an odd children’s story gone awry, and to a certain extent it is as that’s del Toro’s MO, but this love story is a metaphor for humanity’s struggle to overcome societal norms. We all have to fight to become comfortable with the things that make us unique in life and we will always face someone or something that wants to destroy or get rid of anything it doesn’t understand. Are there some scenes that will make you uncomfortable? Well yes, but that’s the point as del Toro wants you to force yourself to get past what you consider normal and open your mind to new possibilities. He just goes to what can be considered extremes by using another species. True love can be found in many forms and in the process can make you and those around you better people.

I really liked this odd film and I think you will too! I give it a rating of FRESH!
 

Blade Runner 2049

Believe it or not, there are a few people on this planet who refuse to succumb to the advancements in technology and still insist on calling me rather than texting to have an actual conversation. Now two of these people get a free pass as they are my mother and my brother but as for the rest of the scrubs out there…it better be a life or death situation or I’m going to be really pissed! I will however excuse my friend who lives in Los Angeles who calls me to help keep him awake while he’s sitting in traffic but I consider that to be my community service work for the month, so that shouldn’t be an expectation for everyone.

Well my movie nerd friend, for some odd reason, called me three days in a row! Now he also occasionally gets a free pass but only when new nude pics of Scarlett Johansson are leaked online, so he should know better. And this is just after we had a phone conversation earlier in the week, so naturally my mind starts to think the worst! Is he sick? Is he in jail? Did Taylor Swift release yet another terrible video?

I had to finally stop everything I was doing and actually attempt to be a good friend. So I called him from the gym in a rather frantic state and was like ‘Hey! What’s going on???" Here was his response "Yo! Have you seen the new Vince Vaughn movie?" The f’n new Vince Vaughn movie?!?! Are you kidding me?!?! I didn’t even realize that that dude was still alive, let alone have any thoughts or desire to keep following his movie career! Was he serious?!?!

And as he kept talking about Vincent’s new movie, I couldn’t help but think to myself, "We really need to get this dude a virtual reality girlfriend like the one Ryan Gosling had in Blade Runner." Even if he’s just getting virtually laid that has to help channel his energy to something more productive. Think about how much safer the world would be if more people had VR girlfriends that were as hot as Ana de Armas is. R. Kelly could have sex with all the 13 year old VR girls his heart desired, Donald Trump could put his fingers up as many unsuspecting and horrified women that he wanted to instead of using them to send out ridiculous tweets (and of course violating real women), and Harvey Weinstein…well sadly he’d still be Harvey Weinstein. Something tells me that that fat bastard would get greedy and somehow try and masturbate to both VR and real women at the same time. The point is, I think Blade Runner 2049 should be required viewing for every potentially dangerous male out there.

But here’s the reason why everyone else should see it too; it’s a great movie! Now, let me first say that it is a true Sci-Fi film through and through, so that alone will keep everyone from thinking that it’s great. But at its core it’s an audial and visual experience like no other, and that’s part of what makes movies so special. Yes, the storyline and the acting are key but if you can walk away from a film in complete awe of what you just heard sonically and what you just witnessed visually, that is the complete package. Now typically when the storyline and acting take a backseat to the technical aspects of a film, you get stuck with trash like Independence Day 8 but director Denis Villeneuve is able to use these sometimes secondary elements to convey the message he really wants to deliver to his audience.

He seems to have a common theme in all of his films where his characters struggle with loneliness, fear, and the ability to connect with the rest of humanity, yet he’s able to share their stories in a myriad of ways. Who would have thought that a father who becomes obsessed with finding his kidnapped son (Prisoners) would have so much in common with a language expert who’s hired to help communicate with aliens from another world (Arrival)? Or that an FBI agent who is tracking down the Cartel (Sicario) would be so similar to a Replicant hunting down dangerous and obsolete Replicants for destruction (Blade Runner 2049). Ok, that last one isn’t too much of a stretch but I’m afraid to talk too poorly of the Cartel for fear of my life the next time I roll up in Mescal bar.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot but just know that Gosling is a young Blade Runner whose sole job is to track down and eliminate obsolete Replicants. Replicants are synthetic humans who are used to do manual labor. They are hated and despised by real humans and this hatred eventually leads to a war and famine that nearly destroyed the Earth. This is part of the reason why the production of them has been outlawed. (Side note: it would really help if you watched the three prequel shorts that were made for this film; at most it’s 20 minutes of your time)

But because he was able to save humanity from this famine; revolutionary inventor and entrepreneur, Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) is allowed to produce a new race of Replicants; one that only obeys its master or owner. This explains why Blade Runners like Gosling are around. Now while this story takes place 30 years after the original, Gosling, while tracking down one of the few remaining rogue Replicants, finds something that links him to one of the original Blade Runners, Deckard (Harrison Ford). And what he finds could have a drastic and irreversible impact on the world he currently knows.

As mentioned earlier, this movie’s theme speaks so much about humanity and what we feel it should and shouldn’t be while also introducing us to a futuristic world that’s both cool to look at yet chilling to contemplate when you take into account everything that’s going on. Gosling does what he does by bringing his stoic approach to the new Blade Runner and Harrison Ford showed that he’s not quite senile yet. But it’s the women who truly shine in this film. Robin Wright is solid and feisty as Gosling’s boss, Ana de Armas brings the much needed tenderness and heart that’s lacking in this cold and dark world, and Sylvia Hoeks delivers an Oscar worthy performance as the maniacally loyal assistant to Wallace.

Now you should know going in that this is a long film as it clocks in at just over 2 ½ hours but if you’re in for an actual movie experience, you will certainly get just that in Blade Runner 2049. I give this movie a rating of very FRESH! Now if you will excuse me, I’m off to go have sex with dead Tay Tay! 
 

Alien: Covenant

This week we lost yet another talented voice in the world of Rock n Roll when Chris Cornell decided to take his own life while on tour with his band Soundgarden. And if you’re keeping tabs, that now gets us even closer to seeing the entire Grunge genre being wiped off the face of the Earth as he has now joins fellow troubled front men Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, and Scott Weiland in the afterworld; three talented musicians who all decided that they could no longer handle the 357 days of overcast skies in the rainy Seattle. Hell, I only spent 48 hours in rainy Portland myself and already I was itching to pop into the local weed shops just so I could find a way to cope! And we all know that it was just a matter of time after that before I started sucking dick for heroin; I mean that’s just how it goes in the Pacific Northwest!

Now I don’t mean to make fun of depression or fatal drug abuse by any means as it’s clearly sad that none of these poor souls were able to find the help they needed for themselves so they could be there for their families. I guess I’m just wondering why they had to go and scrubby peeps like Eddie Vedder and Gavin Rossdale are still here. Did Rossdale make a deal with the devil while playing one of his henchmen in Constantine? "Finger licking good!" Or does the devil simply get enjoyment from forcing us to watch Vedder’s awful acting performance in the movie Singles? I guess we’ll never know.

But maybe director Ridley Scott is thinking the same thing after losing his brother Tony at such an early age. Why is Tony gone but pieces of complete waste like Michael Bay and Lars von Trier are still here? Well I guess some good did come out of it as Ridley has apparently decided to dedicate the rest of his days on this Earth to providing us with sequels and prequels to his game changing Sci-Fi flick Alien.

Now there is a lot of hatred out there for his first effort in Prometheus; although I cannot understand why as it included all of the essential elements of a classic Alien film. It had of course an alien, a strong female lead, a robot, and annoying characters, all of whom you wanted to see die a horrible death. Well Covenant has more of the same in it but in addition to that, it has Michael Fassbander in an expanded role. Fassbender’s character and his performance in this film, are what help make Covenant one of the best films Ridley has made in the last two decades.

I won’t give anything away but just know that human stupidity is what ultimately leads to this space crew’s tragic demise. Ten years after Noomi Rapace saves Earth from being destroyed by the hands of the giant and grumpy engineers, a group is sent out on a colonization expedition with the hopes of finding another planet that can sustain human life. Well after randomly running into solar flares that cause damage to the ship, the crew is awakened early to help get the ship fixed and put back on track. But as they do, they hear a distress signal from a nearby planet that sounds like a human singing a John Denver song. Now why anyone who is flying anything would hear the voice of John Denver and decide to head towards it is beyond me. That’s like hearing the voice of Magic Johnson or Charlie Sheen just before you bang a stripper, you just have to know how it’s going to end.

But they decide to put the lives of 2000 people who are stuck in cryo-sleep at risk and head towards it anyway, mainly because they didn’t feel like getting back into their sleep pods. Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, the second they land on this strange planet, horrible things start to happen and aliens appear out of nowhere. Now to this point, it sounds just like every other Alien film you’ve seen, but again the difference between what you’ve seen in the past and Ridley’s latest, is Fassbender. He brings such a dark and evil edge to this film that I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. It almost made me feel guilty for liking it. Again I can’t go into details without ruining it but just know that you will rarely see a performance of this caliber in a Sci-Fi film; especially one that has Kenny Powers in it.

So having said all of that, if you still have any reservations at all about seeing this film, don’t! Every part of the intricate plot is well thought out and the action scenes are off the charts. As a matter of fact, it’s the perfect blend of science fiction and action. And it’s because of this that I give it a rating of very FRESH!

Passengers

Last week I was reminded of just how old, and possibly out of touch, I am when it comes to communicating with today’s youth. I was in a work meeting and someone brought up a situation that reminded me of the painful yet funny scene involving John Favreau and the poor girl whose phone number he actually happened to get in the 90’s comedy classic, Swingers. For those who don’t remember that scene, it’s the one where he calls and leaves seven agonizing messages for the girl until she finally answers and says "Please don’t ever call me again!"

Well I brought this scene up and not a single person in the room had ever heard of the film before. "Oh, wait, did that have Vince Vaughn in it?" So sad. I did get some courtesy laughter and one guy, out of pity, did say that he thought he remembered the movie after my story, but clearly the joke was lost on them.

But the second someone brought up I Love You Man, everyone in the room erupted in laughter. It was like someone brought up Coming to America or something, you know, the greatest comedy of all time! Don’t get me wrong, I like me some "slapping the bass" but how can you love that film and have never seen Swingers? It’s not like I was referencing a Charlie Chaplin film or something; I’m not that old!

Anyway, this reminded me of the argument I brought up last month when I was reviewing the film Arrival. I knew that most of America wouldn’t appreciate it simply because unless you’re above the age of 30, you’ve never actually seen a true Sci-Fi film given all of the crap Hollywood has fed you over the years. All that youngsters have seen to this point in their lives are the ok Star Trek reboots and a few Tom Cruise films. So I knew that Passengers, no matter how solid it may be, was going to do poorly at the theaters as people didn’t want to get "fooled" into seeing yet another boring Sci-Fi flick (see Arrival). And for those who haven’t read my Arrival review, I think it’s clearly one of the best films of the year.

Passengers, as it turned out, ended up actually being somewhat entertaining. Don’t get me wrong, there is a ton of stuff that’s unbelievably wack in it but more on that in a second. If you’ve seen the preview, there’s a really good chance you think you’ve already seen the movie as it basically feels as though they’ve shown you the entire film in two minutes; but thankfully, that’s not entirely accurate.

This film is about 5,000 adventurers who decide to leave their lives on Earth behind so they can go colonize a planet that’s far far away. And from what I remember, the entire trip was scheduled to take over 120 years to complete, so obviously the passengers and the crew had to be put in some sort of cryo sleeping state to survive the voyage. Well along the way, something goes wrong and Jim (Chris Pratt) and Aurora’s (Jennifer Lawrence) pods are opened, awakening them both about 90 years too soon. So they are forced to either figure out a way to get back to sleep or accept the fact that they are going to die on the ship alone. But as you actually watch the film, you soon learn that not everything is as the preview made it out to be.

First let me start with what I thought was cool about this film. It’s in space, so that alone captured my attention. Jim and Aurora’s little spacewalk in the middle of the film was cool and it definitely brought back a few dreams of mine that I had when I was a kid. Second, there’s a scene in the film where the ship temporarily loses gravity and the director Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game and Headhunters) uses this opportunity to provide you with some of the best visuals you’ll see in this two hour (real time) voyage. Third, it had Jennifer Lawrence in it! The fact that every normal male out there is still in love with her, in spite of her Fappening photos, makes this secret "love in space" film bearable. Plus, her acting chops are on full display in this film, so for all you film connoisseurs out there, that should make you happy and also allow you to look past the borderline misogyny that’s in this review. It was also great to see Michael Sheen flashing his skills as the robot bartender and the film’s real storyline does make you think about some of the choices you’d make if you were put in a similar situation to Jim’s.

But now comes the bad. It’s a two hour ‘love in space’ film. I don’t mind love but have it serve as a backdrop to the actual science fiction of the film. I don’t need to see movie and dinner dates in space; hell they suck badly enough on Earth. "These aren’t tiger shrimp, I knew we should’ve gone to Irene’s instead!" That’s an excerpt from my real life by the way, not the film. Also, at one point, the writers turned the super mechanic, Jim into a world class botanist. And for those who don’t know, they are not one in the same. He’s somehow able to plant trees in the middle on the ship’s concourse with no soil and no place for the roots to grow. Ok, so I can live with that, and I can even live with the film’s ridiculously over the top Hollywood ending (trust me when I say you’ll know it when you see it) but my problem lies with the film’s half-hearted attempts to add depth to the story. They toss around themes about the ship’s corporate owners true motives and how a class system still exists on the ship even though they’re only supposed to be awake for 3 to 4 months. But these themes are only given cheesy one liners and then they go right back to making stupid eyes at one another. It felt like Arnold in The Sixth Day when after about a 90 second attempt to explain what had happened earlier in the film, he responds by saying "Enough of the philosophy" and goes right back to doing Arnold things.

Come on, not all of us are Arnolds; we want a real story to chew on while escaping from making our New Year’s Eve plans. Oh well, as you can see, I both liked and hated this film but overall I was glad that I saw it. It’s not one of the better films I’ve seen this year but it’s enjoyable at times, so based off of that, I’ll give it a rating of barely WEAK.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Given the rampant jungle fever that exists in our world today, there should now be a new race box to check on all government, job, or college application forms called Beige. I mean let’s be real, the first time slave master Jimbo laid eyes on Sally and that big ole badonkadonk of hers in the cotton fields of Texas, it was a wrap for all pure bloodlines as we knew it back then! And it’s because this new translucent race exists today, that the phrase Black Don’t Crack, should be a familiar one to all walks of life. But if you somehow live under the abandoned siding of an old construction unit in the hills in Tennessee and have never heard this saying before, it basically means that Black people look way younger than they actually are.

Well thankfully this is something that exists in my family as I am about to turn 86 years old this coming spring yet I somehow still look and act like I’m 26! Ok, so my knees may hurt the next day after entering a mosh pit and I now get cranky when someone has told me they’ve never actually heard a Nirvana song, but for the most part, everything else remains pretty much the same. And it’s because of this that you can see how some out there might become a bit envious of this inherited trait.

Well I think this new black don’t crack envy is causing some movie studios to change the way they make films today. They tried to warn us with the half live action/half CGI film The Congress, where Hollywood basically took all of an actor’s movements, personality traits, and emotions and bottled them up in the CGI version of said actor. And once they did that, the actor could essentially live forever in the movie world and never have to set foot on set again.

Now this is great for the movie goer but not so great for the actor. I promise I wont give away any spoilers but just know that there are quite a few characters from the original Star Wars trilogy that play prominent roles in Rogue One. And yes, I know what you’re thinking. How is that possible??? Aren’t they 125 years old now? Well the answer is yes but thanks to CGI they still look like their original selves. And I have to say that that is awesome!

Rogue One has the same old storyline that we’ve seen over and over again at this point but thankfully they do throw a few wrinkles in to help keep it from being stale. The evil Empire has plans to build the Death Star and it’s up to this not so random rebel (although she’s not a part of the Rebellion) to help the Rebellion find the man that’s responsible for building it. Can they convince her to help them in time? Will finding the master engineer even make a difference? Will 96 year old Billy Dee Williams break out some Colt 45 and seduce the new young heroine? I guess you’ll just have to pop in and see for yourself, but know going in that this is easily the best Star Wars film since Return of the Jedi.

Yes, I liked The Force Awakens but it honestly felt like they tried a little too hard with that film, and rightfully so. Plus, let’s not forget the fact that it was basically A New Hope but with different actors. Rogue One however, felt like it was its own animal. And I have to give all credit to writer and reshoots director Tony Gilroy (The Bourne movies) for this. There’s so much freshness that happens in this movie that I can’t even begin to talk about it here without getting death threats from every nerd in the universe. But just know that the film basically ends with a 40 minute action scene! All of the acting is solid in this film and I don’t think there’s a badder man on the planet right now than Mads Mikkelsen.

Go see it, if for no other reason, than to hear Forrest Whitaker’s high pitched grunts as he does his best impersonation of the bad guy from Mad Max: Fury Road. I rate this film as very FRESH!
 

Arrival

Anyone who knows me or has ever read a single review of mine, knows that I absolutely love alien films. As a matter of fact, anything involving aliens, robots, or vampires has me in the theater opening weekend, kicking little kids to the side who are only there to see Ice Age 45. And yes, before you ask, I even saw one or two of those terrible Twilight films in the theater before throwing up at the thought of vegetarian vampires who glisten like diamonds in the daylight. No wonder why Trump got elected, our youth had never been exposed to a real life vampire until now!

I equate it to a video game nerd who grows up lusting after Lara Croft or idolizing films like True Romance and Sin City; once he goes to a strip club and actually sees a real life stripper for the first time, it’s over for him! As a young male, you know it’s probably not in your best interest to do so but you can’t help but want to make Levitra your girlfriend once those voluptuous c cups are in your face! You’ve never seen them in real life before and you kind of want to prolong the experience just to see where it goes. Well I can tell you from experience, it takes you straight to hell!!! I kid, I kid, I don’t care who the president is and I’ve never dated a stripper…for an extended period of time that is.

Well sadly I don’t think the majority of our youth has seen a real alien film either. Sure there have been a few decent flicks involving aliens that have come out in the past few years but they have both starred Tom Cruise (Edge of Tomorrow and Oblivion); and I’ve already talked about how I’m the only freak in the world that actually likes him. So this means that the majority of movie going America expects every invasion film to either be like Independence Day 2 or Men in Black 3. Damn you Will Smith!

This makes me sad because most of the people who are excited to see Arrival will walk out of the theater disappointed. If you don’t know who director Denis Villeneuva (Sicario, Prisoners) is, you should get to know him as he is probably the best director in Hollywood right now. Having said that, most of his films, while thought provoking, are pretty damn depressing. Well Arrival falls right in line with what he’s done in the past.

This film is an intellectual thriller that has you questioning not only everything that is happening in the film but humanity’s approach to life in general. Even when the film was over, I found myself in deep thought (a rarity, I know) over how I would process and utilize certain information if it was given to me at the right time. And that’s what this film is about. I’m not here to ruin anything for you by giving spoilers away but just know that you are not in for a J.J. Abrams production.

Even if Arrival was completely void of dialogue, I could’ve sat there and watched it for two hours anyway as it was basically a beautiful masterpiece. But this isn’t the 1930’s so thankfully there was some dialogue in it and this dialogue just so happened to be crux of the story. 12 alien pods have landed in seemingly random locations throughout the world and each country has brought in their best linguists and scientists to hopefully figure out why they have come to our world.

For the U.S., this includes Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. Adams is a brilliant but sullen linguist who uses creative ways to communicate with the aliens. And as she begins to gain more ground with them, she starts to see and experience some pretty strange things. Well Renner seems to think that these happenings are just part of the territory when you learn a new language as your brain is now wired to think differently, but you can’t help but wonder if it’s more than that.

You won’t truly know how you feel about this movie until a few hours later after you’ve had the opportunity to marinate on it a bit. And to me, that’s the best kind of movie experience there is. I give an unbelievable amount of credit to Villeneuve for crafting yet another gem as I give Arrival a rating of pretty TIGHT!

Star Trek Beyond

Our country has faced its fair share of divisive issues in the past few weeks and they have all led to some pretty heated arguments both online and in person. Some strong stances have cost some people their long term friendships and in a few rare cases some people have even lost their jobs, and what’s worse is that things don’t seem to be getting any better any time soon. It all started when Paul Feig decided to manufacture this whole women empowerment movement after he realized people thought his reboot of the classic Ghostbusters franchise was the worst thing they’ve seen since Two Girls and a Cup.

I mean there’s no way in hell that a movie he made actually turned out to be humorless trash; so it has to be someone else’s fault right? So why not just label everyone who disliked his latest effort misogynistic beasts? That works! Heck I even had a close bartender friend of mine walk away and almost refuse to serve me after I told her I hated the movie; as if women needed yet another reason to hate me!

Well the dust from that storm was just starting to settle when the studios thought it would be a great idea to release Star Trek Beyond the following week! Really? We already have nerds getting into random Pokémon Go fights in our local parks, now we’re going to get the Trekkies and Star Wars dorks going at it again? This has to be the start of Armageddon! I swear if Hollywood decides to come out with a white version of Superfly starring Marky Mark, I’m throwing myself off the UT Tower that day because Black people will lose their collective minds and start tearing up every major city they’re in! But who knows, maybe Hollywood actually knows what it’s doing. They did give J.J. Abrams the keys to both the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises; this could be their way of getting the two nations to finally come together like the Bloods and Crypts did when the LAPD nearly beat Rodney King to death. I guess we’ll see.

Since J.J. took over the Star Trek world he has produced two highly entertaining yet fairly forgettable films. I loved both of them when I walked out of the theater but I honestly can’t tell you anything that happened in either one outside of little Kirk riding motorcycles in the initial reboot and Khan’s cape flowing in the space wind like Beyonce’s hair in the second one. But that doesn’t mean I’m not open to seeing them again as they certainly had some thrilling action set pieces in them.

Well with Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) co-writing and Justin Lin (Fast and Furious) directing this latest trip into the final frontier, you had to expect more of the same; a funny action packed thriller that for the most part would be a forgettable popcorn flick. But I’m happy to say that in this case that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

In Star Trek Beyond, things don’t appear to be quite as hunky dory as you would expect them to be after their latest dash with death, love, and aliens in the great beyond. Instead the crew is stuck in year three of a five year mission and Captain Kirk seems to be losing his way as the days begin to run together and all of his missions appear to be focused on useless diplomatic expeditions for unruly and ungrateful extra-terrestrials. Even Spock has something that’s troubling him which has apparently led to his and Lt. Uhura’s breakup.

So their latest mission couldn’t have come at a better time as this looks to be the end of the Starship Enterprise as we know it. Well while on a brief and well deserved respite with their family and friends at a remote space station, the Federation gets a surprise visit from a desperate traveler whose ship and crew were attacked while on a scientific voyage. This ambush wasn’t your normal garden variety attack however as the perpetrators used a complex biological weapon to take them out, one that was so advanced that the Federation decides to send its best unit (Kirk and co) out to investigate. Well as luck would have it, their ship also gets attacked upon arrival and is basically blown to bits. The entire crew is required to abandon ship and take refuge on this uncharted planet. And now it’s up to Kirk to figure out what these rogue aliens really want before his entire crew is murdered and the universe is possibly destroyed.

As I mentioned earlier, since Lin is directing this latest entry into the space logs of time, you should know going in that 80% of the movie is all action. And if you’re a fan of 360 degree shaky cam action shots, then you will love this film. Heck even if you’re not you’ll still walk out thoroughly entertained. The interactions between the random pockets of stranded enterprisers are probably the second best part of the film as they add depth to the characters and explain a lot about their relationships and backgrounds. Thankfully though, the writers don’t bog the story down with long boring stares into space or each other’s eyes, they instead sandwich these brief interactions around explosions and gun fights.

The one character that almost stole the show was another stranded traveler, Jaylah. She introduces some cool technology that allows multiple holograms of herself to engage in battle while keeping her real self safe from harm. Well her and of course the head villain Krall who is played by the always steady Idris Elba. Dammit, why wasn’t I born with a British accent?

Now since it is written by Pegg, this film can be a little silly at times, like when Kirk gets the upper hand on the enemy by playing the Beastie Boys, but it’s all in good fun and it actually had me cheering from my seat. And any movie that gets me to do that has to get a rating of pretty FRESH! I suggest you check this film out before the end of the world is upon us.
 

Midnight Special

Whenever I hear the phrase midnight special, usually one of two things comes to mind: I’m either thinking of the what I’m going to be ordering and slowly killing myself with at the Jack in the Box drive thru or I’m running through all of the options the local pimp on my street corner shouts out to me on a Sunday night. Either way, neither option really takes into consideration my long term health. Thankfully though gentrification and my desire to stay alive have rid me of the latter but every now and then the former peaks its awful head up and leaves me looking like the Gerber baby when I wake up in the morning.

Well after seeing the latest offering from Jeff Nichols, the director or Take Shelter and Mud last Monday night, I now have something better to think about whenever those lovely words pop into my head. Midnight Special allows Nichols to once again team up with the uber talented yet super creepy Michael Shannon. I kept waiting to see who would finally take Sean Penn’s place for that specific role in Hollywood and it looks as though Shannon has decided to step up to the plate. He’s perfect as the misunderstood do-gooder who is trying his best to live out his moral code even if it make everyone else around him supremely uncomfortable in the process. And his latest role in this wonderful movie follows this trend to the tee.

Special is a movie about the abduction of a mysterious young boy named Alton. Now when you first meet him he appears to be your normal run of the mill kid as he simply sits in the back of the car reading his comic books and respectfully listens to the commands of his father (Shannon) but as you notice his reactions to his environment, you soon learn that there is nothing remotely normal about this boy.

Alton wears swimming goggles 90’s of the time, he and his "captures" seemingly only move at night, and he somehow has the ability to speak in what is considered to be tongues and other languages without ever being taught them. And it’s because of his uniqueness that everyone is trying to get their hands on him.

This local religious compound, that Shannon has broken him free of, believes that he is the Messiah as he has provided them with visions and words that they use as a basis for their sermons. The government (led by Adam Driver) is after him because they want to try and understand him and Shannon and his partner Joel Edgerton are trying to get him to a specific location by a certain date because of something he must do there. And all three parties will stop at nothing to get what they want. Someone has alerted the police of his disappearance but for some reason they can never produce a photo of him.

Is he the Messiah or is he really just a kid? This, along with E-Machina, is one of the more suspenseful sci-fi films to come out in quite some time. While it’s not as cerebral as Machina is, it certainly is one of the more mind bending experiences you’ll have at the theater. Every time you think you have it figured out, another WTF moment happens and it completely throws you off. But once they reveal what it is actually happening, it sort of takes away from the big bang at the end.

That doesn’t mean however that the ending is disappointing; there’s still plenty of action that takes place that will keep you on the edge of your seat, it’s just that you kind of hoped that Nichols had yet another gear in him to make this an instant classic. If the third act had continued to build on the suspense the first two acts had set up, I would have given it a rating of tight but as it stands it only gets a rating of very FRESH!
 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

When George Lucas finally came out of his billion dollar cocoon and gave all of us nerds Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, also known as the Jar Jar Incident, I remember walking out of the theater on an unbelievable high! So much so that the local news in Dallas spotted my euphoria and chose to bypass all of the obvious virgins who were dressed up in Vader and Leia costumes to get my thoughts on the film!

There I was, inexplicably with a hot girl at the time, spewing barely intelligible things into the camera with this half crazed look in my eye. It was so memorable in fact, that while I was working my shift at the Macaroni Grill the next day, people came in and instantly recognized me! "Hey! You’re the Star Wars guys! You really liked it huh?"

An entire Metroplex knew just how much of a loser I was! Now I’m not saying I’m a loser because I love Star Wars, I’m saying I’m a loser because there is documented proof that at one time in my life I actually liked the awful Phantom Menace and was at least partially down with Jar Jar Binks! Believe it or not, the girl I was with that night actually still talks to me to this day but for obvious reasons has suppressed the memory of us seeing that movie together.

Now I say all of that to say this; I was cautiously optimistic heading into The Force Awakens simply because I didn’t want a repeat of 1999. And after seeing it and liking it, I’m still hesitant about my feelings towards it as I have been in this position and fooled once before. So like the nerd who was sitting behind me wearing a Chewbacca costume and making Ton-Ton noises the entire time said "Now I have to go back and watch it ten more times before I can officially tell you how I feel about it."

Well I’m obviously not going to wait that long before I tell you my thoughts on it, and I certainly won’t talk about anything other than what you’ve already seen in the trailers, because I know the last thing anyone wants is something resembling a spoiler in this review . You should just know that J.J. Abrams was probably the perfect choice to bring this franchise back to life. I’ve never been blown away by anything he’s done to this point in his career but he did get me to actually like the Star Trek movies he made and I was nothing close to being a Trekkie before I saw them.

He’s really good at paying homage to what was done before him, giving little Easter eggs to the diehard fans that are out there, and in adding his own little touch to it without ever abandoning the spirit of what made the originals so great. And that’s exactly what he did with The Force Awakens. It takes a little time to get used to the new characters, who will obviously carry the mantle moving forward in the sequels to come, but once you do, you realize that the franchise is in good hands.

Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron) is as close to being an acting savant as we can expect these days (along with Tom Hardy of course) and he is wonderful as he essentially plays the next generation Han Solo in this movie. As for the original Han himself, he along with Chewbacca, play a major role in this film as they help the audience not only get caught up to speed with what happened in the past but also help you accept the new characters.

Although when you look at Rey (Daisy Ridley) it’s kind of hard not to instantly fall in love with her innocence and her beauty. She plays the role of a struggling scavenger on the planet of Jakku who one day runs into a lost droid (BB8) that happens to be carrying some vital information that could help the Resistance fight off a new enemy in the First Order. Everyone freaked out about there being a Black renegade storm trooper (John Boyega) but his role is reasonably explained and he gives you yet another worthy hero to cheer for. Sadly though, Carrie Fisher refuses to accept the fact that she’s almost 60 years old now! She’s had so much work done to her face that she looks like a cross between Cher’s kid in her Mask movie and Jim Carrey’s 1990’s version of The Mask with Cameron Diaz! Her face barely moved when she spoke and it sounded like there was a male ventriloquist speaking for her whenever it was her time to talk.

But outside of that minor mishap, this movie was thoroughly entertaining as there was plenty of cool action to go around! There were a few obvious plot holes but it’s a science fiction movie, that’s almost a guarantee these days. You’ll soon realize that the storyline is unbelievably familiar but again, it’s a formula that’s worked in the past, so why mess with it? I am unbelievably excited for Rian Johnson’s version that’s scheduled to come out in 2017.

I rate this movie as very FRESH but reserve the right to change my mind in a few years. Go see it!

The Martian

Before you get into this review, let me first explain the reasoning behind my cranky and jaded attitude towards Ridley Scott's The Martian. You see, I consider myself to be a wannabe die hard Sci-Fi fan, so that means I'm used to creepy, weird, and almost depressing films that present you with ideas you've never seen or been exposed to before. So when I'm looking for good Sci-Fi, I want to see Captain Kirk seducing busty purple aliens or Sam Rockwell having conversations with his space clone on the moon; I don't want Matt Damon dancing to disco music in a $10 million dollar go-cart while he's stuck on Mars (although after typing this, that actually sounds pretty fresh).

It's not that I have a problem with Damon or Scott, they are both the best at what they do. My problem is that The Martian is essentially a Sci-Fi film for the masses. So now everyone who would normally run from these kinds of movies will all of a sudden start calling themselves fans of this genre when in reality they are just fans of Matt Damon.

The best way I can explain it is, it's like my buddy who loves zombie flicks. He's been in love with them for decades, back when only fat geeks and chicks who couldn't afford makeup would fill the theaters to go see guts and brains spilling out of people in George Romero's classic masterpieces. But ever since AMC decided to add a ton of drama and beautiful looking actresses to the fold, everyone has now jumped on board and considers themselves to be fans of the genre simply because they watch The Walking Dead. Having these scrubs along for the ride makes it feel like its lost its sense of uniqueness and community, so to speak. Why can't you people just let us nerds hold on to what makes us nerds???

I could give you another example of how people who have loved Nine Inch Nails ever since Pretty Hate Machine came out consider Closer to be one of their least favorite songs for the same reason but I'll move on.

Now let me say right off the bat that The Martian is a solid movie. If Ridley Scott doesn't know how to do anything else, he definitely knows how to make a good Sci-Fi flick in space. And despite the fact Jeff Daniels is basically just playing Will McAvoy from The Newsroom in it, this film is loaded with talented actors.

The Martian is about Matt Damon being presumed dead when a dangerous storm appears out of nowhere while he and his team are exploring Mars on a NASA expedition. And in order to save the lives of the rest of the crew, the team's captain Jessica Chastain decides to leave his body behind so that they can get to safety before the storm reaches its deadly peak. But what they will later realize is that Damon did indeed survive and he is now left stranded on a planet that is over 54 million kilometers away from Earth.

So now you have to sit through two hours of Damon figuring out how to grow crops on a planet that isn't designed to do so while people on Earth try and come up with a way to get him back before he dies.

In this movie Scott decides to forgo showing any depressing or down on his luck moments with Damon as he instead focuses on showing his determination to succeed and stay alive in spite of all the obstacles he has to overcome. So despite the fact that he could suffocate, starve, or freeze to death at any time, he is surprisingly upbeat and cracking jokes when most people would simply be figuring out creative ways to masturbate with the space structures that surround them until it's time for their inevitable death to come.

I found this to be a rather enjoyable film and there are one or two moments in it that do get pretty intense, but in the end, it was far too upbeat for me. I rate this movie as FRESH and suggest you go see it with your grandmother; she will absolutely love the soundtrack! But for the real Sci-Fi geeks out there, just go watch Gravity, Moon, or Sunshine instead.

Ex Machina

For a brief moment in my life I actually dabbled in being a geek in high school as I was big into science and the science fair at the time. But I never quite understood those super geeks who would fall in love with video game chicks like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider or cartoon characters like Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I may not have been a Don Juan or anything but I never quite envisioned my best case scenario for getting tail coming in the form of a robot that had a flesh light attached to it. And in case you don’t know what a flesh light is, it’s basically a simulated vagina that’s made specifically for men to get their rocks off to. It’s a slimy sex toy for guys who have never actually seen a vagina in person and need as much practice as they can get before experiencing the real thing. Oh and just so you know, it happens to be dishwasher safe too; at least that’s what my friend told me. But moving on…

Sometimes this sexual frustration can lead to genius innovation; their original intent may have been to simply get them their first girlfriend or girlfriend experience ala Weird Science, and not necessarily to help mankind, but in the end they wound up creating something that could ultimately cure cancer or help us download our porn faster.

And this is exactly the premise of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina. Well, not exactly. Machina is about Caleb, a young programmer who wins a contest to spend an entire week on the giant estate of his company’s CEO and creator Nathan. Nathan is the founder of the world’s biggest search engine Bluebook and he believes that he has created the world’s first truly AI being in Ava. So while Caleb is visiting his home, Nathan decides to run his Turing test on him; it’s a test to see if a man can interact with a machine or a computer and be fooled into thinking that it’s actually human.

Nathan himself comes across as this narcissistic, eccentric, and borderline drunk genius who’s quite proud of his invention but he tries to present himself as just another guy to the socially awkward Caleb. Caleb is an only child whose parents died when he was a teenager and because of his lack of social skills, he’s also a loner who has a hard time finding a girlfriend. So as you can imagine, the second he sees Nathan’s invention Ava, he’s completely enamored.

Ava, played by Alicia Vikander, is a strikingly beautiful robot whose curiosity, innocence, and intelligence instantly draws Caleb to her. And the second she learns more about Caleb and what makes him tick, she appears to fall in love with him as well.

What makes this story interesting is that Ava apparently hates Nathan and whenever she feels as though Caleb and her are alone, she tries to convince him that Nathan is an evil manipulator who cannot be trusted. But the plot thickens when Nathan reminds Caleb that Ava is machine who: A might actually like him B. might be pretending to like him to help her pass the test or C. might be pretending to like him because she has her own agenda.

What’s great about this film is that there appears to be plenty of evidence to support each theory and the more you find out about Nathan, the stranger he appears.

This movie is a dark, funny, and scary look into the future as it shows how man’s arrogance might ultimately be his downfall. Nathan sums it up best when he warns Caleb that “one day AI will look upon us humans as we now do the fossils of dinosaurs and their forgotten era”; I’m paraphrasing of course.

Garland does an awesome job of blending style and score to create a mood of uneasiness in the futuristic and sterile home of Nathan. You can’t help but feel like an unwanted alien in his home who might be turned on at any second. And this is why you somewhat connect with Caleb who begins to question his very own existence towards the end of the movie.

Sadly it’s movies like these that get overlooked by the Academy when it comes time to hand out awards because this is easily one of the best and most original films I have seen in a while. I rate this movie as TIGHT and I suggest that you pop in. Oh and do yourself a favor and rock out to the Savages during the credits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz-JCRm-Inw
http://onlyfreshness.blogspot.com/2013/02/sxsw-punk-savages-and-skaters.html

Chappie

Whether Crappie director Neill Blomkamp knew it or not, it was high time for a Short Circuit reboot. It had been far too long since a goofy white guy with a mullet like Steve Guttenberg’s taught a robot how to dance. Plus who doesn’t love a movie about a talking robot? There are far too many teenagers out there who don’t know anything about Johnny 5 or his quest to be alive and what’s even sadder is the fact that they don’t know about the power of the mullet.  Why did we all of a sudden abandon the idea that our heroes could have such awesome hair fashion? It didn’t matter if it was a muscular Jean Claude van Damme or a gangly and sensitive Guttenburg, the power rested in the locks and it made them invincible, just like Sampson.

Even Black heroes had fresh hair back in the day; just look at Billie Dee Williams’ perm in Empire Strikes Back, Apollo Creed’s short Jeri curl in Rocky, or even Wesley Snipes’ box cut in Blade. I spent countless hours in the beauty chair trying to get my hair to look like Apollo’s just so I could do fresh dances like he did while wearing short gold shorts. When you grow up in small town Texas, you don’t really have a lot of role models and you have a ton of time on your hands.

But I will say that Blomkamp does have a love for robots and thanks to the success of District 9, he can make movies about them for the rest of his career. He made a few mistakes with his second film Elysium but it looks as though he learned from that and came back strong with his latest sci-fi epic Chappie.

Chappie takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa, a place where crime has become so rampant that the government relies upon robots to police their citizens. These robots are big, agile, and deadly, but more importantly they are controlled by computer software. The company that makes the robots is obviously flourishing but there is a competition that exists between their two main engineers which eventually leads to disaster.

Deon (Dev Patel) dreams of being able to create an AI robot that is able to reason, dream, and think like humans do; and due to his persistence and ingenuity, he eventually becomes successful in building a prototype in Chappie. His rival Vincent (Hugh Jackman) has designs on selling his giant military grade robot which is controlled by humans to the police force. Neither of their ideas are exactly greeted with open arms but that doesn’t stop either one of them from trying to get their creations out in the open. And it’s when they do, that all hell breaks loose.

Blomkamp is known for his social commentary in his movies and this one is no different. While some of the exchanges between Chappie and his parents, Die Antwoord, might lose some people; it’s the perfect statement on how we as humans can screw up a beautiful creation that would otherwise be used for good or our advancement with our stupidity and misguidance. And yes, you read that correctly, Die Antwoord is in this movie. Blomkamp loves them and he decided to cast them as two of his main villains. They actually do a solid job playing underground criminals and if you like their music, it’s all over this movie.

And speaking of music, Hans Zimmer’s score takes the action in this movie to a whole new level. By the time they were breaking out gravity bombs and rocket launchers, I almost stood up in the theater and cheered. This is seriously the best action Blomkampt’s had in any of his movies.

But what really makes this movie work is Sharito Copley providing the voice and personality for Chappie. He plays the wide eyed and naïve Chappie to perfection and he makes you truly feel like he’s more human than robot. So there are some pretty gut wrenching scenes as Chappie learns the harshness of the real world.

Like I said, some of the funny exchanges that happen between him and Antwoord might take some people completely out of the movie but for die hard sci-fi fans you will absolutely love it. It’s both a heart breaking and exhilarating movie and I suggest you check it out. This is as close as you can get to a rating of tight without actually making it, so I give it a rating of unbelievably FRESH!

Jupiter Ascending

I think it was right around the time Larry Wachowski decided to become Lana Wachowski that the careers and creativity of the Wachowski brothers started to take a tumble. The day he began wearing makeup and started looking like Buffalo Bill's older transsexual brother from Silence of the Lambs, their movies all of a sudden had the worst makeup imaginable for their main characters. For whatever reason they thought that Tom Hanks dressed up as a Russian Walter White in Cloud Atlas would be this huge badass moment for them in their movie instead of seeing what everyone else saw, which was the most unintentionally funny character we've seen on screen in a decade. And I even think they made him Oriental at one point in the movie using only wigs and clothing they picked up at a local Goodwill Halloween store.  Did someone randomly put Lana in charge of makeup or did they spend all of the money they made from the Matrix on his sex change?

Either way, Atlas wouldn't have been that bad of a movie if the viewer didn't spend half of it laughing at how ridiculous the people looked on screen. Well the same thing can be said about Jupiter...sort of.

This story is about a Russian immigrant named Jupiter(Mila Kunis) who was born on the seas of the Atlantic because her mother was escaping the country after a horrible incident occurred. They take on a new life in America where they spend their days cleaning the homes of filthy rich people for only pennies on the dollar. But one day, a half man, half wolf bounty hunter sets out to get to Jupiter before his rival bounty hunters do. The race is on to get to her because she is the reincarnation of the mother of the Abrasax clan and she holds the key to controlling Earth. Whoever has control of Earth can harvest it to turn a huge profit and also prolong their life.

There is a cheesy score that's played over incoherent chase sequences, goofy looking characters that include lizard people and rat assistants, and rocket fueled air skating that would have been cool if this was the year 1984. A third of the way through the movie the actors realize that they are in one of the worst movies ever made and they simply stop caring. I think they tried to have fun with it and even attempted to make it an action comedy similar to what we saw in The Fifth Element but the problem was there was no Bruce Willis there to say and do fresh things to make that happen.

Instead you were left with terrible lines and even worse acting. I hope this performance keeps Eddie Redmayne from winning the Oscar for Theory of Everything similar to the way Norbit hurt Eddie Murphy the year he had a chance to win for Dreamgirls.

Maybe my idiot friend was right, if I wasn't a jaded adult I might have liked this movie because when I told this 17 year old that I saw Jupiter last night his reply was "No way!!! I can't wait to see it!" So maybe all I need to do is become an emotionally disturbed teenager to enjoy Wachowski movies these days. Or maybe I just need to be more like my idiot friend who said "Yes the movie sucked balls but it was enjoyable ball sucking!"

So there it is, if you enjoy ball sucking, hit this movie up. But if you are a normal adult, avoid it at all costs as this movie is WACK!

Project Almanac

The month of January is known as the film dump month because it's the month that the studios dump all of their big budget catastrophes in the theater and make us suffer through them until Oscar season is over. Well I'm here to tell you that Project Almanac is definitely of a dump of a movie as I had to suffer through that crap fest myself last night. The problem I had with this film started a few weeks ago when I first saw the trailer. I saw that it was one of those lazy found footage films that studios like to put out there because they're relatively cheap to make and for the most part make a decent amount of money, so I immediately gave it a thumbs down to show my disapproval of such nonsense. So rather than pay attention to the trailer, I let my mind wander on fresh things like, why does every villain in the Daniel Craig James Bond movies have a crush on him.

Have you noticed that? For some reason Mads Mikkelson right before punishing Bond (or maybe himself because he couldn't have him) looks at his naked body and says "You take good care of your body Mr. Bond. What a waste!" And then he proceeds to repeatedly hit him in the balls with a big black device that he made for just an occasion. I mean, who doesn't need a homemade black device for ball busting? And then there was Javier Bardem rubbing the thighs of a tied up Bond on a deserted island right before he asked him if it was his first time. Where did that come from? And was that really helping out the plot? I'm not quite sure what they're setting us up for but I wouldn't be surprised to see Hannah Horvat's gay ex boyfiend cast as the next Bond.

And the fact that I spent a fourth of this review talking about homoerotic scenes in 007 movies should let you know what kind of a movie you're in for when you go to see Almanac. The problem with time travel movies is that they never make any sense. A group of mechanically inclined students discover a camcorder in their friend Jonny's attic and once they look at the tape inside it, they see a reflection of the adult version of Jonny at his own seven year old birthday party and freak out.

After some digging, they eventually find his father's plans for a time machine in the basement and after some trial and error, they become successful in building one of their own. At first they do all of the fun things normal kids would think to do with a time machine like changing a grade on a test, getting back at a bully, or making a girl fall in love with them. But it's the last one that causes problems as that kind of meddling begins to change events in history and as a result disasters start to happen all around them in the present.

It's actually not a horrible premise but the problem is MTV productions (yeah you read that right) tries to make it too hip at times while also taking itself way too seriously at other times. There is a long and boring trial period when they try and come up with all sorts of scientific explanations for why this machine could possibly work in the real world. I mean come on, these are high school students, just give them some women's bras to put on their heads while they put a lot of aluminum foil on some antennae and have fake electricity in the background as your explanation for why time travel is possible and get on with it.

There is a 30-40 minute period in the middle of the movie that's actually pretty entertaining as they go to Lollapalooza and see weird things happen when they run into their past selves but sadly you have to survive the intro and the predictable and drawn out ending to experience it.

I suggest that you wait for Netflix and watch this on a sick day versus that of actually spending money in the theater to see this version of smart teens gone wild. I rate it as WEAK.

Interstellar

We all know that Anne Hathaway has come a long way since getting herself sexed into a gang in the movie Havoc but why is it that only female directors and You Won't Like Me When I'm Ang Lee can convince her to get topless in a movie? Is she waiting until she's 35 and no longer getting offered qualities roles before she does so again? Does she visualize Meryl Streep clotheslining her with a Gucci bag every time she gets undressed? And was this the first thing on my mind when I went to see the movie Interstellar last night? Well the answer to the last one is no! But the first time I saw her wearing a turtle neck covering up those wonderful assets it completely took me out of the movie and I all of a sudden found myself in an uncontrollable rage; thankfully though it wasn't long after this that Christopher Nolan mercifully put Jessica Chastain on the screen and that helped calm me back down a bit. 

I will say that from a technical standpoint this movie looks and sounds amazing as quite a bit of it was shot on 70mm film; and at this point you should expect nothing less from Nolan. But what sets this film apart from his previous work is that pretty much everything you have ever heard of or studied in Astronomy or Physic class is on display in this film. I'm not saying that it's all accurate, I'm just saying that you get unique visuals and experiences with theories and both natural and unnatural phenomena like you never have before.

The first act of the movie seems a little rushed or a bit over edited as scientist and ex pilot Cooper (McConaughey), with the help of his young daughter Murphy, stumble upon a secret NASA station in the middle of nowhereville USA. It is here that he is instantly recruited to lead a crew of astronauts on a mission to find a planet that can sustain human life as this one (Earth) has turned on its own inhabitants and is slowly taking away our ability to grow food and have breathable air. It is through the use of a wormhole that has randomly appeared next to Saturn that they plan to get to another galaxy and hopefully return so they can transport humanity to their new home.

Once the second act kicks in and Nolan does his customary split action sequences where multiple story lines run parallel with one another and seemingly climax together, you begin to worry if this is simply a mashing of Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity and Danny Boyle's Sunshine as some of the action scenes seem to be completely inspired by these films.

It's not until the third and final act starts that you finally see Nolan make his unique and rather daunting footprint on the genre that is the science fiction action film. I won't sit here and say that what he presents on screen has never been done before in the land of Sci-Fi but I will say that I have never seen it done on this kind of a scale before. I give him major props for bringing some of my astronomical daydreams to life and for allowing me to see on a 100 foot screen something that I never thought I would see visually outside of my own head; and to be honest, quite a few things I would have never come up with on my own as well.

Nolan continues to put the rest of Hollywood on notice that he is here make both intelligent and entertaining cinema that doesn't rely on either reboots or re-imaginations to do so. And I'd be remiss if I didn't give a nod to the actors in this film for being able to draw from humanity's most basic and visceral emotions to get us to find a connection with them in this distant world. You see yourself coming to the same decisions and making the same mistakes they do as they struggle to survive.

I rate this movie as unbelievably FRESH!

The Congress

What happened to all of the awesome movie intros? Almost every 80's movie played an entire song and either showed girls half naked on the beach or dudes pounding beers at the beginning of them. Even Saturday Night Fever had quite possibly the best intro to a movie ever when it had John Revolta dancing to music that only he could hear playing while checking out every chick that passed him by. The best part is when he sees a nice looking lady walking down the street, stops dancing long enough to go back and check her out, decides that she's not quite hot enough to stop dancing for, and goes on with his day! Trust me when I say this is a must see, especially when he stops at a shoe store window to compare the flyness of his shoe to that of the store's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0FphcAh3T8

Anyway, now all opening shots are super serious and sometimes try way too hard to grab you! But today's directors need to realize that a dancing Revolta can grab you too! But uh...moving on! The reason I bring all of this up is because the first shot of The Congress is Robin Wright reflectively crying. Wright is doing the Being John Malkovich thing, and sort of playing herself in this role. Now I'm not knocking the scene or anything but I think this movie could use a director's cut release in the near future that has an alternate beginning showing all of the clips of Robin Wright's old movies with Prince's Cream playing over them! That sounds kind of dirty too but that's capturing the spirit of the 80's for you!

The first half of the film focuses on the movie industry's frustration with actors and how difficult it is to work with them and all of their artistic quirks; in this particular instance they put their focus squarely on Wright and her issues. She constantly backs out of filming at the last second and always seems to be a head case no matter what the situation is. But thankfully for the studios, they have finally found a workaround that will capture everything they want from an actor without having to put up with all of the headaches that come along with them. They have invented a process called scanning, this is where they can digitally upload all of the actor's physical movements. emotions, facial expressions, and personality traits and create a character for a new movie using this information. All they need is the actor to sign off and they will never have to set foot on a set again. The issue for the actors is that the studio is basically not giving them a choice in the matter; it's either do this or never get a check from Hollywood again.

Wright, as per her nature, is understandably reluctant but her agent Al (Harvey Keitel) reminds her of the fact that actors have been losing control of their careers for years now. And that they have essentially lost all creative control over their performances and even that of their own appearance at this point. She finally agrees to do it but is about to back out at the last second again when Keitel puts on easily one of the best performances of his career. He tells her the story about all of the events that led to him becoming an agent in the first place. The story is so moving and emotional that it takes both you the viewer and Robin Wright through every human emotion possible within a 5 minute period; all the while set to a beautiful backdrop of flashing lights that are capturing Wright's emotions as she experiences them. This is the one scene that will stick with you forever; which is saying something for a film that is full of wonderful animation.

It's after this moment when the second half of the movie starts and you enter the world of the Looney Tunes on acid. It's now 20 years later and they have advanced this scanning technology so much that it's now in a chemical form and it allows you to view the world and yourself in ways that were previously unimaginable. However, once Wright takes the chemical so that she can enter this version of the world to renew her contract, she finds herself struggling to decide what's real and what's not. And it's in this world where she meets Dylan (Jon Hamm) who tries to help her make sense of it all.

This movie is full of subtle little throwaway jokes that had me laughing way too loud in the theater. One of the best parts of the film is the awesome cartoon cameo of a certain famous actor, of whom I wont ruin for you here. But thankfully there are quite a few awesome pop culture references that randomly pop up from time to time throughout the entire movie.

This is one of the most intriguing and challenging films that I have seen in years and I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like it before. I strongly suggest that you track this movie down in whatever city you live in  and see it in the theater, as it is much better than Ari Folman's(director) previous effort in Waltz With Bashir. That was basically just a really, REALLY boring version of A Scanner Darkly but this movie is FRESH!