Tag Archives: reviews

“Snowpiercer”: No Saints After the Apocalypse

July 10, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Snowpiercer!

“Marvel Team-Up” presents Captain America and the War Doctor in Snowpiercer.

Sure, a bleak Korean sci-fi film based on a French graphic novel, delayed for months while studio heads squabbled over whether or not to delete nearly 20% of it before letting Americans see it, doesn’t sound like the perfect star vehicle for Chris Evans, cinematic hero of this summer’s Captain America: the Winter Soldier. It’s certainly not a vote of confidence that the Weinstein Company compromised by leaving it intact but downgraded to a limited-release run with minimal advertising. In the hands of an unkinder corporation, Snowpiercer could’ve found itself sentenced with immediate relegation to the Walmart $5 DVD bin.

Thanks to exactly one theater in all of Indianapolis, last weekend I had the chance to witness one of the darkest, riskiest, most thought-provoking spectacles of the year. Considering the competition is mostly sequels, I’ll admit that’s not saying much.

– All aboard for the Trip to Bountiless…->

“The Internet’s Own Boy”: For Want of Information, a Light Was Lost

July 8, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz, 1986-2013. (Photo credit: quinnums via photopin cc)

If RSS feeds, Creative Commons, Reddit, Tor, or Wikipedia are part of your everyday internet life, or if you cheered when SOPA was put to sleep, you can thank Aaron Swartz for helping make those possible. The deeply affecting new documentary The Internet’s Own Boy: the Story of Aaron Swartz retraces the path of one young man whose lifelong passion for freedom of Information — not pirating HBO shows or sharing porn, but for useful, scholarly, scientific, potentially world-changing, capital-I Information — took him through countless revolutionary contributions, creations, and crusades until his sudden, unforeseen, tragic end.

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“Transformers: Age of Extinction”: Public Enemy #1?

July 6, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Transformers 4!

An inventive man of action, a young woman he’s sworn to protect, an amazing traveling machine, lots and lots of running, and they keep reusing the same old robot villains. So it’s like an American remake of Doctor Who.

So. Transformers: Age of Extinction, then. Last weekend the internet gave Michael Bay’s new endurance test an F-minus-minus-minus. I’m not sure if they sat through it or assumed as much based on the available evidence and testimonies. I have no idea how many critics were fans of the cartoons or other related products. I owned several toys and bought the first year’s worth of the original Marvel Comics series, but lost interest in both around age 14 and forfeited knowledge of any subsequent characters or continuity. I thought the first film was the Greatest Michael Bay Film of All Time For What That’s Worth, the second one was the complete opposite of art, and the third was somewhere in between, improved by use of real-life Chicago as a setting for the last four hours of its running time.

If it hadn’t been for the sake of father/son quality time while he’s home visiting for the weekend, I might not have seen Age of Extinction. But here he was, here the weekend was, and there the movie was.

Right this way for more EXPLOSIONS!

“How to Train Your Dragon 2”: Training Day is Over

June 21, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Hiccup and Toothless!

My son and I were part of the Dragon Training 101 graduating class that considers How to Train Your Dragon the Greatest DreamWorks Animated Film of All Time. In those basic studies we learned that dragons respond well to a combination of generosity and teamwork, that even the scrawniest Viking can surprise you, that Scottish Viking fathers are stubborn but negotiable, that Old World prosthetics were surprisingly advanced, and that cinematic dragons have come a long way since Dragonslayer, Dragonheart, Dungeons & Dragons, Eragon, Dragon Wars, and even Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where those mighty beasts received fifty-eighth billing, ranking well below CG mermen, nameless wizard henchmen, and a guy who turns into a rat. So How to Train Your Dragon was a tremendous PR boost to a once-honored race of monsters that deserve better than Hollywood usually gives them.

The How to Train Your Dragon 2 intermediate course had much to live up to in our minds, both as a sequel and as the next rung on the ladder of dragon-training success. We feared whether this would be a worthwhile study or one of those unaccredited, fly-by-night scams that hopes you won’t be able to tell their “dragons” are just really ugly dogs with paper wings taped to their fur.

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“Edge of Tomorrow” and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

June 12, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Edge of Tomorrow!

We live in a society where a movie can rake in twenty-nine million dollars on its opening weekend in American theaters and still be declared an immediate failure. The new Tom Cruise vehicle Edge of Tomorrow was expensively constructed even by summer blockbuster standards, but it was bumped back to third place this past weekend by both the young-adult juggernaut that is The Fault in Our Stars and the ongoing smash Maleficent. Audiences are sticking to their standard demographic preferences and don’t much care that Tomorrow has the highest Tomatometer rating of the three.

The over-50 action/sci-fi veteran meets his match (or better!) in Emily Blunt, last seen being overlooked in Looper, but their pairing plus alien warfare weren’t enough of a draw in a slightly crowded field in theaters. I’m not feeling drawn to Disney’s Angelina Jolie Fairy Tale Masquerade, but when I was faced with choosing between the other two on Tuesday night, I decided to give the pricy-looking underdog some attention. (To be honest, I think I’d rather read the novel first before seeing Stars.)

Right this way for more details! Unless you’ve already read this entry several hundred times…

If Godzilla Won’t Rush to Appear in His Own Film, Why Rush to Write About It?

June 10, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Elizabeth Olsen!

Elizabeth Olsen plays the obligatory Concerned Wife role and has more screen time than the King of the Monsters. Her agent must be one tough negotiator.

I saw the new Godzilla reboot over Memorial Day weekend, but we’ve had so much going on here at Midlife Crisis Crossover over the past few weeks, from my birthday road trip to the Indy 500 Festival Parade to Indy PopCon 2014, that its writeup remained relegated to the MCC reserve-topic list until those events were past. (Mostly, anyway. Officially I’m not done with one of them.) Four weeks into its American theatrical run, I figure why not get on with it.

So, monsters, then. Eventually.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “X-Men: Days of Future Past” End Credits

June 8, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
XvM!

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender return for another Game of Genes.

From the same line of thought as The Avengers, Fast & Furious 6, and The Expendables comes another supermovie in which characters from other movies join forces in hopes of tripling their box office grosses while settling for a fraction of their normal screen time.

X-Men: Days of Future Past, the seventh film set in Fox’s version of Marvel’s mutantverse, may invite comparisons to the Back to the Future trilogy, but it’s based on an Uncanny X-Men two-parter cover-dated January and February 1981, four years before Marty McFly’s first trip, back in my day when the all-star creative team of Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin were on a roll (though Byrne and Austin exited after the next issue). Some plot elements have been added or reworked to mesh with the previous films (well, with some of them, anyway), but this adaptation doesn’t stray as far from the framework as I expected, throws in a couple of new surprises, and tries to give its award-winners reasons to return to a crowded ensemble.

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Yes, There’s a Commercial During the “Amazing Spider-Man 2” End Credits

May 14, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Pow! Zap! CG Spider-Man vs. CG Electro!

The avatars of Andrew Garfield and Jamie Foxx duel for CG supremacy in this cutscene from the new Amazing Spider-Man 2 video game. Wait, no, my fault, this is from the movie.

At long last, the sequel to the reboot of the film series based on the comics is here! In the jam-packed Amazing Spider-Man 2 director Marc Webb’s trilogy continues with more villains, more angst, more money for special effects, more merchandising tie-ins, more credited screenwriters, less closure, and much lower expectations because of all of the above elements that have made many a super-hero sequel unwatchable.

This way for frenetic web-swinging action!

Free Comic Book Day 2014 Results, Part 2 of 2: the Other Half of the Stack

May 6, 2014 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Batman Beyond IN "Futures End"

Batman Beyond vs. Batwingbot and Squirebot in DC’s apocalyptic Futures End. Art by Patrick Zircher.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

…my wife and I had a ball on Free Comic Book Day 2014 this past Saturday. Readers of multiple demographics, especially a heartening number of youngsters, flocked to our local stores and had the opportunity to enjoy samplers from all the major comic companies and dozens of indie publishers.

How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?

Part One was an overview of my favorites from this year’s haul. Covered here are the rest, from those nearly good enough to those I wish I’d left behind. On with the countdown:

This way to skim The Rest!

Free Comic Book Day Results, Part 1 of 2: the Better Half of the Stack

May 5, 2014 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Avatar vs. Fantasy Dudebros

Even in the world of Avatar: the Last Airbender. some guys think they gotta dominate everything. Art by Faith Erin Hicks.

As previously recounted, my wife and I had a ball on Free Comic Book Day 2014 this past Saturday. Readers of multiple demographics, especially a heartening number of youngsters, flocked to our local stores and had the opportunity to enjoy samplers from all the major comic companies and dozens of indie publishers.

How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?

Of the nearly five dozen items offered to retailers nationwide, my wife and I carried away twenty-five in all, in addition to numerous other items I purchased using money instead of good will. My favorites from my FCBD 2014 reading pile were the following:

This way for this year’s Top 12!

“The Raid 2”: Another Rendezvous with Rama

April 13, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Iko Uwais, "The Raid 2"

An imprisoned Rama (Iko Uwais) prepares for the most creative use of a broomstick since the Harry Potter series.

Midlife Crisis Crossover calls The Raid 2 the Bloodiest Film of the Year!

A safe bet, considering I stopped going out of my way for horror movies years ago and I’m not part of the macho-demographic target for Schwarzenegger’s post-political film career. But one of my guilty pleasures is an infrequent indulgence in films that I can best describe as tough-guy ballet. For me the Indonesian martial-arts flick The Raid: Redemption — which I watched a few months ago, a former Redbox disc I bought for a buck at a Family Dollar store — had been on my radar after reading online recommendations that piqued my curiosity. Between its straightforward obstacle-course premise and slickly shot martial-arts choreography, it was ideal Saturday afternoon programming for any discerning fight-scene fan who’s cool with subtitles and appreciates how the (comparatively) small screen trapped and shrank all that violence to minimize the ick factor.

After Redemption pulled in a modest $4 million in its 2012 art-house run, I was surprised that the sequel opened in quite a few screens ’round town this weekend, albeit without its original overseas title, The Raid 2: Berendal, which I suppose for us simple Americans might read too confusingly as a subtitle that needs its own subtitle.

This way for more fight-‘n’-fight-‘n’-fight!

Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Captain America: the Winter Soldier” End Credits

April 8, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Winter Soldier FTW

The Winter Soldier meets his worst enemy: springtime.

You already knew that, right? If you’ve seen a Marvel film, you know the drill. Even though Marvel’s penchant for end-credits epilogues is public knowledge, many viewers still refuse to see for themselves and don’t want to know details till after the fact because they’re dying to exit the theater and go buy ice cream or whatever.

That’s why Midlife Crisis Crossover includes end-credits coverage in its consumer-reporting movie coverage. If we see a movie, we’re there till the bitter end whether there’s a treat waiting for us or not. My wife and I are sticklers for getting our money’s worth for the ticket price, even if it means skimming past listings for quasi-participants such as Production Babies, legal counsel, and caterers’ gofers. Imagine the pride they’ll feel, knowing there’s a remote chance that someone besides their parents spotted their names at the end.

…what were we talking about? Oh, yeah — Captain America: the Winter Soldier, my new favorite 2014 movie so far.

This way for all-American action!

MCC Request Line #7: “Take Shelter”

March 31, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

Hey, wow, it’s a supposedly recurring feature everyone forgot because it stopped recurring!

Dormant but far from nonexistent, the Midlife Crisis Crossover Request Line is always open and accepting recommendations from MCC fans for stuff I can or should read, watch, or experience and then relay the results here, whether it’s high art or deep hurting. Today’s suggestion was offered a while back by British film reviewer Natalie Stendall, whose current home is at Writer Loves Movies.

Our feature presentation: the 2011 indie drama Take Shelter, starring Man of Steel‘s Michael Shannon and Academy Award Nominee Jessica Chastain. Writer/director Jeff Nichols would later go on to greater acclaim with 2013’s Mud, which signaled the beginning of Best Year Ever for its star Matthew McConaughey.

But before Mud…there was General Zod going mad in a quiet little town.

This way lies madness! Or doom! Or both!

Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Muppets Most Wanted” End Credits

March 30, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Muppets Most Wanted

Once again Ricky Gervais works at upsetting a crowd of stars more beloved than he is.

Muppets Most Wanted knows it’s a sequel and its chances are impaired. The first of its many musical numbers is all about what it means to be a sequel and whether or not that has to be a fate worse than death. Instead of succumbing to the easy temptation of making a “normal” Muppets film, director James Bobin returns us to the exact moment and state of mind where the reboot left off, with America’s favorite variety-show veterans reunited, recharged, ready to put on the big show…but left asking each other: now what do we do?

(Courtesy mild spoiler alert: This entry covers both the contents of the end credits and all the cameos I could catch. If you like to be surprised by the cameos, an integral part of every Muppets film, you might want to slide right past that section without skimming.)

It’s time to get things started! Again!

“Mr. Peabody & Sherman”: Wibbly Wobbly Timey-Wimey Ruff

March 26, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Mr. Peabody and Sherman, DreamWorks

Midlife Crisis Crossover calls Mr. Peabody & Sherman the greatest adaptation of a Jay Ward Productions cartoon in cinematic history!

Seriously, consider the competition: 2000’s live-action The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, which had precisely one (1) funny joke that I recall with traumatized clarity to this day; Brendan Fraser as Disney’s George of the Jungle, which was a merchandising showcase disguised as kiddie slapstick farce; and Brendan Fraser again in Dudley Do-Right, which had no reason to live. Thankfully Hollywood came to its senses and refrained from giving us Brendan Fraser as Tom Slick, Aesop’s annoying son, and Super-Chicken’s sidekick Fred.

DreamWorks neatly sidestepped any more Fraser pain by taking the CG-animation route and barring him from participation. In another risky deviation from the formula of the other three films, director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little) and his crew also chose to make their film funny. I applaud this bold, non-conformist stratagem.

This way for another Wayback adventure!

“Star Wars: the Clone Wars” Season 6: Ranking the Story Arcs

March 25, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jar-Jar Binks, Mace Windu, Star Wars, Clone Wars Season Six

Our Hero and his new partner, Mace. #TrueDetectiveSeason2

My wife and I were previously disappointed when Cartoon Network pulled the plug on Star Wars: the Clone Wars for what I imagine were the worst of reasons, which wouldn’t be out of line with their past history of greedily motivated cancellations. We were surprised and a little excited when Lucasfilm announced that season six would be released on Netflix, not even a month after we finally became official subscribers.

Though many fans put life on hold and held a thirteen-episode Season Six marathon as soon as they woke up on release day, we didn’t complete our own leisurely runthrough till this past weekend. She’s the hardcore Expanded Universe enthusiast who’s frequently taken issue whenever the animators have wantonly disregarded the novels in every other episode. I’m a more casual SW viewer who’s liked many episodes, but I’ve had my own recurring peeves about the series since season one. Together we have our opinions as to how the four arcs in this season worked out. Of those four, I most enjoyed the one that I thought I would give me convulsions, and the one I ended up loathing the most convinced me the Cartoon Network execs weren’t entirely off-base for once.

This way for the opinions of a pair of happily married madpeople!

Yes, There’s a Scene (and an Easter Egg) During the “Veronica Mars” End Credits

March 18, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars

Just think: those poor, carefully cultivated flowers would’ve had no screen time at all if this had been shot as a made-for-TV movie.

My wife and I were impressed by the first two seasons of Veronica Mars and jilted into a mutual depression spiral by season three. When creator/writer/director Rob Thomas launched the famous Kickstarter project to bring back the infamous detective for an unlikely feature film, I had mixed emotions. Surprise that yet another well-written but mercilessly treated series was taking the Firefly route to a post-cancellation revival. Disappointment that the campaign occurred during my still-in-effect Kickstarter moratorium and would therefore receive no pre-production dollars from me, through no fault of its own. Good cheer when the campaign succeeded without me. Skepticism at some of the clunky lines in the trailer. A tinge of geek entitlement because someone still owed me reparations for season three.

Unlike five other Kickstarter campaigns that have yet to keep their promises to me, the Veronica Mars project has borne fruit within a month of its original stated deadline, resulting in a finished product that opened in nearly 300 theaters this past weekend and is simultaneously available for rental via Google Play. At last the lingering question was answered: did anything positive ever happen in Veronica’s life again after that dreary series finale?

A long time ago, we used to be friends…

“Almost Human”: Almost Renewable?

March 4, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Almost Human, Fox

Left to right: Dorian, Detective John Kennex, and I’m really sorry but after thirteen episodes I still don’t know her name.

Tonight was the season finale of Almost Human, the science fiction series created by Fringe showrunner J. H. Wyman about a grumpy future detective (Karl Urban, a.k.a. Spock or Eomer), his emotional robot partner (Michael Ealy, previously on TV’s FlashForward), and their buddy-cop adventures in a world where all the tech advances seem to benefit the outlaws more than the citizens. Thirteen episodes later, the show’s fate rests in the hands of Nielsen commoners and Fox executives, left to decide whether or not the show deserves a second chance to address any of the questions viewers have had since episode one.

Why cancellation might not bother me…

“American Hustle”: Liars in Love

February 28, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Christian Bale, Amy Adams, American Hustle

The years have been rough for Batman and Lois Lane…

My annual Oscar quest concludes at last! David O. Russell’s layered, fascinating American Hustle was the ninth and final film on my playlist, saved for last because I correctly guessed that all the other nominees would exit our local theaters first. A healthy U.S. box office gross of $144 million (and counting) ensured that Hustle would stick around exactly as long as I’d hoped. This week has arrived just in time — after this month-long marathon, my local theater and I could really use a break from each other for a while.

But enough about me; more about the film…

“Captain Phillips”: Jack Sparrow is the Edward Cullen of Movie Pirates

February 23, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Barkhad Abdi, Mahat M. Ali, Captain Phillips

For the first few weeks after this year’s Oscar nominations were announced, Captain Phillips was the only nominee within reach of movie buffs who prefer home video to theaters. You’d think this would give it an advantage with the voters; instead it seems to have been handicapped by its October release, quote-unquote “early” compared to most of the other contenders, and hasn’t factored into most of the Oscar-guessing convos I’ve seen. I watched it a month ago and procrastinated writing about it because I figured everything that could be said has already been said, so why bother?

The short answer: Oscarmania completism. I watch every Best picture nominee every year whether they look appealing to me or not. I normally don’t write about everything I watch on home video (though I’m thinking about changing that soon), but it seems silly to devote entries to eight of the nine nominees while arbitrarily skipping this one. Onward, then.

Regarding the best pirate-themed film in years…