MRwOS reviews "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga". Plus, original music with Cheyenne Dane!

 Going to a movie this weekend? Have a listen to my review of "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga". Plus, I play an original song with guest Cheyenne Dane!

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (If You Can See Me)

Mysterious Adventures: Original Film Scores 2

A brand new compilation of some old film score work I did for some friends' projects, most of which never got used, or never got released. Take a listen and let me know what you think!

Short Reviews: Tarzan Infiltrates the Swiss Army Shallows!

They've been making Tarzan films forever. Way back in the 30s and 40s, Johnny Weissmuller's take on the character was hugely popular, spawning several sequels and giving us the definitive Tarzan call. But after that, there weren't any terribly memorable Tarzan films until the 80s, when you had the critically panned Tarzan, the Ape Man (with Bo Derek, no less) followed a few years later by the better received Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (I remember this fondly because I had a crush on Andie MacDowell at the time). But the most prominent Tarzan in recent years has been the Disney series, starting with the 1999 animated film and followed by several direct-to-video installments. Now comes a new live action version, The Legend of Tarzan, that attempts to resuscitate the franchise.


It's a diverting film, if not quite an inspired one. One of the things it does right is jump into the main story without dwelling much on the character's origin-- Tarzan's storied past is shown via periodic flashbacks; just enough to frame the larger tale. It certainly looks good, with adequate special effects; and I'm not sure how many effects it took to make the 67 year old Samuel L. Jackson look so spry and youthful-- he's clearly going to be a scene stealer into his 120s. Chistoph Waltz also does a typically exceptional job as a mustache twirling villain. The biggest problem with the film is its stars. Alexander Skarsgard is a capable actor (I really liked him in The Diary of a Teenage Girl), but here he gets cheesy-- his every movement is portentous as he stares deep into the soul of the world (do apes not blink? Is that what I'm supposed to get from this?). Margot Robbie (who I liked in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) puts on this girlish American accent that I had a hard time taking seriously. The plot is somewhat confusing, but it's really just a set-up for its absurd-yet-entertaining climax. If you're looking for a summer adventure, this'll get the job done, but I'd rather watch The Jungle Book a few more times.

In Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston played a chemistry teacher turned drug dealer savant (while starring in maybe the greatest TV show of all time). In The Infiltrator, Cranston gets to play the other side, this time as an undercover cop trying to bring down famed drug kingpin, Pablo Escobar. Cranston does an expert job in a role that requires several overlapping performances. The film itself is not quite so elegant, as it breezes through the plot points without giving us a chance to really get to know many of the important supporting characters. The film ultimately lacks some emotional weight, but it's worth seeing just for Cranston's performance.

Swiss Army Man is the strangest film I've seen in a long time, which shouldn't be surprising since it's about a suicidal man whose life is saved by a farting corpse. As the corpse, this continues Daniel Radcliffe's string of interesting post-Harry Potter roles-- some of them are so odd, it makes me wonder if he's trolling his fan-base. Paul Dano plays the suicidal man with his usual manic energy, which is 100% appropriate for this role. The two go on a journey from a deserted island back to civilization, with many lessons learned along the way. It is a truly odd film, but also quite thought-provoking. At this point, I'm not even sure it's a comedy. Where does reality begin and fantasy end? Is it a metaphor? Or just one man's fever-dream before dying? My first thought was that it was about accepting yourself for who you are no matter what society says-- but then I thought it might be a parody of those kinds of films. Whatever the case, take a friend with you because you'll have a lot to talk about afterwards.

I wasn't a big horror fan as a kid, but I've grown to appreciate how cinematic it can be. The Shallows is a solid entry into the killer shark genre. Blake Lively does an expert job as a medical school drop-out honoring her mom's memory by surfing an uncharted bay in Central America. The movie sets up the stakes visually in a clear and concise way, then unveils the horror of the situation with clockwork precision. It's the not the scariest film out there, but it doesn't throw cheap scares at you, either. Aside from a slightly confusing ending, I thought this was a great film. Genre-fare done extremely well.

Movie Reviews: Creed, Trumbo and more...

My dad was in town over Thanksgiving weekend, and we took the opportunity to do a movie marathon!

Sylvester Stallone hasn't been a symbol of quality in a long, long time, so it's easy to forget that the original Rocky (1976) won Best Picture, and was a pretty great film. Creed (2015) is a spin-off of the original Rocky series, and it captures much of the heart of the original. Stallone plays a supporting role as the aging champ helping out his deceased friend's son, and the film is better for it. It was a pleasant surprise. Recommended.

My favorite film of the weekend was Trumbo (2015), starring Brian Cranston (Breaking Bad, Malcolm in the Middle) as the eponymous character. Dalton Trumbo is probably the most famous of the blacklisted screenwriters during the Red Scare of the 1950s, having won multiple Oscars while writing under pseudonyms. It's a very political film, focusing on free speech issues (a subject very dear to my heart), but manages to be incredible entertaining at the same time-- this film oozes with old Hollywood charm. Highly, highly recommended.

Brooklyn (2015) stars Saoirse Ronan as a young Irish immigrant in 1950s New York. It's hard to go into the film too much without oversimplifying it, but I will say that this film has some really wonderful dinner table conversations. The movie is a romance, both about people and places, and it doesn't wrap up in a tidy way. It will leave you thinking, so bring someone along to talk about it afterwards.

Newspapers have been dying, so it's no surprise that we don't see movies about newspapers so much, anymore. But that's a shame, because there's something thrilling about a group of intrepid reporters fighting the system and uncovering corruption. Spotlight (2015) revives that tradition as it details how the Boston Globe uncovered the full extent of the Catholic child abuse scandal. It's not perfect-- I think it sometimes goes overboard trying to make active visuals while relaying key information-- but it's a worthy entry in the genre.

It's odd that the movie is called Victor Frankenstein (2015), because it's really about his assistant-- though I can understand why naming it Igor Stravinsky might be a bad marketing move. Daniel Radcliffe plays this revisionist version of Igor, which brings a lot of humanity to the character. I really appreciated the first part of the film, which explored his origins in the circus and his love for one of its acrobats. James McAvoy is well cast as the mad scientist who enlists Igor's help in conducting some horrific experiments. The last act is a bit overdone and deviates from the focus on Igor, but it will satisfy those who need a spectacular climax. Overall, it's a pretty neat take on the Frankenstein story.

I prefer to see films in the theater, but we did rent the local film Ink (2009), which depicts a dreamworld where the benevolent Storytellers try to protect us from the Incubi, who bring only nightmares. One little girl slips into a coma as the mysterious creature, Ink, kidnaps her unconscious mind. Will the storytellers retrieve her soul? Will her absentee father return to help out? This was locally done in Denver, and won Best Colorado Film from the Denver Film Critics Society. It's an uneven film, but visually it's stunning and creepy.

The Martian: Cheryl & Dave's Review

If you haven't seen "The Martian" yet, I highly recommend it. On the other hand, Cheryl has some reservations...

Movie Reviews: The Imitation Game, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and more...

The Imitation Game (2014) comes in with the annual rush of awards contenders, and it has all you would expect: a great actor playing an eccentric genius, a high stakes plot involving WWII, and an angle on contemporary social issues.  You'll laugh!  You'll cry!  Yes, it's a very well done film, but it is just as much a genre picture as all the superhero movies that come out every year-- there's nothing terribly ground-breaking here.  But it's nice to see one of the great minds of the 20th Century, Alan Turing, get his due.  If it looks like your cup of tea, I'm sure you'll thoroughly enjoy it.

I was a bit upset with the second Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smaug... mostly because they ended the film with such an ill-timed cliff-hanger.  Now seeing the latest film, The Battle of the Five Armies (2014), I'm even more pissed off, because what would've been an awesome ending to the second film was an anticlimactic prelude to the third film.  Though I understand why Peter Jackson did it-- the scenes with the dragon are, by far, the best in the trilogy, and the rest of the third film couldn't help but be a let-down afterward.  There are some great sequences in this third and final entry, but like the other films, it feels a bit padded.  Don't get me wrong, this is a good film and it's a good trilogy, it's just easy to be disappointed when it doesn't match the majesty of The Lord of the Rings.  Maybe we'll get a fan-made edit culling the best parts of the three movies into one 3-hour film... I can dream, anyway.

I love a good romantic comedy; unfortunately, not many get made anymore (not good ones, I mean).  Maybe I'm not in the right demographic, but it used to be that Hollywood knew how to make rom-coms that appealed to guys as well as gals.  Definitely, Maybe (2008) really got me, though.  Ryan Reynolds plays a dad on the cusp of divorce who's beseeched by his daughter (Abigail Breslin) to tell her the story of how he and her mom met.  Instead of giving a straight-forward account, he tells her about three women he was involved with before getting married and challenges her to guess which one was her mom.  It's a neat premise for a film, and it plays out wonderfully; all the characters are well-drawn, their lives are layered-- it felt like this was a story about real people living in a real world with real complications.  I adored this film; highly recommended.

After seeing Nightcrawler a few weeks ago, I wanted to check out some other Jake Gyllenhaal films.  Unfortunately, I rented Enemy (2013), a metaphysical thriller based on the Nobel Prize winning novel The Double, by Jose Saramago.  Now, understand that I have a bachelor's degree in Philosophy-- I like Philosophy, I read Philosophy, I enjoy having philosophical discussions.  But I don't like how films like this get all portentous and what-not.  We get it: your film is pondering meaningful, important questions; just, please, crack a joke once in a while.  It doesn't help that this is the second doppelgänger film I've seen this year (the other one being the coincidentally titled The Double), which was similarly dour.  Go see John Dies at the End instead-- it's a much more entertaining way to bend your mind.

***

That's probably the last set of movie reviews I'll do in 2014.  But be on the lookout for my year end Top 10 list later this week!

Movie Reviews: Hunger Games, Nightcrawler and St. Vincent

The first two Hunger Games movies were basically the same but with different stakes.  Both revolved around Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) facing impossible odds in the gladiatorial arena, pitted against other children for the entertainment of the rich and powerful.  The second movie advanced the dramatic dilemmas from the first film, but it happened around the edges.  Considering the cliff hanger ending of Catching Fire, I was wondering how they were going to include the games again in Mockingjay, Part 1, the latest installment in the series.

Surprisingly, they don't.  In fact, this sequel has very little in common structurally with the first two films.  The first two films were action movies with political and romantic undertones, but the action is gone from this sequel.  We're left with a somber, political drama about a group of rebels on the precipice of war.  The political intrigue and romantic triangle are front and center, with the constant threat of anybody and everybody dying at any moment.  It's a slow, dark meditation on the realities of war, and what it means to be a figurehead for something so potentially liberating and yet necessarily destructive.

It's a good film, but you definitely will want to see the first two films ahead of time; and if you haven't developed any attachment to characters by then, you many find Mockingjay to be a bit trying.  I think it's fascinating, though, that the filmmakers would take a chance on doing a film this different.  I understand that it's based on a book, so they have to follow that story.  But in the last few years, the rules of blockbuster films have been rewritten.  Studios are now willing to trust that the audiences will follow the characters they love under changing circumstances, and that's a big deal.  I lament that smaller and standalone films may be endangered, but I'm excited to be living through this development of big budget, character driven blockbusters.  

Nightcrawler was released on Halloween, so I've taken my time getting around to seeing it-- but thank god I did!  This is an amazingly intense film noir about a down on his luck hustler (Jake Gyllenhaal) who gets involved in guerrilla journalism.  He follows the police around late at night, trying to get video footage of crimes, accidents, or any type of viscerally nasty images he can sell to the local TV news rooms.  I've always thought Gyllenhaal was a competent actor, but he acts the hell out of this role.  He's a thoroughly despicable guy with just enough charm to keep us watching.  One thing I like about this movie is that, even though it follows the very gritty underbelly of Los Angeles, it's not an ugly film.  The cinematography is pristine, and it makes the violence and corruption a bit more cozy.  And maybe that's what this film is about: how cozy we're getting with this kind of sensationalism.  I can't say this film is for everybody, but I loved it-- one of my top films of the year.

Last Friday, I was trying to decide what movie to see, so I asked a friend which comedy I should go see:  Horrible Bosses 2 or St. Vincent.  When I mentioned Bill Murray was in the latter film, she said to see that... as long it's actually funny; she said that when they cast comedic actors in dramas, the results tend to be dour.  I decided to see St. Vincent and the funniest thing about it was that she was right-- it was kind of a depressing drama starring comedians.  But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I really like dramatic Bill Murray, particularly in films like Lost in Translation and Broken Flowers.  And he does an excellent job as a drinkin', gamblin', curmudgeonly guy taking care of the kid next door.  Melissa McCarthy, who's shown that she has comedy chops to rival Murray's, reveals that she can do a great job in a straight role as a mother struggling to take care of her son while making ends meet.  Naomi Watts was underused in the otherwise great Birdman, but here she has a chance to actually act, if only in a stock role as a Russian stripper-prostitute.

And that brings us to the problem with the film-- it's full of stock characters in stock situations.  The acting is really great, and they raise up the rest of the movie, but the movie needs to be raised a lot.  In a lot of ways this felt like one of those after school specials I used to avoid watching back in the 80s.  In that decade, you could've had the same film (minus the stripper-prostitute) starring Ed Asner and a young Ricky Schroder.  For some, this film might be worth seeing for the performances, but, personally, I was a bit bored with it.

Movie Review: Gone Girl

I don't know if anybody else felt it, but it seemed like there was a big build up to Gone Girl being released.  It's a collaboration between two recent Best Picture winners (Ben Affleck, who won for 2012's Argo, and David Fincher, who won for 2010's The Social Network) and the author of the hugely popular and critically acclaimed 2012 novel, Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn).  And you know what?  it feels like a big film, too.  In a lot of ways, it was like the kind of big film that was Hollywood's bread and butter in the pre-Star Wars days.  It's something you might imagine Hitchcock releasing to great fanfare back in the day.

This is a movie that needs a big star in the middle of it, and Ben Affleck rises to the challenge.  Usually I think he sleepwalks through his roles-- he's often the least good actor in his otherwise admirable directorial efforts-- but Fincher seems to have brought out some nuance in his performance.  He plays a man who comes under a huge amount of media scrutiny once his wife (famous as the inspiration for a children's book character named "Amazing Amy") disappears.  As a celebrity of his caliber, Affleck knows what this kind of scrutiny is like, and he's had his fair share of media mishaps, just like the character he's playing.

But the film is littered with fine performances.  I really loved Carrie Coon, who plays twin sister to Affleck's character; Kim Dickens plays a strong police detective who follows the evidence wherever it goes, even as it zig-zags; even Tyler Perry does an excellent job as the celebrity attorney trying to land the case.  The one person I had reservations about was Rosamund Pike, who plays the missing wife; much of the film is told through the narration of her diary, but her voice didn't always feel convincing.

Then again, maybe that's on purpose.  Nothing in this movie is at is seems-- there are many twists and turns, and it's hard to discuss the film without spoiling things.  Let it suffice to say that David Fincher does an excellent job handling the many layers involved.  I highly recommend this film.

Movie Review: Under The Skin (2013)

Under The Skin is a very, very artsy film.  There's little dialogue, and there ain't nobody 'splainin' nuthin' to you.  It's chock full of jarring imagery and dissonant music, too.  Don't see this film unless you're ready to be challenged.  

That being said, I really liked it!  Every shot of this film could be a well-composed photograph all its own.  If nothing else, you'll see new things you've never seen before, or you'll see mundane things in new ways.

The plot takes a while to become clear, but this film is basically about an alien masquerading as an attractive woman who abducts various men along the Scottish countryside.  There are many details beyond that, but you're pretty much left to decide for yourself what they mean.  

In many ways, this reminds me of Shane Carruth's Upstream Color from 2013.  That movie is also a sci-fi thriller that gives you the raw information you need, but stubbornly refuses to connect the dots for you.  Both movies seem to be from the perspective of something inhuman observing how mankind reacts to it.   

But of the two movies, Under the Skin is a simpler and much more lovely film.  It's a sensual tone poem all its own, and perhaps it's best not to worry yourself with something so trivial as a plot.  The movie tries to show us the world through alien eyes, and maybe that's something we're not meant to understand.  

Scarlett Johansson's lovely performance really brings out how strange our world must be to an alien.  It reminded me of David Bowie's glassy eyed visitor in The Man Who Fell To Earth.

This type of movie is inherently hit or miss.  But if you enjoy truly visual story-telling, don't require much talking, and can handle a bit of weirdness, this is definitely worth a look.

Movie Review: The Drop (2014)

The trailers for The Drop suggest this movie is about a couple thugs robbing a mob-connected bar and how the shit then hits the fan.  You'd be forgiven for thinking this was a clone of the 2012 film, Killing Them Softly, but you'd also be very, very wrong.  The Drop is both more complex and more straight-forward, but also quite a bit more subtle.

There are actually several intertwined story-lines, all revolving around Bob, who tends bar at his cousin Marv's place.  Aside from the bar heist, the biggest storyline involves Bob finding a dog that's been beaten and left for dead in a local woman's dumpster.  Bob and the woman build a relationship as he learns to take care of the puppy.

The other story lines aren't immediately obvious, but rather unveil themselves as the movie progresses.  This movie is masterful at adding plot-points casually, making them look like natural character development and bits of local flavor.  I really admire how this script was put together; it's tightly constructed, but comes off as really loose.  There are slow points in the film when you may mistakenly believe that nothing important is going on.

Bob is played by Tom Hardy, who is proving to be an actor's actor.  In his last three films (playing the title character in Locke and Bane in The Dark Knight Rises), he's been virtually unrecognizable from one part to the next.  I wouldn't be surprised if it starts with his voice-- each character he plays seems to talk in a very unique way; Hardy would've been a natural in the age of radio plays.  But his body language is amazingly distinct, too.  He fully inhabits his roles in a way that would give Daniel Day Lewis a run for his money.  The other actors on hand are in fine form, too.  It's notable that this was James Gandolfini's last film role (though apparently there was some television pilot he did after this).

This film works on several levels.  If you appreciate character driven plots, and if you appreciate well constructed scripts, you'll really appreciate this film.  Highly recommended.