Reverb Junkies is a documentary about surf music that’s full of interview segments with concert-goers who are less likely to yell “Freebird!” than “Reverb!” Junkies focuses on the fans of surf music rather than it’s history, but their enthusiasm keeps it interesting, and lots of history seeps in.
When I was a kid, in the days before movie rentals and the internet, you got one chance a year to see The Wizard Of Oz, and if you had any sense at all, you took it. Year after year, I kept watching the film, figuring that when I stopped enjoying it, I would officially have become a grown up. By that measure, I still haven’t, despite possessing crippling credit card debt, which is usually what separates the men from the boys.
What do you get when you take the director of Legion and Priest, and writer of Legion, and get the producers of Paranormal Activity to make a creepy sci-fi/horror film? You get a movie filled with elements of other movies with a few creepy scenes in it, and call it Dark Skies.
Aaw, yeah, it’s A Good Day To Die Hard! Ha, yeah, another delightful, action-filled installment of the perpetual John McClane franchise. I figure as long as Bruce Willis is fit enough to be in these, we’ll keep seeing them. And as far as the action goes, you will not be disappointed here. If you’re looking for much else, well, you know, never mind.
Let’s face it, I think most people will agree that Haywire, Magic Mike and the Girlfriend Experience are not going to make any of his “best of” lists. Frankly, much the same could be said of his fluffy Ocean’s films. But in contrast, he’s made some good films, too. Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Traffic, Solaris (I think so) and The Informant! are among them. And now, the sharp thriller, Side Effects.
As the trailers might have you believe, Bullet To The Head is a throw back to the mis-matched partner cop movies of the 1980’s. You know how much we loved those, right? Chock full of action and hilarity. But that usually relied on both the partners being interesting in their own way. When one of them doesn’t own up to their responsibility, well, then the movie gets pretty boring pretty fast. And so we have Bullet To The Head.
In Stand Up Guys, you get to spend 95 minutes with Christopher Walken and Al Pacino. You could do worse. Alan Arkin shows up for a fun bit of business in a highly flattering role. And it’s pretty fun.
More January celluloid fun! Hey, you know I’m a Jason Statham fan, and therefore I had an obligation to go see his new movie, Parker. Usually Statham’s movies are directed by some purely action oriented director, or a more obsurce foreign director. But Parker is helmed by Taylor Hackford who directed An Officer and a Gentleman and Ray. Yep. That can either bode well for us, or tells us that the script is lame and maybe Hackford just wanted to work with Statham.
This is one of those weird unexpected films. I didn’t expect it to be nearly as good as people said, while it is simultaneously not as good as the Academy says. This film has Shakespeare In Love syndrome. There’s nothing wrong with Silver Linings Playbook, at all. In fact, it’s rather good. But Oscar good?
Once again into the offal of January films, and this time, you get what you expect. Written and directed by Tommy Wirkola, the man that gaves us the delightful Dead Snow, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is all style and fast food, and not nearly enough depth to make us really give a damn about anything going on in the film.