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Stars in Sci-Fi: A Look Ahead at “Story of Your Life”(AKA: “Arrival”) and “Passengers”
While it is plenty fun to watch gigantic dinosaurs chase and eat people, or see alien spaceships invade Earth, I prefer a more muted, thought-provoking science fiction film. For instance, I can guarantee that I will end up enjoying Ex Machina more than Terminator: Genisys or Avengers: Age of Ultron, simply because of the originality and subtlety of Alex Garland’s film. Over the last few days, my attention has been drawn to a few more films that may embody this intellectual science fiction in lieu of large explosions, action set pieces, and CGI-fueled noise-factories. Two of these films look particularly interesting to me thanks to the immense talent being assembled around some great stories. These films are Denis Villeneuve’s Story of Your Life and Morten Tyldum’s Passengers.
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First Trailer for “Sicario” Is Tense and Powerful
We got the first trailer for Denis Villenueve’s Sicario earlier today, and it was a real treat to finally see some scenes from this Cannes audience favorite. I case you’ve forgotten, this is the crime thriller about a FBI agent, played by Emily Blunt, who joins a task force to investigate cartel activity in Mexico. It also starts Josh Brolin and Benecio Del Toro as members of this team, and like all of Villeneuve’s films, there is more than meets the eye bubbling under its surface synopsis. It looks fantastic.
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Pixar’s “Inside Out” is a Beautiful Depiction of the Struggle of Growing Up
Pixar’s fifteenth animated feature film, Inside Out, is inarguably its most conceptual, ambitious, and distinctive; it may also be its greatest. The studio is known for its unique brand of emotional storytelling and blending of humor and heart, but generally the stories follow a familiar narrative structure. Inside Out transcends this trend by offering two parallel narratives taking place in disparate but related worlds. On the surface, the story follows the 11-year old Riley and her struggle with her family’s move from Minnesota to San Francisco, but more fundamentally shows Riley’s inner world: in her mind, we see five personified emotions which work together to guide her through her transition. The film magnificently marries these two worlds, as each element of the story, characters, and theme involves some aspect of one world informing the drama in the other. This synthesis is the true majesty of Inside Out, and establishes it among Pixar’s greatest offerings to date.
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“Blue Ruin” is a Brilliant Deconstruction of the Standard Revenge Thriller
The revenge genre has experienced a small renaissance of late with films like Taken and John Wick portraying purposeful and expert killers running roughshod through those who have wronged them in some way. The audience is generally encouraged to recognize the protagonist’s ability, and celebrate his or her violence. The low-budget film Blue Ruin, from director Jeremy Saulnier, turns this dynamic on its head by providing us with an everyman thrust into a revenge situation. The resulting story arc follows familiar beats, but the unique perspective infuses this stark film with a beauty and realism that is rarely approached in this exploitative genre.
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Jurassic World’s Over-the-Top Everything Leaves Little Room for Story
The original Jurassic Park is a modern masterpiece with memorable and developed characters, a tight plot, and it helped usher in the modern use of CGI in blockbuster films, to boot. None of the sequels have ever lived up to the possibilities created by Jurassic Park in terms of story, character, or heart, and sadly Jurassic World is no exception – but it is closer than anything else. The film also partly succeeds as a meta-commentary on the failure of the modern blockbuster by dialing the dino-action up to 11. Jurassic World often draws attention to the prowess of the original and on the upwards creep of audience expectation, to the point that the final battle scene can only be interpreted as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on “bigger and better” CGI fights. What results is a fun-looking film lacking a coherent plot with broadly-drawn characters who are as annoying as they are forgettable – but at least four different dinosaurs face off in the climactic battle!
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Open Road Films to Offer “Dope” for Bitcoin
In an exclusive story from The Wrap, production company Open Road Films announced that they would be allowing tickets for their film Dope to be purchased with the digital currency bitcoin. The indie comedy, which was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival this year, prominently features bitcoin as a plot detail when the main characters look for a way to exchange a drug windfall into some quick cash. This film was already in my sights as an understated coming-of-age comedy full of ‘90s references and weird web humor, and while this bitcoin move seems to be largely a marketing ploy, it has definitely piqued my attention further (and to be fair, what isn’t a marketing ploy these days?).
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Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” to Debut on Select 70mm Screens on Christmas Day
After Inside Out is released next week (which I get to see on Tuesday!), there’s probably only two films that I absolutely have to see for the remainder of 2015: Star Wars The Force Awakens, and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight – and it looks like I’ll get to see both in December. It was announced today that The Hateful Eight would be released on Christmas day in select theaters capable of displaying the 70mm projection, in which Tarantino chose to shoot the entirety of the film (technically, he shot it in 65mm, the other five holds audio tracks, but who’s counting?). This results in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, a panoramic widescreen view akin to an IMAX theater. In fact, Tarantino is making an effort to install 70mm projectors in various theatres across the United States in order to promote his love of shooting on film (a real passion of his – he hates digital filmmaking). For those theaters that cannot handle 70mm, The Hateful Eight will play nationwide a couple of weeks later on January 8th.
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Biopic “Love & Mercy” Applies Musical Genius of Brian Wilson to Cinematic Storytelling
There is a moment late in the second act of the Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy where everyone is celebrating the success of the Good Vibrations single and lyricist Van Dyke Parks is tasked with describing the next project, which Brian wants to call SMiLE. Parks describes it as a mixture of various artists ranging from Phil Spektor to Beethoven (I have no chance of re-producing the exact sequence here, and can’t find it online, but it is a cool little line). Similarly, Love & Mercy can be described as a mishmash of Amadeus, A Beautiful Mind, and Shine – with elements of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and even 2001: A Space Odyssey. That is rarefied air, but entirely deserved, and the film should please both die-hard fans of The Beach Boys as well as general audiences with its unique style of musical storytelling and parallel story structure.
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The Fantastic Journey of Gaspar Noé’s “Enter the Void”
Enter the Void is not an easy movie to watch, and that isn’t simply because it contains a startling killing, gratuitous sex, and a horrific car accident which routinely interjects the narrative. When you watch the most recent film from Gaspar Noé (at least until Love is released later this year), you are cast into an active role as the main character in the film. Ostensibly, you are Oscar, and get to experience his world and story through his very own eyes. The entirety of the film is shot from Oscar’s point-of-view, and we only get to see his face in mirrors a handful of times. This perspective doesn’t even shift when Oscar is killed and his consciousness leaves his body – we still view the remainder of the film, including multiple flashbacks and flashforwards through this lens. This single effect give Enter the Void an encompassing feel, as though the entire world of the film reaches out and surrounds the viewer, challenging us with the psychedelic neon colors, flashing lights, and unabashed raw energy. Immersed in this world, we are forced to confront the troubling aspects of Oscars past, present, and future as we rocket inexorably towards a new beginning and a new understanding of life.
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“Zootopia” Teaser Gives Glimpse of a Greater World
Earlier today, Disney released the first teaser trailer for their next animated feature Zootopia. This film is Disney’s follow-up to the successful Big Hero 6, and as explained by the wonderful Jason Bateman (the voice of the fox Nick Wilde), Zootopia is a world where there never were humans, and the mammals all have human characteristics. They walk on two feet (especially funny for the giraffes), wear clothes, and take selfies. The animals still have their “natural” attributes as well, from night vision to sensitive hearing, and will likely take advantage of them for plot purposes, but we don’t know too much about that.
Film Criticism and Fiction Writing by Derek Jacobs
