The Girl On the Train (2016): adapted by Erin Cressida Wilson from the novel by Paula Hawkins; directed by Tate Taylor; starring Emily Blunt (Rachel), Haley Bennett (Megan), Rebecca Ferguson (Anna), Justin Theroux (Tom), Luke Evans (Scott), and Alison Janney (Detective Riley):
Based on a best-selling psychological thriller, The Girl On the Train is neither thrilling nor psychologically believable. Unpleasant pretty people do unpleasant things. Someone gets murdered. Whodunnit? Who cares! Emily Blunt's portrayal of an alcoholic probably merits inclusion in the Hall of Fame for Unintentional Funny Bad Performances by Otherwise Capable Actors. Not recommended.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017): based on characters created by Philip K. Dick; written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green; directed by Denis Villeneuve; starring Ryan Gosling (K), Dave Bautista (Sapper), Robin Wright (Lieutenant Joshi), Ana de Armas (Joi), Edward James Olmos (Gaff), Sylvia Hoeks (Luv), Jared Leto (Niander Wallace), and Harrison Ford (Rick Deckard):
A slow-burn fever dream of a movie, and a worthy successor to the cult-favourite original. Ryan Gosling is pitch-perfect, while the visuals are marvelous. It doesn't quite equal the original because Jared Leto as the new 'Tyrell' is terrible in that specifically Jared Leto Hambone Way. More operatic scenery chewing from Rutger Hauer, or someone like Rutger Hauer, would have helped give the film more drama. Nonetheless, it's a haunting work at points, one that stays in the memory. Highly recommended.
Wind Chill (2007): written by Joseph Gangemi and Steven Katz; directed by Gregory Jacobs; starring Emily Blunt (Girl), Ashton Holmes (Guy), and Martin Donovan (Highway Patrolman): A car-sharing ride from Pennsylvania to Delaware for Christmas Break goes horribly awry thanks primarily to the fact that the driver is a stalkery loner who has a crush on passenger Emily Blunt.
However, the movie's more interested in the supernatural than in stalkery, slashy real-world goings-on, and that makes Wind Chill worth watching. The generic title doesn't help matters, especially as wind chill isn't much of a factor -- it's really just cold and snow and a crashed car, within which about 50% of the movie's scenes take place.
The writers go a couple of times too many to the Well of Dreams That Seem To Be Real, but things are otherwise quite, um, chilling. Portions of the story play effectively with various Urban Legend tropes concerning stopped cars and sinister cops, with a nod to the movie's Urban Legend qualities coming in the unnamed status of our two principals, who remain simply 'Guy' and 'Girl' for the movie. Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes do decent work as the 'couple,' and the outdoor scenes manage to be sufficiently chilly and forlorn. Recommended.
JeruZalem (2015): written and directed by Doron and Yoav Paz; starring Danielle Jadelyn (Sarah Pullman), Yael Grobglas (Rachel Klein), Yon Tumarkin (Kevin Reed), and Tom Graziani (Omar): Loopy found-footage film with an anomalous 'Z' in the title. Yes, the 'Z' is there to cater to World War Z fans. But the monsters in this Israeli production aren't zombies. Jerusalem itself is really the on-location star of this film.
The two Jewish-American 20-something women who visit Jerusalem on holidays have a good time at first before all Hell breaks loose, though not before the protagonist has taken off her footage-filming iGlasses so that we can get a look at her nekkid. Hoo ha!
The whole thing ends up being a plea for people of different faiths to get along set against a background of apocalyptic destruction. I enjoyed it, especially its non-zombie components. More nudity might have been nice. Recommended.
Quarantine (2008): adapted by John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle from the movie Rec, written by Jaume Balaguero, Luiso Berdejo, and Paco Plaza; directed by John Erick Dowdle; starring Jennifer Carpenter (Angela), Steve Harris (Scott), Jay Hernandez (Jay), and Johnathon Schaech (George): Effective Americanization of the Spanish horror movie Rec throws out Roman Catholicism in favour of a more bioterroristic explanation for the horrors that await the cops, paramedics, film crew, and residents in an L.A. apartment building within which they're trapped under quarantine.
It's another found-footage movie, and as such it plays better on a small screen (or at least less vertiginously). Jennifer Carpenter's character gets annoyingly reduced to screaming, Fay-Wray stand-in for the last third of the film. Admittedly, who wouldn't scream while being assailed by blood-thirsty, super-strong plague victims at every moment? The original was superior, though not by as much as horror cognoscenti like to pretend. Recommended.
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel: written by Jamie Mathieson; directed by Gareth Carrivick; starring Chris O'Dowd (Ray), Marc Wootton (Toby), Dean Lennox Kelly (Pete), and Anna Faris (Cassie) (2008): Amiable, British, low-budget, and sly nod to both geeks and pubs. Three somewhat aimless 20-something British pals get into a discussion about time travel. Then time travel starts busting out all over the place because there's a time distortion located in the men's washroom at their local pub.
O'Dowd is his almost always lovable self as the leader of the trio, while Marc Wootton as the aspiring science-fiction writer of the group and Dean Lennox Kelly as the friend who hates science fiction are also sympathetic and funny. It's low-key in that British way that makes things funnier. Anna Faris shows up as a sort of cross between a Time Cop and a Time Bureaucrat. It may be a comedy, but the time travelling makes as much or more sense than most 'serious' movies involving time travel. Recommended.
Draft Day: written by Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph; directed by Ivan Reitman; starring Kevin Costner (Sonny Weaver Jr.), Jennifer Garner (Ali), Chadwick Boseman (Vontae Mack), Frank Langella (Anthony Molina), and Denis Leary (Coach Penn) (2014): Surprisingly enjoyable sports movie about... the NFL draft! It takes place in an alternate universe where the Cleveland Browns, while still hapless, nonetheless recently had a legendary coach. Kevin Costner is fine in the sports scenes and out of place in the romantic scenes with Jennifer Garner -- the relationship, along with several other plot points, really seem to suggest that Costner's character is a good 15 years younger than Costner himself at 60. Lightly recommended.
Edge of Tomorrow: adapted by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, and John-Henry Butterworth from the novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka; directed by Doug Liman; starring Tom Cruise (Cage), Emily Blunt (Rita), Brendan Gleeson (General Brigham), and Bill Paxton (Farell) (2014): Solid science-fiction action movie plagued only by its terrible title, a title so vague that the studio altered it for video release to Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow. The title of the original novel/manga, All You Need Is Kill, is better than both. Tom Cruise does nice work here as a cowardly creep turned into a hero by the circumstances of the movie, and Emily Blunt ably supports him as a tough super-soldier.
Aliens have invaded Earth. Do you really need to know more? They're visually impressive aliens, too -- fast-moving, mercurial blobs that look about what I'd expect a Shoggoth on Crack would look like. They've trashed Europe. And a near-future version of D-Day is about to go horribly wrong. Thank Heavens for Tom Cruise!
It's not a perfect movie. The ending doesn't quite logic out, or is missing some brief explanation that would make it make sense. And as Roger Ebert might have pointed out, it's another in a long line of movies about The Impregnable Fortress Impregnated. Oh, well. Recommended.
Looper: written and directed by Rian Johnson; starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Joe), Bruce Willis (Old Joe), Emily Blunt (Sara), Paul Dano (Seth), Jeff Daniels (Abe), and Pierce Gagnon (Cid) (2012): Watching Looper for a second time, I note its metafictional nature as a movie partially about other movies. I
n one scene, crime boss Jeff Daniels tells protagonist Joseph Gordon-Levitt that the clothes he chooses to wear have simply been adopted from movies, not real life. We hear writer-director Rian Johnson talking to himself.
Important intertexts? Shane, Pale Rider (itself tied back to Shane), Casablanca, Get Carter (right down to the drugged eye-drops), Blade Runner, and the Back to the Future trilogy(!), the latter for its Electra complex as much as for its time-travel. Oh, and The Twilight Zone episode entitled "It's a Good Life," with its super-powered child who sends bad people to "the cornfield." Though here it's a canefield. It's a dandy movie. Clouds are also important. Highly recommended.
Concrete Volume 1: Depths: written and illustrated by Paul Chadwick (1986-1999; collected 2005): Concrete became a critical and commercial success in the 1980's in part because of the comic-book world's 'Black-and-White boom,' in which a rising tide of speculation floated all boats and then a declining tide nearly grounded all boats, forever. It also got the always understated Harlan Ellison to declare it the best comic book of its time.
It wasn't.
What it was, though, was a refreshing change for the superhero-dominated time: a low-key story about a guy stuck in a super-powered body and what he tries to do with that body. That the body looks like a Golem made of concrete and has an extremely limited sense of touch makes things tougher. Concrete has super-strength, but it's bear-level super-strength, not Superman-level super-strength. He can be hurt by explosive shells, long falls, or oxygen deprivation lasting more than an hour. Oh, and he has terrific eyesight, which allows Chadwick the artist to depict some pretty interesting undersea vistas during Concrete's periodic forays underwater.
Re-reading (most) of these stories 24 years later, I'm struck by how soothing the world of Concrete is. The adventures are low-key in tone even when they verge on the epic (Concrete saves miners from a collapsed mine; Concrete tries to swim the Atlantic Ocean); Chadwick's skills as both an artist and a writer lie in the depiction and accumulation of small, telling details.
Schmaltz and over-sentimentality always lurk at the threshold, but for the most part they're kept at bay with lovely little details (the look on Concrete's face when he accidentally steps on someone's foot, for example). And one of the early central conceits of the series -- that the best way to get people to stop talking about something is to over-expose it in the media -- remains fresh. Recommended.
Next Men: Aftermath: written and illustrated by John Byrne (2012): John Byrne's time-twisting superhero book finally comes to what may or may not be an end, 17 years after he started the project. It's been a mostly enjoyable ride.
Here, the reality-bending shenanigans come thick and fast, reminding me of one of Byrne's better efforts, the OMAC miniseries. Byrne's one of only a handful of creators of his era who seems truly comfortable with science fiction as a thought process and not as a series of symbolic markers deployed in the service of allegory.
This volume is probably a necessity if you've followed Next Men and completely pointless if you haven't. Byrne's art is very sharp, and his inking of himself has finally reached the status of some of the great inkers -- Terry Austin, Karl Kesel -- he had in the past. Recommended.
Top Ten: Beyond the Farthest Precinct: written by Paul DiFillipo; illustrated by Jerry Ordway (2005): Science-fiction writer DiFillipo and long-time DC artist Ordway do nice work picking up the story of the super-powered precinct five years after the events chronicled by creators Alan Moore, Gene Ha and Zander Cannon in the original Top Ten series from 1999-2000.
Ordway luxuriates in the chance to do hyper-detailed panels in the backgrounds of which lurk pulp and comic-book and comic-strip characters highly reminiscent of every such character ever created. The city of Neopolis houses virtually all the super-powered, supernatural, and just plain weird people of America. And Precinct Ten ('Top Ten') tries to keep the peace.
This time around, we catch up with old friends, especially Toybox, Smax, King Peacock, Peregrine, Shock-headed Peter, and Sergeant Kemlo, as they deal with an irritating new mayor, an even-more irritating new precinct Captain, and a bizarre apparition which swiftly goes from scary nuisance to potentially universe-destroying threat. The geography of Neopolis remains an odd delight and a commentary -- we again see the robot ghetto, but we're also introduced to Bugtown, in which reside insect-based characters, and insects, of all types. Don't ask me what it all means. Recommended.
The Five-Year Engagement: written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller; directed by Nicholas Stoller; starring Jason Segel (Tom Solomon), Emily Blunt (Violet Barnes), Chris Pratt (Alex Eilhauer), Alison Brie (Suzie Barnes-Eilhauer), David Paymer (Pete Solomon), Mimi Kennedy (Carol Solomon), Jacki Weaver (Sylvia Dickerson-Bauer), Rhys Ifans (Professor Winston Childs), and Mindy Kaling (Vaneetha) (2012): Advertised as another Judd-Apatow-produced romp, this movie is indeed that -- but also a surprisingly nuanced and accurate portrayal of life in academia. Now wonder it wasn't a hit!
The trials and tribulations of Emily Blunt's post-doctoral-fellowship-holding psychology Ph.D. and her hapless fiance Jason Segel, transplanted from his dream job as a sous-chef in San Francisco to life as the lightly regarded non-academic partner in Michigan, ring amazingly true.
Segel gradually goes crazy while Blunt putters along in her mostly laughable academic career, the romantic target of a lecherous supervisor played to unctuous, faux-sensitive perfection by Rhys Ifans. The stellar supporting cast has lots to do, with Community's Alison Brie doing a decent British accent and the Sarah Silverman Show's Brian Posein making good use of his giant beard and drunken Sasquatch charm as one of Segel's Michigan drinking buddies. And the leads are funny and charming.
This isn't a great movie -- like almost every Apatow-associated project, it's a bit too shaggy and a bit too long. But it certainly provides more laughs than almost anything else you're going to see this week. Recommended.
