Wow. I don’t know if this is the best Marvel movie so far, but it’s definitely the most fun. An absolute blast, beginning to end. #iamgroot
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Guardians of the Galaxy:
I was very nervous about this one. I honestly had never even heard of the comic when the film was announced, and once it was described to me I thought that Marvel might be endangering their win streak. They’re feeling pretty good about themselves over there since all of their films have been big hits, and the announcement of a film version of Ant-Man and a movie starring a talking raccoon seemed like hubris. I no longer really have any doubt about their creative direction after they made this one into a smash hit. (Except for one thing: the practice of announcing sequels to films that haven’t been released yet – that needs to stop yesterday. It’s obnoxious and presumptuous.)
Once I started seeing artwork and stills and especially the trailers, though, I had another concern. Now that it was starting to look really cool, I worried that they’d screw it up. I kind of hated director James Gunn’s last picture, Super, so I was afraid this picture might try to be smarter or more clever than it really is. I worried needlessly.
Guardians of the Galaxy is a complete, unqualified success. Not just the most enjoyable of all of the movies from Marvel Studios, it was actually more fun to watch than anything I’ve seen in the theater in some time. The tone and the spirit of adventure are absolutely perfect.
The story is basically your standard Macguffin hunt with odd personalities that must learn to work together, blah, blah, blah. But the execution is flawless. Well, nearly flawless – I don’ t know what Glenn Close & Benicio del Toro were doing in this movie but they should have been asked to stop.
The acting talent in general, however, is amazing. It’s a seriously deep cast, from Chris Pratt in the star-making lead role down to Seth Green as the voice of…well, that would be telling…
All of the characters are original and a blast to get to know, with Groot & Rocket being my personal faves. I love that they got Vin Diesel to voice a character who only says “I am Groot”. And Bradley Cooper really loses himself in Rocket. But the live-action actors are very fine and particularly committed to working with dizzying amounts of makeup. Karen Gillan and Lee Pace are unrecognizable.
The design of the film is fantastic, which is not easy to achieve in a sci-fi movie. There’s a tendency to be either derivative or totally out there (in an attempt not to be derivative). But there are a lot of truly unique designs in the picture, with Star-Lord’s mask and gadgets, and the Novas ships sticking out particularly in my mind. There are an unbelievable amount of CG effects, which is unavoidable, but they are of an extremely high quality.
This is one of those times where a movie is so enjoyable that I have difficulty talking too much about it – I just want to say “go see it and by the way can I come, too?”
[schema type=”movie” url=”http://marvel.com/guardians” name=”Guardians of the Galaxy” description=”In the far reaches of space, an American pilot named Peter Quill finds himself the object of a manhunt after stealing an orb coveted by the villainous Ronan.” director=”James Gunn” actor_1=”Chris Pratt” actor_2=”Vin Diesel” actor_3=”Bradley Cooper” actor_4=”Zoe Saldana” actor_5=”Dave Bautista” actor_6=”Lee Pace” ]
In the far reaches of space, an American pilot named Peter Quill finds himself the object of a manhunt after stealing an orb coveted by the villainous Ronan.
I really don’t know what to make of The Fracking King. It is obviously penned by a talented author. I found it fascinating and wanted to keep reading. It was very engaging. It just was kind of a hot mess.
The protagonist, Winston Crwth is a teen Scrabble prodigy. I was completely unaware such things existed. The entire book is very focused on Scrabble – obsessively so. While I can’t claim to have been misled – the synopsis clearly talks about “hardcore Scrabble” – I never expected that something so seemingly meaningless to me could be so massively important to a story.
Winston is an awkward student entering his third high school, this one a bizarre and isolated boarding school filled with half-developed characters. The school is so backwards and weird that it can only be based on personal experience.
The other main theme of the novel is about the controversial practice of fracking, where pressurized liquids of questionable content are injected into wellbores to break up rock formations and stimulate mining of gas. The author seems to be extremely knowledgeable on the subject and calling attention to the environmental issues is undoubtedly the main purpose of the novel. But it’s simply not digestible. For something that is talked about so much it is explained so little. The book assumes a similar amount of expertise on the part of the reader and speaks in shorthand; it’s an ill-advised presumption.
Mainly, it’s a frustrating novel. There’s a great story in here, but the hyper-focus on the specifics of Scrabble and fracking don’t leave much room for development of the characters and the story is very disjointed. But it’s really interesting at the same time. I really have very mixed feelings about it. While I start to conclude that it was poorly written, I realize that I couldn’t put it down, so it certainly possessed some great qualities. I suppose I’d say that it wasn’t enjoyable but was engaging.
[schema type=”book” name=”The Fracking King” description=”A striking debut novel about boarding school, hardcore Scrabble, and fracking—a new kind of environmental novel by an important voice in the debate about fracking in America. When the tap water at the Hale Boarding School for Boys bursts into flames, people blame fracking. Life at Hale has always been fraught—the swim test consists of being thrown into the pool with wrists and ankles tied, and a boy can be expelled if he and a girl keep fewer than “three feet on the floor.” But the sight of combustible drinking water and the possibility that fracking is making Hale kids sick turn one student into an unlikely hero in the fight to stop the controversial drilling practice. Winston Crwth, a Scrabble prodigy whose baffling last name rhymes with “truth,” knows what it’s like to be “fractured,” having grown up with his father in Philadelphia and his mother in California. On Winston’s comic journey to the Pennsylvania State Scrabble Championship, where he hopes to win an audience with beauty-queen-turned-governor Linda King LaRue, he matches wits with Thomasina Wodtke-Weir, the headmaster’s prematurely gray daughter and the most popular (read: only) girl at school; the state poet laureate, whose verse consists of copying out dictionary entries and restroom graffiti; and David Dark, son of the CEO of Dark Oil & Gas, the source of Winston’s scholarship money. The Fracking King is a fantastically inventive debut about rowing crew, using all your tiles, and trying to save the world.” author=”James Browning” publisher=”New Harvest” pubdate=”2014-07-01″ isbn=”0544262999″ ebook=”yes” hardcover=”yes” ]
Forget the totally undeserved bad reviews, this is a solid tale for modern smartphone era kids with the tone of the great 1980’s adventures.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Earth to Echo:
Yikes! The vitriol aimed at this cute little movie is a little hard to come to terms with. I didn’t read one single review of the movie, but I kind of didn’t need to. Every time I looked up images or quotes or cast info, all I kept seeing was “shameless rip-off”, “uninspired”, “derivative”, and far worse. You people get that this is a kids movie, yes?
Part of the nastiness I attribute to our overly critical natures and simple schadenfreude. The films provenance is troubled, as it was developed by Walt Disney Studios who delayed release several times before they finally sold it off to Relativity Media, who then did some additional shooting. When you hear that sort of thing your antenna goes up and you usually assume that a project was thrown out with the trash as the studio didn’t believe in it. In this case, it seems to be more a case of being orphaned when there was a change in studio leadership. This sort of thing happens all the time in development; an executive who championed your project gets shifted and the new exec sees no upside to continuing with the inherited project (if it fails it’s their fault, if it succeeds the former exec gets the credit). It just happens much less frequently once a film is ready for release. With that news, however, everyone smelled blood in the water and proceeded to write the movie off, sharpening their knives in preparation of getting to rip it apart.
Most of the anger, though, seems focused on the perception that this movie rips off E.T. and is unoriginal. Stop right there – E.T. isn’t one of the finest films ever made because of how original it is. It was far from the first film to tread on this territory. (Spielberg himself took three tries to make the movie: Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the unmade sorta-sequel Night Skies. Another lesser-known fact is that both E.T. & Close Encounters were both dogged by claims of plagiarism of an unproduced script by Satyajit Ray called The Alien that made the rounds in Hollywood for years.)
No, E.T. was brilliant and remains powerful because of its great heart, how amazing the relationships are, and how touching, magical and awe-inspiring it was. It’s also 32 years old. It’s a great story of friendship with a wonderful sense of adventure and kid empowerment, so why don’t modern kids deserve their own story?
Think about it; how meaningful is the movie to today’s kids? I know we use words like timeless when discussing classic films, but oftentimes we’re kidding ourselves. Just because a movie is wonderful does not make it timeless. E.T. is very dated, and that’s not a criticism any more than applying the term to a Cold War film. While the picture is exactly as great as it was 32 years ago, it was a long time ago and utilizes outdated technology for major plot points.
We love the movies of our childhood and sometimes put them on pedestals where we can’t see that they’ve gotten a bit worn, and then we can’t see why everyone doesn’t view the films today exactly the way we did then.
The filmmakers responsible for Earth to Echo have acknowledged a desire to create a movie with the adventurous spirit of those great 80’s movies and they have succeeded, while imbuing the film with a modern sensibility that will better resonate with its target audience of today’s kids. (And I reject the idea that modern films can simply update the old stories for kids who won’t appreciate older films. My daughter has seen E.T. – she loved it. And she loved this one. There’s nothing mutually exclusive about it – good, fun movies will be seen for what they are and will hold up if they are well-made. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to also have newer pictures that infuse the same spirit of wonder and adventure.)
The film centers around a group of best friends from a neighborhood in suburban Las Vegas that is being demolished to make way for a highway. (Amazingly I didn’t spot any Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy gags in here, which seems like a called shot.) As the families make their moving plans, phones around the diminishing neighborhood begin to act strangely, displaying seemingly nonsensical electronic noise. Of course our heroes, Tuck, Munch and Alex, detect a pattern in the signal and resolve to have one last adventure before they all are forced to go their separate ways. Over a crowded 24 hours, they’ll make 2 new friends – one out of this world – and get their famous last stand.
The film is shot in “found footage” format, a stylistic choice seemingly meant to resonate with a generation of smartphone users. It is largely an effective tool, although they clearly felt they needed to add some reshoots and additional non-shaky-cam footage, either to make the film more family-friendly or easier to follow, and it does make the look of the film sort of inconsistent. The basic conceit is that Tuck (played by rapper Brian “Astro” Bradley) aspires to YouTube fame and records his actions all the time through a combination of camcorders, smartphones and go-pro cams. Because of this, it makes sense that he’d get all of this footage, but it also means he and the other actors play to the camera a lot. Like any footage of people aware that they are being filmed, this is a little annoying at first, giving the film an amateurish feel, but through the course of the picture it leads to some great moments as real emotion is captured by characters who have let the omnipresence of the cameras lull them into forgetting that they are being filmed.
This premise of best friends being separated (a la Goonies) certainly is not new, but it is played out more effectively than most. There is some meaningful content here, and the picture doesn’t shy away from the emotional depth of these kids. Impressively, the found footage style really enhances the confessional feel of the moments when they let their guard down.
The desert and deserted setting factors hugely in the tone of the film as the neighborhood clears out, giving a ghost-like quality to the area and believabilty to the concept that these kids could wander around so freely at all hours.
I haven’t mentioned much about the effects of the movie as I don’t consider Earth to Echo to be a big FX picture. What it does it does well, but other than a highway chase FX scene from the trailer that was an add by the second studio, it’s not showy and I like that. In the most significant break from the movies it is accused of ripping off, the point of the picture isn’t really even about the alien – it’s a story of the friends.
I freely admit that I allowed all of the negative vibe around this movie lower my expectations dramatically before seeing Earth to Echo. For that, I thank all of the haters, because I enjoyed it possibly more as a result. It was a fun picture that surprisingly avoided too much sentimentality. It’s not cutesy and frankly doesn’t sugar coat the feelings of the teen leads or insist on everything being wrapped up nicely. Put aside the criticism that this is ripping off a 32 year old movie and go with a kid who will remind you of the simple fun of watching a story with a cute alien.
[schema type=”movie” url=”http://callhimecho.com/” name=”Earth to Echo” description=”After receiving a bizarre series of encrypted messages, a group of kids embark on an adventure with an alien who needs their help.” director=”Dave Green” actor_1=”Teo Halm” actor_2=”Astro” actor_3=”Reese Hartwig” actor_4=”Ella Wahlestedt” ]
One of the great things about the rise of e-books is the proliferation of new authors, many self-published. It seems as if it has never been easier to get a book out and in the hands of an audience. Many people smarter and more experienced than I can speak to all of the problems that this has created, particularly when it comes to compensation and distribution issues with companies like Amazon. I’m not touching that, because I feel underqualified to comment. I’m just a consumer, and all I know is I’m reading more than I have at any point since my childhood and I’m reading a much greater variety of books.
I really like the Kindle First program, where you get to select 1 of 4 pre-release books, principally because the books on offer so far are all outside of my usual reading material, so if I want one of them I have to pick something out of my wheelhouse.
Plaster City certainly qualifies in this category, although I read a bunch of Elmore Leonard novels in my twenties, so its tone is very familiar.
The book is actually the second in a series, the first being Dove Season. I never read that novel, but don’t feel that it was any impediment to enjoying Plaster City to the fullest.
The story continues the misadventures of Jimmy Veeder and his friend Bobby Maves on the California/Mexico border (Calexico). The two are alternatively irresponsible and violent drunken screw-ups with a penchant for trouble, but charming despite or possibly because of their ineptness. There is a physical aspect of loyalty in the face of danger here that is actually quite endearing.
Bobby’s estranged teenage daughter has gone missing and these two madmen with their jump first approach may actually be exactly the right guys to get her back. Gangsters, bikers, exes and the law will be involved, with tons of cursing, beer and fistfights along the way. The result is 350 pages of absolutely mayhem as they wreck very nearly everything around them, mostly by accident and complete lack of preparation or planning.
I was quite surprised by how long this story was; things seemed to be nearly wrapped up halfway through before taking a completely different turn. Unusually this wasn’t a problem for me – I was totally hooked and followed every crazy twist and development.
Oddly for a book I enjoyed so completely, I have no real interest in reading the other books in the series (existing or to come). I liked Plaster City so much because it was so different (for me) and thought the characters were great fun. I don’t know if that feeling would last over multiple installments. I think there’s something to the fact that Elmore Leonard wrote so few sequels. Better to create new characters with his gift for fascinating portraits. I have no doubt author Johnny Shaw is capable of doing the same.
[schema type=”book” url=”http://johnnyshaw.net/” name=”Plaster City” description=”Jimmy Veeder and Bobby Maves are back at it, two years after the events of Dove Season—they’re not exactly the luckiest guys in the Imperial Valley, but, hey, they win more fights than they lose. Settled on his own farmland and living like a true family man after years of irresponsible fun, Jimmy’s got a straight life cut out for him. But he’s knocking years off that life thanks to fun-yet-dangerous Bobby’s booze-addled antics—especially now that Bobby is single, volatile, profane as ever, and bored as hell. When Bobby’s teenage daughter goes missing, he and Jimmy take off on a misadventure that starts out as merely unfortunate and escalates to downright calamitous. Bobby won’t hesitate to kick a hornets’ nest to get the girl to safety, but when the rescue mission goes riotously sideways, the duo’s grit—and loyalty to each other—is put to the test.” author=”Johnny Shaw” publisher=”Thomas & Mercer” pubdate=”2014-05-01″ edition=”1st” isbn=”1477817581″ ebook=”yes” paperback=”yes”]
I refer you to Spinal Tap: “The review for “Shark Sandwich” was merely a two word review which simply read “Shit Sandwich”.” Enough said.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Sharknado 2: The Second One:
Sorry, guys. It doesn’t work twice. It wasn’t even fun to laugh at. The product placement was more gruesome than the gore, and nothing was as scary as all of the plastic surgery. When everyone is in on the joke, it’s not really a joke anymore.
[schema type=”movie” name=”Sharknado 2: The Second One” description=”A freak weather system turns its deadly fury on New York City, unleashing a Sharknado on the population and its most cherished, iconic sites – and only Fin and April can save the Big Apple.” director=”Anthony C. Ferrante” ]
A freak weather system turns its deadly fury on New York City, unleashing a Sharknado on the population and its most cherished, iconic sites – and only Fin and April can save the Big Apple.
