“Your ancestors called it magic, and you call it science; I come from a place where they’re one in the same.” So the God of Thunder himself explains how he can exist in the Marvel Comics film universe, a world populated by a billionaire playboy with a flying robotic suit, a real-life Jekyll and Hyde, and a frozen human guinea pig from World War II. You see, Thor’s eponymous hero and his Norse mythology brethren aren’t gods per se, but super-powered aliens mistaken for gods by ignorant Vikings. No, it certainly doesn’t make for the most plausible of Marvel’s origin stories, but, of the company’s stable of stinkers, Thor is the most entertaining bit of comic book cinema since 2008’s Iron Man. Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, a one-eyed Anthony Hopkins and more after the jump.
Echotone is an Austin-made documentary about the Austin music scene, described by the filmmakers as a “cultural portrait of the modern American city examined through the lyrics and lens of its creative class.”
The film opens with its strongest material, blues rock bad boy Joe Lewis of Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears delivering fish and sharing his two cents about being a musician in the Live Music Capital of the World. We get equally entertaining (and occasionally heartbreaking) tales and performances from others among Austin’s indie elite, including The Black Angels, Ghostland Observatory, Belaire, Sunset, Dana Falconberry and The Octopus Project.
Director Nathan Christ and his gang clearly know where to point the business end of a camera/microphone — the visuals and audio are absolutely gorgeous, but the film seems to lack a clear direction.
Read more after the jump!
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a documentary (and an attempt at creating the first “docbuster”) about marketing and product placement funded entirely by marketing and product placement. The film follows director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) as he attempts to make the film by pitching corporations on sponsoring the film all the way through promoting and releasing the movie — the movie the audience is watching. Forget the Scream movies: This is meta.
The Spurlock “brand” will probably forever be tied to Super Size Me. For most people, the horseshoe-mustachioed filmmaker may never be anything more than the slightly goofy guy who ate at McDonald’s for a month. But those who kept up with Spurlock over the past six years know he’s gone on to do interesting work that shows an intelligence and heart that promises many more exciting experiments to come. Most notable of these projects was 30 Days, the wonderful, woefully defunct FX series born from the Super Size Me concept of trying something for a month. (If you’re unfamiliar or never got around to watching it, get on it.)
Read more after the jump!
I agreed to see HOP for two reasons:
1. My ladyfriend is obsessed with Russell Brand, who voices the film’s CG-bunny lead.
2. I’m a movie masochist.
But what I saw was something unexpected. HOP is on par with the finest computer-animated films out of Pixar. An intelligent kids’ movie? Could it really exist? HOP is a near perfectly crafted film about living up to expectations with an overarching metaphor about American consumerism, thoughtful commentary on the growing gulf between rich and poor, some clever observations about racism, and a small but brilliant nod to Kurosawa—all covered in a colorful candy-coating to make it enjoyable for the kids.
No, I kid. HOP was awful; It didn’t even seem to play well to our mostly kiddo-filled theater.
With just a cursory glance at its tagline, you could easily surmise that Limitless isn’t going to be a “good” movie: “What if a pill could make you rich and powerful?” This sounds like the stuff of mediocre sci-fi fare, and it is.
Eddie (The Hangover pretty boy Bradley Cooper) is a writer who has secured a book deal but hasn’t written a word in months. His girlfriend (Abbie Cornish), tired of waiting for Ed to get himself together, dumps him after she lands a lucrative job as an editor at a big New York City magazine. (Two writers earning a living wage in New York City: Now that’s science fiction.) Eddie ends up in possession of a little pill that unlocks the user’s full mental potential, allowing him to crank out his novel in a matter of days and rapidly work his way up the ranks in Wall Street. Of course, the pill comes with some undesirable side effects and Eddie’s skyrocket to fame draws some unwanted attention from some bad dudes.
Limitless director Neil Burger (unfortunately of no relation to sweaty oddball comedian Neil Hamburger) also directed The Illusionist, but where Burger’s period piece was slow and soft, Limitless is brisk and punctuated with visual parlor tricks (e.g., nauseating infinite zooms down New York streets, numbers raining from the ceiling, upside down shots and colors that heat to a high-contrast when characters pop pills and slur back to a slummy gray as reality returns).
Things get messy with some silly moments, awful and unnecessary narration and poorly fleshed out characters—we’re never shown why we should give a damn about Eddie, who uses the brain-enhancing drug for his own selfish gain and may actually be a murderer. But, despite the generic “techno thriller” plot and characters, Limitless doesn’t completely tank thanks to the impossible likability of Cooper, who I so desperately want to despise but cannot.
Limitless never feels dull, but it also never delivers any truly thrilling moments. In the end, it proves to be a cautionary tale that cautions nothing and offers little to warrant praise or outright condemnation.
--Eric Pulsifer
My exposure to the world of motor sports started with Pole Position—an arcade game I dumped quarters into at my local Griff’s Burgers as a kid. My understating of the sport hasn’t evolved much since. Despite, or perhaps because of, my extreme ignorance of Formula 1 racing, I was captivated by Senna. S enna is a documentary about legendary Brazilian racer Ayrton Senna, considered by many to be the greatest driver of all time. I went into Senna feeling skeptical, thinking a documentary about an icon from a sport I had little interest in or knowledge of seemed like a dull way to spend a sunny Saturday morning: I was wrong. Director Asif Kapadia says his background is in drama and it shows. A blazing fast film constructed entirely of archival footage—no talking heads or hand-holding narration to be found-- Senna follows Senna from his beginnings in cart racing through a drama-filled series of world championships in Formula 1. A more likable hero is hard to find than the humble and charming Senna, and as we experience the highs and lows of his decade long career, it’s easy to see why he is still so admired in the racing world. Senna is an adrenaline-packed, edge-of-your seat race from start to finish filled with moments of ecstatic inspiration and crushing heartbreak. Kapadia captures the infuriating politics behind the sport and expertly crafts villains out of Senna’s opponents. Senna, which may sadly never get a proper theatrical distribution in the U.S., will be shown again at the Paramount Theatre on Thursday, March 17 at 7:15 p.m.
 I often find myself at a disadvantage when talking to my fellow man. There are a small set of topics universally recognized as awkwardness-killing icebreakers when chatting man-to-man,
and I, unfortunately, could hardly care less about most of these -- two of the most common being sports (I enjoy it as an excuse to drink beer and eat copious amounts of chicken wings, but have zero interest in team rosters or the complex mechanics behind the games) and Jason Statham movies (save for the Guy Ritchie ones, I always found them more dumb and predictable than the silly cocktail of carnage and ridiculousness that I prefer in an action flick). Thanks to The Mechanic, I now have one more thing to talk about with the average American male.
The Mechanic is a remake of a '70s Charles Bronson film of the same name. It's memorable for a lengthy dialogue-free opener where Bronson, a world-class assassin named Arthur Bishop, executes a target.
More after the jump...
Pop culture seems to have fallen in love with the Western all over again in 2010. First there was Red Dead Redemption, a perfectly paced videogame from the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series. With Hollywood-caliber voice acting and top-notch production values, it is arguably the most exceptional game of the year, and proof of the awe the temporarily forgotten theater of the rugged frontier can still inspire. True Grit finishes the year with even stronger evidence. Gone are the classic Western two-dimensional portrayals of puritanical and faultless good guys facing off against mustachioed villains with no redeeming qualities just begging to get got—the criminally under-appreciated Canuck Barry Pepper ( Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan) is a show-stealer in his supporting role and especially hard to hate as a black-toothed bandit with a bit of a conscience named "Lucky" Ned Pepper. Jeff Bridges, who last worked with the Cohen brothers in The Big Lebowski, brings Rooster Cogburn to life, creating a character just as memorable as The Dude. Cogburn is a perpetually drunk, one-eyed marshal tasked by tough-as-nails 14-year-old Mattie Ross (played by the amazing Hailee Steinfeld) to track down her father's killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). Ross and Cogburn team up with a straight-laced Texas Ranger who has been on Chaney's trail for some time, La Boeuf (played by a 'stache-sporting Matt Damon), and follow Chaney as he tries to escape Arkansas into Indian territory to the west. Damon's La Boeuf and Bridges Cogburn make the perfect odd couple—thanks partially to stellar performances and partially to an incredibly sharp script packed with humor. The precocious Mattie Ross has cojones bigger than the men she saddles up with and outwits bumbling businessmen and cunning cutthroats alike in her quest for justice. Steinfeld may be the best leading lady in a Cohen brothers’ film since Frances McDormand in Fargo. While the Cohen brothers make some tweaks to the classic Western formula, remaining are shots of beautiful scenery (some even filmed around Austin), though they're now pasted together with killer ultra-slow dissolves. One semi-criticism: Anyone who has been to Arkansas will find it evident that True Grit's rocky winter landscapes draped in cold blue hues weren't filmed in the Natural State. But really, that's being nitpicky. True Grit is stunning, and in true Cohen brothers fashion, it's a five-course meal of a movie filled with drama, comedy, adventure and unforgettable characters. It's also an all-ages crowd-pleaser that's rated PG-13 (no language and just a bit of violence), so for the love of all things holy, when your family wants to go to the theater this holiday weekend, pass on Yogi Bear and Tron Legacy. --Eric Pulsifer
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had a hell of a run—both died just short of 100. In that century of life, the two witnessed everything from the last days of the Wild West to the creation of the atomic bomb and the rise of the Internet, but thankfully they weren’t alive to see this shit.
Yogi Bear is the latest attempt by Hollywood to murder iconic Hanna-Barbera characters via live action film (e.g., Scooby Doo, The Flintstones). From its abundance of humorless ass-related humor—pratfalls, bear booty-shaking and fart jokes—to its two-dimensional lessons on relationships and environmentalism, Yogi Bear is a movie made for children or those of childlike mind.
As it’s not difficult for me to imagine a pantless, potbellied Dan Aykroyd wobbling through the woods in search of picnic baskets, the casting of Aykroyd as Yogi doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch—even if his Yogi impersonation is a bit off from the source material. Justin Timberlake’s Boo-Boo is spot on; to his credit, you really have to strain to hear JT in there. Yogi and Boo-Boo’s human counterparts are Tom Cavanagh (Ed) as Ranger Smith and Anna Farris (Scary Movie) as Rachel, a filmmaker looking to make a documentary about Jellystone’s most famous resident. Neither is really noteworthy, so if you’re a big Cavanagh or Farris fan (really?), you won’t be missing out.
The Yogi Bear Show was never exactly the crown jewel of the Hanna-Barbera fleet, but it deserves better than Yogi Bear. Sadly, those with kids in their movie-going crew have very few PG-rated choices this holiday season, meaning this bumbling bear will probably rake in enough picnic baskets full of cash to ensure a sequel.
--Eric Pulsifer
With Halloween just days away, the rush of requisite horror movie sequels are descending upon your neighborhood theater. First on the slate this year is Paranormal Activity 2, which drops before the other big sequel of the season, Saw 3D, and offers some less gruesome thrills for those who shy away from all-out gore porn.
The tension in this follow-up to the surprise hit Paranormal Activity—the low-budget Blair Witch-like faux documentary in which a couple films themselves sleeping and review the tapes every morning for supernatural activity—is fueled by a sense of extreme vulnerability, a la Psycho's shower scene. The reason for introducing cameras in Paranormal Activity 2 is security surveillance after a family discovers their house has been trashed by vandals. The entire movie consists of footage from these security cameras stitched together by home movies, mostly recorded by the family's terrified teenage daughter.
More chilling thrills after the break.
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