19 Dec 2014

Where There's a Will, There's a Way: "Annie" and "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"

By Mike Schulz

Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhane Wallis, and Rose Byrne in AnnieANNIE

Sony's last-remaining grab for the holiday box office, the much-downloaded reboot of Annie, opened this weekend, and it must be said that as a musical - especially as a musically faithful interpretation of the stage show - it kind of sucks. The choreography's a shambles and the mixing is poor and the original numbers are terrible, while familiar, enjoyable Annie tunes such as "Little Girls" and "Easy Street" are merely sampled, their melodies and lyrics awkwardly woven into new pop and hip-hop arrangements. (Three of the film's myriad producers are Jay-Z and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, so I guess we should just be grateful that the titular orphan is played by Quvenzhané Wallis and not Willow. Or Jaden.)

12 Dec 2014

Holy Moses!: "Exodus: Gods & Kings" and "Whiplash"

By Mike Schulz

Christian Bale in Exodus: Gods & KingsEXODUS: GODS & KINGS

You can tell a lot about a movie by its trailers. I don't mean the trailers for the movie itself, although that's also, usually, the case. I'm talking about the ones that play before the main attraction - the previews for future releases that generally share a genre or overall flavor with whatever film you're paying to see, collectively acting as a sort of "Because you watched ______" recommendation list on Netflix.

07 Dec 2014

Hawking: "The Theory of Everything"

By Mike Schulz

Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of EverythingTHE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

After being released in larger markets several weeks ago, the Stephen Hawking bio-pic The Theory of Everything has finally landed locally. For those of you who loved the trailers, it's probably going to be exactly the warm, touching, inspirational romance you were led to expect. For those of you who rolled your eyes at the trailers, as I did, it's probably going to be exactly the banal, formulaic, desperately Oscar-bait-y domestic drama you feared it might be, and perhaps even worse.

07 Dec 2014

Foreign Affairs: "Force Majeure," "Goodbye to Language 3D," and "The Pyramid"

By Mike Schulz

Force MajeureFORCE MAJEURE and GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE 3D

On Friday, I caught a foreign-language double-feature at Iowa City's FilmScene venue, and was happy to do it. In retrospect, I might've been even happier had I only stuck around for half of it.

30 Nov 2014

Fight or Flightless: "Penguins of Madagascar," "Horrible Bosses 2," and "Rosewater"

By Mike Schulz

Penguins of MadagascarPENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR

Penguins of Madagascar opens with a sweeping overhead shot of an (animated) Antarctic expanse, which eventually lands on an orderly march of flightless waterfowl. This introduction is narrated by a documentarian voiced by Werner Herzog, who informs us, in the director's unmistakable German-accented English, that we're to witness penguins in all their natural glory - right before he orders a crew member to shove a few off a cliff, just to see what will happen. Between Herzog, the environmental-doc satire, and the sheer goofiness of it all, this prelude is such a fantastically funny way to start directors Eric Darnell's and Simon J. Smith's spin-off that it immediately leaves you anticipating a movie that'll be smart and hilarious throughout. Would you settle, though, for smart and moderately amusing?

21 Nov 2014

Compound Fractured: "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1"

By Mike Schulz

Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part ITHE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1

Like its immediate predecessor Catching Fire, director Francis Lawrence's The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 is reasonably gripping and rarely dull, although its presentation - as was bound to happen - does make the movie feel less like a satisfying two-hour entertainment than the not-bad first half of a much better four-hour entertainment. (Or five-hour entertainment, depending on how plushly Lawrence and Lionsgate pad the goodbye in next year's Part 2.) But I was really put off by one moment in the film, which found Woody Harrelson's Haymitch complaining that the makeup worn by Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss needed to be scrubbed off, as it was making the young warrior look 35. The line was amusing and Haymitch wasn't wrong, but why wasn't anyone bothered that the rest of Mockingjay 1 was making her look 13?

16 Nov 2014

Winged Crusader: "Birdman"

By Mike Schulz

Michael Keaton and Edward Norton in BirdmanBIRDMAN

Hands-down the most technically audacious backstage farce ever attempted, Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman finds its director in a cheeky, playful frame of mind. The movie's many miracles pretty much start right there, because who knew that Iñárritu was even capable of a cheeky, playful frame of mind?

16 Nov 2014

Stars' Wars, and the Employee Strikes Back: "Beyond the Lights," "Saving Christmas," "Dumb & Dumber To," and "Citizenfour"

By Mike Schulz

Nate Parker and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Beyond the LightsFriday, November 14, 10:45 a.m.-ish: I'm beginning the day with writer/director Gina Prince-Bythewood's Beyond the Lights, a romantic melodrama about a troubled, Rihanna-like pop star, and it opens with its central character, as a little girl, getting reprimanded by her awful stage mother for the heinous crime of being first-runner-up in a talent show. Nearly two hours later, with the now-grown chanteuse overcoming her demons and finally scoring her long-awaited personal and professional triumphs, everything the prelude led me to expect from the movie has come to pass, but with one major exception: I'm grinning like mad and wiping away tears. How the hell did that happen?!

07 Nov 2014

To Be Continuum-ed: "Interstellar" and "Big Hero 6"

By Mike Schulz

Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey in InterstellarINTERSTELLAR

With his breathlessly anticipated, behemoth-sized space opera Interstellar, has Christopher Nolan finally bitten off more than he can chew, or simply more than I can chew? I'd like to believe the latter, considering I like three of Nolan's eight previous features and adore four others (with apologies to Batman Begins, which I merely tolerate), and considering half the movie's dialogue is elaborate techo-jargon that I was predisposed not to understand. But like an itchy lover who says "It's not you; it's me" when he really means the opposite, I'm still laying most of my dissatisfaction at Nolan's feet, and for a pretty basic reason: For all of its narrative and technical razzle-dazzle, Interstellar is the man's first film that's expressly about humans, and humans aren't remotely close to being Nolan's strong suit.

02 Nov 2014

Kill to Shoot: "Nightcrawler," "Before I Go to Sleep," "The Best of Me," "Galapagos 3D: Nature's Wonderland," and "The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden"

By Mike Schulz

Jake Gyllenhaal in NightcrawlerNIGHTCRAWLER

Writer/director Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler is the tale of an obsessive creep who becomes a dedicated entrepreneur in the field of exploitation journalism, and it stars Jake Gyllenhaal. Hoo boy does it star Jake Gyllenhaal. Two days after seeing the film, I'm still not sure what it was aiming to be: a scuzzy urban thriller? A dark comedy? A withering social critique in the vein of Network? All of the above? But what it winds up being is nearly two full hours of The Jake Gyllenhaal Show, a movie that would barely exist if not for the feral, ferociously busy performance of its lead. In this particular case, not existing wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world.

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