01 May 2015

Super Salad: "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

By Mike Schulz

Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth in Avengers: Age of UltronAVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

Whatever your feelings about Avengers: Age of Ultron, even if your feelings can be summed up in a succinct "Meh," you can't say that writer/director Joss Whedon is merely giving audiences an exact replica of 2012's comic-book behemoth The Avengers. There's some romance here, for one thing. There's also a lot more plot, now that we're spared its predecessor's hour-plus of super-team origin story. And rather than being granted all of his film's best, most thrillingly unexpected moments, that rampaging mass of CGI id known as the Hulk is instead stuck with the worst scene in the movie - which, unfortunately, also happens to be its most prototypical one.

11 Jan 2015

For King and Country: "Selma," "Inherent Vice," and "Taken 3"

By Mike Schulz

David Oyelowo in SelmaSELMA

Movie violence is so prevalent - be it in horror films or action franchises (see Taken 3, if you must) or the PG-13 pummelings of every Marvel entertainment ever - that it's shocking to see one whose brutal acts have the power to make you cry. But within the first minutes of the extraordinary Selma, director Ava DuVernay stages a literal explosion of historical violence so frightening, repellent, and emotionally overwhelming that, in the awestruck moments of silence that followed, it was absolutely no surprise to hear viewers sniffling.

24 Aug 2014

Noir Is the Dullest Color: "Sin City: A Dame to Kill for" and "Island of Lemurs: Madagascar"

By Mike Schulz

Eva Green in Sin City: A Dame to Kill forSIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR

Let's cut to the chase: I don't like Sin City: A Dame to Kill for. But what I especially don't like is knowing that I'll eventually have to watch at least a portion of it again, because the only things I really cared for in this stylized noir were the scenes with Eva Green, and after waking from my brief and unanticipated nap, she was gone from the movie and never returned. What the hell happened to her? And if I was enjoying Green's performance as much as I thought I was, why did I fall asleep in the first place?

02 Feb 2014

Peach Pits: "Labor Day"

By Mike Schulz

Gattlin Griffith, Josh Brolin, and Kate Winslet in Labor DayLABOR DAY

Once upon a time, in the world of writer/director Jason Reitman, there was a magical kingdom called Labor Day.

14 Jan 2013

The Needle in the Haystack: "Zero Dark Thirty," "Gangster Squad," "A Haunted House," and "Hitchcock"

By Mike Schulz

Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark ThirtyZERO DARK THIRTY

As an orchestrator of cinematic suspense, Kathryn Bigelow might currently be without peer in American movies. The sequences of Jeremy Renner dismantling explosives in the director's Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker were miniature masterpieces of sustained excitement; despite our knowing, through much of the film, that it was too early for Renner's Sergeant William James to be killed off, each masterfully shot and edited act of bomb disposal vibrated with legitimate threat. In Zero Dark Thirty - Bigelow's and screenwriter Mark Boal's fictionalized docu-drama about the decade-long search for Osama bin Laden - nearly every scene feels like a ticking time bomb. There is, of course, never any doubt about the narrative's outcome, yet Bigelow's gifts for composition and pacing ensure that you still watch the picture with rapt attention and dread. And blessedly, she's also a spectacular entertainer. The movie is tough-minded and sometimes tough to watch, but even when Bigelow is fraying your nerves, she's tickling your senses.

29 May 2012

The Third Time's the Charmer: "Men in Black 3" and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"

By Mike Schulz

Josh Brolin and Will Smith in Men in Black 3MEN IN BLACK 3

Is it merely deserved absence making my heart grow fonder, or is Men in Black 3, against almost all expectation, awfully damned good?

28 Feb 2011

Oscars / The Grouch: Notes on the 2011 Academy Awards Telecast

By Mike Schulz

Before getting into what went wrong at last night's Academy Awards ceremony - and sadly, quite a bit went wrong - let's begin by addressing the one portion of the telecast that, for maybe the first time in Oscar history, went magically right.

23 Dec 2010

Hello. My Name Is Mattie Ross. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die.: "True Grit" and "Yogi Bear"

By Mike Schulz

Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld in True GritTRUE GRIT

Over the course of their careers, the films of Joel and Ethan Coen have, of course, inspired a wide variety of responses: amusement (and quite a lot of it), excitement, fascination, terror, confusion, astonishment, mortification. (Oh, the depressing spectacle of Intolerable Cruelty ... .) But while we audiences have laughed and gasped and occasionally scratched our heads, we haven't, prior to the Coen brothers' True Grit, been moved to tears by scenes of unbridled yet honestly earned sentiment. Guess we can now scratch that one off the list, too.

26 Sep 2010

Blah, Blah, Blah ... and Surprisingly Fun - Notes on a Quadruple Feature: "You Again," "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole," "The Virginity Hit," and "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps"

By Mike Schulz

Billy Unger, Betty White, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, Odette Yustman, and Kristin Bell in You AgainFriday, September 24, 11:30-ish: I attend a morning screening of You Again, and pretty much know what I'm in for as soon as the Touchstone Pictures logo appears: a brightly lit, jauntily scored, aggressively manic entertainment with plenty of "heart" and no laughs whatsoever. (I half-expect a Tim Allen cameo, but instead get a Dwayne Johnson cameo, which probably should've been more expected.)

20 Jun 2010

To Eternity, and Beyond: "Toy Story 3," "Legends of Flight 3D," and "Jonah Hex"

By Mike Schulz

Toy Story 3TOY STORY 3

Sitting in the packed auditorium for a matinée screening of Toy Story 3, I was unsurprised to find that one of my fellow audience members was an infant who cried almost throughout the entire film. I would've been more irritated by the distraction if, for hefty chunks of the movie's opening and closing reels, I wasn't such a weepy infant myself.

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