29 Jun 2014

Dismayed in Hong Kong: "Transformers: Age of Extinction"

By Mike Schulz

Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, and Jack Reynor in Transformers: Age of ExtinctionTRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

After the conclusion of its dialogue-free, if very noisy, prelude - one in which we discover that it was actually extraterrestrial robots, and not the Ice Age, that killed off the dinosaurs - the first words heard in Transformers: Age of Extinction are "Oh, shit!" I took that line as a metaphor for what we could expect over the next two and a half hours, but then, during my Friday-morning screening, it was immediately followed by another outburst: the sound of the little kid behind me laughing his ass off.

27 Dec 2011

A Good Movie? Aye. A Great Movie? Neigh.: "War Horse," "We Bought a Zoo," "My Week with Marilyn," and "The Darkest Hour"

By Mike Schulz

Jeremy Irvine in War HorseWAR HORSE

A grandly scaled adventure about a boy who gets a horse, then loses the horse, then joins the British infantry to find the horse, War Horse is the sort of triumphant, lump-in-the-throat epic that director Steven Spielberg should be able to pull off in his sleep. Consequently, the highest compliment I can pay the movie is that its helmer, at all times, appears to be fully awake here. There's palpable filmmaking energy in nearly every shot, and several passages in this World War I family drama are so thrilling and painful and spectacularly well-choreographed that they rank among the finest in Spielberg's career.

30 Jun 2011

Bay's in Toyland: "Transformers: Dark of the Moon"

By Mike Schulz

Trassformers: Dark of the MoonTRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON

As long as Transformers: Dark of the Moon didn't come off as the worst movie of the year - or rather, the worst movie of several years - it would stand as a notable improvement on 2009's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I'm greatly relieved, then, to say that Michael Bay's latest, ultra-loud toy story is not the foul, nightmarish, jaw-dropping travesty that its predecessor was. Only half of it is.

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