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.

26 May 2014

Quicksilver Takes the Gold: "X-Men: Days of Future Past"

By Mike Schulz

Hugh Jackman and James McAvoy in X-Men: Days of Future PastX-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

Director Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past opened this past weekend, and generally speaking, I liked it. At random moments throughout, I even loved it. And in one glorious, exquisitely crafted sequence about 40 minutes into the picture, I even fell madly in love with it.

28 Jul 2013

New Year's Resolution: "Fruitvale Station" and "The Way Way Back"

By Mike Schulz

Michael B. Jordan and Melonie Diaz in Fruitvale StationFRUITVALE STATION

Marvel Studios' recent spate of superhero movies has trained us - or tried to train us, at any rate - to stick around for at least the first few minutes of the end credits, offering the promise of a bonus scene designed to build excitement for comic-book adventures yet to come. (Not to give the details away, but Marvel's new The Wolverine features a happy doozy of one promoting 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past.) Yet while they couldn't possibly have been expecting this same sort of credit cookie at the independent drama Fruitvale Station, the audience members with whom I saw the film stayed similarly glued to their seats, almost as though none of them was quite ready for the experience to be over. Given how haunting and emotionally overpowering writer/director Ryan Coogler's debut feature is, it would be impossible to blame them.

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