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.

26 Oct 2014

How the Grinch Stole Brooklyn: "St. Vincent," "John Wick," and "Ouija"

By Mike Schulz

Jaeden Lieberher and Bill Murray in St. VincentST. VINCENT

St. Vincent stars Bill Murray as the titular (if decidedly un-saintly) Vincent, a cranky, disheveled grump who may be the meanest man in Brooklyn, if not all of New York. He speaks in a honking regional dialect and guzzles brown liquor by the quart, and his only pals are a pair of fellow barflies and the local hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold. He's frequently seen chain-smoking in a porkpie hat with oversize sunglasses, and spends his days at the track making losing bets with his bookie. At his ramshackle home, he watches old Abbott & Costello movies on an ancient television and, when drunk, drives straight over his white picket fence. When a neighbor kid needs to use a pay phone, Vincent begrudgingly gives him a dime for the call. Given all this, in what year would you guess St. Vincent takes place? 1957? 1958?

19 Oct 2014

Tanks. A Lot.: "Fury"

By Mike Schulz

Brad Pitt in FuryFURY

Granted, I haven't seen Birdman yet, but it's hard to imagine any movie this year featuring a more kick-ass title character than the one in writer/director David Ayer's Fury. A battered but still indomitable Sherman tank plowing through Nazi Germany at the tail end of World War II - its name imprinted, twice, on the tank's cannon - Fury is both an amazing destructive force and a desperately needed safe haven for its five-man platoon. Our heroic tank also boasts more personality than any human on-screen, but in the case of this particular film, that's relatively easy to forgive.

19 Oct 2014

"Women & Children" First: "Men, Women & Children," "The Book of Life," "Meet the Mormons," "The Skeleton Twins," and "Venus in Fur"

By Mike Schulz

Rosemarie DeWitt and Adam Sandler in Men, Women & ChildrenMEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN

The single most definitive shot in director/co-writer Jason Reitman's "Ee-e-eek! The Internet!" melodrama Men, Women & Children is one from the previews, in which Ansel Elgort trudges toward dozens of fellow high-schoolers, all of whom are so fixated on their phones that they can't see anything, or anyone, directly in front of them.

12 Oct 2014

From Rad to Worst: "Alexander & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," "Dracula Untold," "Addicted," and "The Judge"

By Mike Schulz

Friday, October 10, 10:05 a.m.-ish: My latest quartet of screenings starts with an adaptation of the beloved children's book Alexander & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It's a shame that the title has already eaten up about half my word count, because I now have far less space in which to rave about this surprisingly fantastic family comedy whose unforced cheerfulness is matched by its completely unexpected wit.

05 Oct 2014

So Bye Bye, Miss American Pike: “Gone Girl,” “Left Behind,” and “Annabelle”

By Mike Schulz

David Fincher's Gone Girl, adapted from screenwriter Gillian Flynn's 2012 literary phenomenon, opened on Friday. I was tempted to compose this review under the headline “SPOILER ALERT!” just to make it absolutely clear that, in order to offer a thorough opinion, I'd be revealing elements of this suspense thriller that the uninitiated might not want revealed. But after a couple of days spent sitting on the experience, I'm not certain that going into the movie's specifics is all that necessary, as long as (MODERATE-SPOILERS ALERT!) I'm allowed to share my impressions that (1) the role of Rosamund Pike's titular Amy Dunne is a co-lead opposite Ben Affleck's Nick Dunne; (2) almost no scene featuring Amy reads as remotely believable; and (3) in the end, that doesn't matter all that much.

Pages

Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts

On Stands Now

 

Tagged Content

    

Two Ways to Subscribe

1. Subscribe to free weekly e-mail content updates.

You'll get both the current official narrative challenge and What's Happenin' in the Quad Cities.
(Did you know we publish a new Real Astrology and RCR Crossword every week?) 

Subscribe!

* indicates required

2. Get 12 monthly issues mailed first class for $48

Get 12 issues mailed monthly for $48 per year.

Get the printed Reader edition mailed to you (or anyone you want) first-class for 12 months for $48.
$24 goes to postage and handling, $24 goes to keeping the doors open!

Click this link to Subscribe now.