Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 2015

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" - 2015
Dir. by JJ Abrams - 2 hrs. 15 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

First things first, yeah, there's probably going to be some spoiler talk here.  The internet's been remarkably good about not blowing anything contained within "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," but if you're checking out a review about the movie, you probably have already seen it and wonder what other people think.  And I thought it was pretty damned good.  I also have been sick of the overexposure of the original batch of films for quite some time now, and really wasn't hell-bent on seeing this installment.  Turns out, part of that malaise was due to how poor the second batch of films were; what's to look forward to when the people in charge of the franchise haven't a clue?

This time around, we start in a small village on Jackoo, where Poe (Oscar Isaac) obtains a thumb drive (okay, not really, but kind of) purporting to contain a map explaining where Luke Skywalker (who is now a legend people have heard of, but never seen) is hiding out.  Unfortunately for everyone involved, the First Order (which is what the Empire has evolved into) rolls into the village, levelling everything and capturing Poe, but not his droid, who escapes with the Hello Kitty thumb drive.  One of the Stormtroopers seems to have a difficult time with the massacre, which leads to a whole lot of things happening.

Collect 'em all!!!

So where to start?  First off, the action in this film is all a lot of fun, never far away, and resembles the action in the first trilogy.  In fact, the whole film looks like the first batch in a very satisfying way.  Even more to the point, this film makes use of things from the first batch of films in a very satisfying way.  I don't know how much to reveal here.  Obviously, if you look at the list of actors in the film, it's not a secret that there are going to be some familiar faces.  They're blended well, and have skin in the game, so to speak.  Those characters are not just there to make you forget that Jar Jar Binks ever existed.  They are part of the story.  And really, the best aspect to the film is that the main characters all have motivations that are intertwined with the others; the characters are well-written and relatable, even when they're not the good guys, which goes one hell of a long way to getting an audience emotionally involved in the action material.

You have to provide your own airplane sound effects.

Secondly, even though this (and the entire franchise, really) are all-ages (read: kids) movies, TFA doesn't really insult your intelligence.  The humor is light, the monsters fantastic, and the aliens are all visually interesting.  The soccer ball droid is probably the most kid-friendly thing in the film, but it's not as cloying as the Ewoks were, either.  You'll be able to leave the theatre thinking you saw a pretty fun adventure movie, not a merchandising juggernaut. 

I think I'll leave it at that, rather than dig any further.  I'm pretty excited to see the next two films in this batch, which I absolutely wasn't going in to this one.  I viewed seeing TFA largely as geek duty, and left having enjoyed a pretty good film, one that I wouldn't mind watching again.  So even though I didn't think TFA was the greatest film ever made, it was enough of a success to rekindle long-dormant stirrings of fandom for me. 

4 / 5 - Theatre

Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp - 2012

"Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp" - 2012
Dir. by Jorge Hinojosa - 1 hr. 29 min.


by Clayton Hollifield

When I tried to search for "Iceberg Slim" on IMDB, it automatically took me to the page for "Ice Sculpture Christmas," instead.  Thanks, dorks.  Likewise, no dice on a trailer for this movie.  I guess I'll track down a poster or something, so forgive the lack of visual flair.  I recorded it off of TV, anyways, and just now finally got around to watching it.  I shouldn't have been in such a hurry.

So, who is Iceberg Slim, and why is there a documentary about him?  He's a legendary pimp (the real deal, not a comedy figure), mostly famous because he quit pimping after a few prison stints, and was urged to write about his experiences.  So he did, and sold a pretty large number of books (six million is the quoted number, which is a lot for the dinky publishing house he published through).  His books have famous fans like Chris Rock and Ice-T, thus this effort to share Slim's (aka Robert Beck) story.

Perhaps the question that should have been asked is why should people care about Iceberg Slim?  I suspect the entirety of that answer lies in Beck's books; I have one ("Trick Baby," but haven't read it yet), and I can buy the idea that an author is worth talking about.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of the world hasn't read Slim's works, and I didn't feel like this film got across the appeal of his work in a meaningful way.  Also working against my interest: the story is presented chronologically.  So Iceberg Slim is not presented as an author of important and interesting work, he's presented as a pimp (and let's be clear, that means that he ran prostitutes and took all of the proceeds from their work to pay for his own hair care products and general flyness) who bounces in and out of prison until that becomes too much for him, at which time he attempts to live a straight life.

I mean, that's not super-charming, right?  It's only after Slim reaches a breaking point with his day job as an exterminator that his then wife convinces him to write down some of the crazy stories he's been telling her, which are then organized and published, to some success.  Maybe there's a reason to have a romantic notion of what exactly a pimp is, and since Iceberg Slim is one of the few that people might have actually heard of, maybe it makes sense to introduce him as a pimp rather than an author.  Then again, it made me really not like the guy.  I don't have to like someone personally to enjoy their work,  But including a clip from an interview with Slim, where he's reunited with a former ho, he comes off cluelessly as to what exactly the girls were dealing with.  He asks, innocently enough, what made her go straight, and she tells him that people were assaulting and murdering prostitutes on the streets, and that was reason enough for her to get off the streets.  That doesn't seem to register with Slim at all. 

The best thing about "Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp" is that it did make me curious about reading some of his work.  What it did not do: make me want to watch this film again.  Pretty much every interviewee in the film stopped one paragraph short of giving some real insight.  They would, routinely, get up to the edge of something interesting, and then we'd move on to something else. 

2 / 5 - TV

Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church - 2015

"Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church" - 2015
Dir. by John McDermott - 1 hr. 29 min.

Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I always wish there were more music documentaries.  They don't even really have to be insightful; watching top-notch musicians doing their thing is usually enough to hold my interest.  There's a little more to the footage that's presented in "Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church," but really, it's concert footage padded out with an attempt to explain the circumstances of the event presented.  That means, naturally, that you will have to wade through '60s tropes like people wistfully explaining that how things were changing, and how it was a revolution, man, but it's kind of worth it for the concert footage of Hendrix.

There's not much point in going through a plot explanation, so let's do this fast.  Hendrix (playing with bass player Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell) headlined the second (and final) Atlanta International Pop Festival in 1970, only a couple of months prior to Hendrix's untimely death.  The headlining set had been filmed for a documentary, but was left undeveloped in some dude's barn for something like 30 years, until "Electric Church" was released. 

The whole point of this deal is getting to see good footage of Jimi Hendrix playing.  It's not the best I've seen or heard from him, but it was good (and the footage looks good).  The concert, while not shown complete, is shown uninterrupted in the middle of the film, which is pretty ideal.  I don't want to hear people waxing eloquent about Hendrix while he's playing instrumental passages, I just want to see him playing.   And that's what we get, here.  The complete concert is available as an audio recording, under the title "Freedom," so the show is covered from an archival viewpoint.  There's no torching of guitars here, although he does finish a song by playing with his teeth.  It's just a solid show from a legendary musician.

"Stone Free" - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

The attempts at putting the show into context range from helpful to masturbatory.  On the onanistic tip are when baby boomers go glassy-eyed and start talking vaguely about change and all that stuff that you've heard a million times before, frequently put in a better, more interesting way.  But what are you going to do?  If you ask people to reminisce on camera, you're going to get a certain amount of noise.  What was interesting was the explanation that the Atlanta International Pop Festival was not actually in Atlanta (otherwise known as a big city that probably could have handled the influx of hippies without much trouble), but instead a vastly overwhelmed small town of about 2000 people who had no choice but to kick back and hope that nothing too bad would happen, and just watch the freak parade.  And it was a crush of people, estimated at around 500k attendance.

People.

And when they explain late in the film that all of the people who were doing so much barking about the environment left the small town covered (literally) in human waste and debris, there's a sense that it's probably a good thing these festivals went the way of the dodo.  They were poorly planned, poorly organized, and never even came close to providing the kind of resources that a crowd of that size would require.  After a while, the people that descended upon the small town basically knocked down the fences, demanding entry for free, and spent the weekend in 100 degree heat, pooping in the open and scarfing whatever food the local townspeople would bring down to the event to hand out.  Considering that later attempts to put on mammoth shows (like Woodstock '99) ended up in violence and crime, I think that people should just be happy that no one seems to have gotten seriously hurt (or killed) at a show like this one. 

But forget all that.  You can always just fast-forward to the part of the movie where you get like 45 straight minutes of Hendrix being Hendrix.  The rest of the information in the movie is either helpful or benign, and there's an explanation of the "Electric Church" term.  Maybe this kind of music isn't your cup of tea, but it definitely is mine, and you can do a lot worse with your time than watching The Jimi Hendrix Experience kiss the sky.

4 / 5 - TV

Extraordinary Tales - 2015

"Extraordinary Tales" - 2015
Dir. by Raul Garcia - 1 hr. 13 min.

Official Trailer #1

by Clayton Hollifield

Every once in a blue moon, I'll get to go see a movie without knowing much about it going in.  And that usually vastly improves the viewing experience.  This time, it was Raul Garcia's "Extraordinary Tales," a film that adapts five different Edgar Allan Poe stories into animation, each with a different visual approach.  Honestly, animated Poe is enough to pique my interest; it's like hearing cover versions of well-loved songs - the chance to rediscover material through someone else's sensibilities.

"Extraordinary Tales" adapts five Poe short stories; "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Masque of the Red Death."  Even more fascinating is the use of found audio sources; "The Tell-Tale Heart" features a scratchy recording of Bela Lugosi (yes, that Bela Lugosi) as the narration.  "Usher" is narrated by Christopher Lee (spectacularly so), and there's even a stray line of dialogue from Roger Corman!

Each of the shorts is visually interpreted in a vastly different style.  "Usher" is a kind of clunky CGI style that you might see in dozen different kids movies, "Heart" gives a shout-out to Alberto Breccia (although it should also give credit to Frank Miller), "Valdemar" layers an illustrative, pen-and-ink style on CGI framework (and resembles golden age newspaper comic strips in the color approach), "Pendulum" is a moody CGI approach, and "Masque" uses an elongated, emaciated, elegant style reminiscent of Egon Schiele's work (Schiele also died young from a sort of plague, the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, which added a bit of resonance to the choice to borrow from his work here).  The interstitials, which feature Poe as a raven in a graveyard, marry computer animation and paper cutout style to elegant effect.

The segments are mostly successful to me, but frequently for different reasons.  Christopher Lee's actorly, booming narration for "Usher" is compelling.  The visual approaches for "Heart" and "Masque" are spell-binding, particularly "Masque."  "Valdemar" is such a curious story that it carries itself (and making one of the characters look like Vincent Price was a bonus).  And Guillermo del Toro's voice work on "Pendulum" is fantastic.  In some regards, I guess you could say the film was uneven, in that I think only "Masque" clicked 100%, but all of the segments had something interesting to recommend them, so there weren't any lulls or dull parts.

So, "Extraordinary Tales" is good spooky fun for kids who may not have been exposed to Poe's work yet, and it's good for those of us who are a little more familiar with the material, too.  You'll certainly have your favorite segment, as do I ("Masque"), and this is a worthy, fun animated project I'd love to see more in the vein of.  I had a deja-vu moment with "The Tell-Tale Heart," and it turns out that it had been created nearly a decade ago, and I likely saw that segment at a Spike and Mike's Festival along the way.  I'm glad that Raul Garcia and everyone else involved decided to round this out to a feature-length film.

4 / 5 - Theatre

Back to the Future - 1985

"Back to the Future" - 1985
Dir. by Robert Zemeckis - 1 hr. 56 min.

Original Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I could have sworn I'd written about this movie before.  It seems impossible that I haven't.  Well, caveats out of the way - I threw this on in honor of Back to the Future Day, but only to have something on in the background while I was working on some artwork.  Usually, music serves that function, but I've seen "Back to the Future" enough times previously where it's not like I was going to miss anything.  Also, anyone of my generation has probably seen this film enough times that it's kind of weird re-watching it, since every scene is drilled into our collective brains.  And, as such, the movie goes by very, very quickly.

Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is a teenager with teenager concerns; getting through high school, trying to get into the talent show, sneaking away for a "camping trip" with his girlfriend.  He's also got a crazy-ass scientest buddy, Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), who may or may not resemble a character from "Rick & Morty."  His family is pretty much straight out of "Repo Man."  But Dr. Brown has an invention that requires some assistance from Marty, which leads to this:

Huey Lewis & the News - "Back in Time"

So here's my thing.  It's impossible to say much about the movie.  It made a zillion dollars.  Everyone knows every line.  I've been on the ride at Universal Studios a number of times.  Is it my favorite movie ever made?  Not really.  But I like it.  So does everyone.  So everyone involved must've done something right.  Is there anything at all that anyone involved could have jumped in a DeLorean to change, that would have made people remember it MORE fondly?  That would have this film make even MORE money?  Nah, I doubt it.  It's not perfect, but it's definitely the right film for the right time that struck the right chord with audiences.  "Back to the Future" is a broad, all-ages comedy that completely succeeds at that task, even if it occasionally deviates from my own personal tastes.

It's a lot easier to pick at the sequels than this film, because this has ascended from movie to pop culture touchstone.  So lets just say that "Back to the Future" is pretty good, and you're likely not to regret the couple of hours that it'll take to watch it.  Anything beyond that is wasted breath.  So let's take a look at that sweet ride, and if I watch the sequels, I'll have a lot more to say about them.

THE DeLorean

4 / 5 - DVD

San Andreas - 2015

"San Andreas" - 2015
Dir. by Brad Peyton -  1 hr. 54 min.

Official Trailer 2

by Clayton Hollifield

Once you've seen the trailer for "San Andreas" (and a lot of films like it), you pretty much know what to expect.  Things are going to shake and blow up and end up in rubble (spoiler!), and someone's going to have to save their family (or loved one).  What is up in the air is just how enjoyable the film will be.  Guaranteed, no one is checking out "San Andreas" for the plot.  The relevant questions are: are the special effects up to snuff, how much do I like the actors, and just how many boring parts are there going to be?

We're introduced to Ray (Dwayne Johnson) while he's piloting a helicopter for the fire department, tasked with saving the bacon of some girl who drove off the side of a hill while texting and driving, and is literally hanging off the side of a cliff.  So he's pretty good at this sort of thing.  He's also got a lot of hero baggage (an ex, a kid he's having trouble connecting with, some other dude banging his ex).  Separately, Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) is a seismologist working at Cal Tech, and he's developed a way to predict earthquakes ahead of time.  While field testing this with his co-worker, Kim (Will Yun Lee), a big 'un strikes, both wreaking havoc and confirming their predictive technology.  And guess what?  There's more big one's coming!

It's always nice when a disaster porn movie casts better than it needs to.  It's the difference between "San Andreas" and "Sharknado"; the difference between Carla Gugino and Tara Reid.  Obviously, you'd cast The Rock given the chance, and there's a good reason for that: he's awesome.  And believable as an action star.  But it's fun seeing Paul Giamatti in something that's not Oscar-bait.  I always love watching Carla Gugino, even in things that don't necessarily require a ton out of her, because she usually adds to whatever she's in.  And also, the storyline progeny of Johnson and Gugino (Alexandra Daddario) isn't hard to watch either (other than the story kind of makes you feel a little pervy for eyeballing her, but she first appears in a bikini, there are numerous lingering shots that invite you to get lost in her giant eyes, and she spends the bulk of the movie filling out a wet tank top.  So stop baiting me!).  This is part of the reason why:

Alexandra Daddario and co.

Onto the special effects, which were up to par.  Many times, in these kinds of movies, the film will settle for destroying only Los Angeles, or only New York.  But we get the bonus of watching the San Andreas Fault have it's way with both Los Angeles AND San Francisco!  Buildings are destroyed, topple, submerged under water, people are shaken, set on fire, and washed away.  And all of it looks cool.  Part of that is that we get to see some of the destruction from Ray's chopper seat, which isn't necessarily a different angle to view carnage from, but gives a reason why we're in the sky to begin with.  Just a little nod towards logic goes so, so far sometimes.  And, this might be the only time you'll ever hear me say this, the resemblance towards video games actually helped things out.  This is largely because Ray's character might as well be a superhero; he repeatedly scans a scenario, finds a way to make things go together, and then gets right to action.  There is no hesitation, no fear, just him figuring out what to do, and then, improbably, making it happen over and over again.  And that's pretty compelling!

And, thirdly, there aren't that many down parts.  There's surprising effort put into rounding out the standard hero baggage into something that gives the characters depth.  This is another area where just a little nod towards logic makes things so much better.  Johnson and Gugino actually feel like they have a past and a connection (although that might just be Gugino being awesome again), and when the movie starts working on your tear ducts, it succeeds on the basis of their work.

Carla Gugino and some dude who's trying to cock-block The Rock.

All of this adds up to a fun couple of hours.  It's probably not something that people will go back and watch years down the road (unless Daddario becomes a huge star, and this was an early work of hers), but you get to see two towns get wrecked for the price of one (and a vacation destination, too).  You get Mr. Johnson doing what he does best (and stretching his acting muscles a little bit, too).  You get to watch two beautiful actresses do a lot of jogging in tank tops (I'm not going to sit here and pretend that totally didn't happen, okay?).  And it'll probably kick your stereo's ass when you sit at home crank this bad boy.  If you want some loud, explosive, action hero entertainment, "San Andreas" will most certainly get the job done.

3 / 5 - Theatre

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - 2007

"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" - 2007
Dir. by Jake Kasdan - 1 hr. 36 min.

Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

There's a lot of good material in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," but boy did it feel fresher on the heels of "Walk the Line."  That's pretty fitting, because "Walk Hard" borrows a lot (and I mean a LOT) of plot points from Johnny Cash's life (and the rest from Ray Charles' life, which was the big music movie that preceded "Walk the Line"), and he was kind of a big deal.  But it's also a very silly, very fun romp through all the rock 'n' roll cliches that we're all familiar with.  It's just that the childhood trauma that haunts Dewey is that he accidentally halved his brother while play-fighting with machetes.

Whoops.

Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) is Johnny Cash a rock singer who came to prominence in the 1950s, with his hit "Walk Hard."  Through his career, he hits every imaginable speed bump from "Behind the Music," from bigamy to drug abuse to losing his sense of smell.  He meets his first wife, Edith (Kristen Wiig) when he's 14 and she's 12, and they leave home to chase Dewey's dream.  And then there's a second wife, Darlene (Jenna Fischer), and she's a little more permanent.  And basically, we work through the decades of Dewey's life until a late-career resurgence brings him back into the spotlight.

Any discussion of the positives of "Walk Hard" have to begin with the cast.  John C. Reilly is funny.  Make that really funny.  He's such a goof that you kind of look forward to things falling apart over and over again so that his character will take his frustrations out on a sink somewhere.  Both of Dewey's wives have found deserved success in the near-decade since this movie came out.  The ghost of Dewey's brother is played by Jonah Hill.  His band is comprised of Matt Besser (Upright Citizen's Brigade), Chris Parnell, and Tim Meadows.  Even a one-off joke has Elvis Presley played by a hyper-active, karate-enthused, mumble-mouthed Jack White.  The Beatles are played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long, and Jason Schwartzman. The cameo characters are played by people like Jane Lynch, Harold Ramis, and Craig Robinson.  So the main thing to know is that if you've enjoyed pretty much any comedy movie in the last decade, you're going to recognize a lot of faces.

Secondly, the movie zips along.  Part of the appeal of "Walk Hard" is that it's a comedy trip through rock 'n' roll, and since we're all pretty familiar with the tropes, there's not much need to establish jokes.  We're on the same page before they even start talking, so the jokes come quickly, and the scenes don't overstay their welcome.  The running gags are good, too, like Dewey's aforementioned targeting of sinks whenever things go awry, and Tim Meadows' "you don't want any of this shit" refrains.

Smoking reefers

On the whole, I enjoyed "Walk Hard."  I enjoyed it when I watched it when it came out, and I enjoyed it this time, too.  I don't have any real complaints about it; this movie is fun and quickly-paced.  It doesn't aim very high, which probably keeps it from being great, but it's still really funny (particularly if you're versed in rock lore), and you'll see a ton of people you'll likely recognize.  So go ahead, give it a whirl when you're bored and want some laughs.

3 / 5 - Blu-Ray