Lucy: Because She Got High.

Memorable quote upon leaving the theater: "I thought that bitch had superpowers--she was just high!"

And there you have it, folks.

But really, Lucy ended up being a pretty decent movie, ableit not the mind-blowing Matrix throwback I was hoping for.

Lemme essplain.

The plot revolves around young Lucy, a (grad?) student who is living in Taipei for some reason. We immediately kick off with her boyfriend asking her to deliver a package to the front desk of a hotel. She declines. He makes her. She ends up getting enrolled in a sick drug lord's scheme to be a mule for some new drug. After accidentally getting beaten up in transit, the drug begins to leak--and Lucy goes whack. We find out, after she gets the pouch removed from her lower stomach, that the drug is a synthetic form of a substance that mothers produce when they're pregnant. The hormone/chemical/whatever enables your brain to prep itself to learn all of the rudimentary tasks that you acquire as an infant. And Lucy's packing a good amount larger than the average. Consequently, she gets the gift of using a "higher capacity of her brain" than the rest of us do, and learns some insane tricks (please see: suspending humans in midair, putting crowds to sleep, time traveling, literally falling apart, and more!).

nbd, everyone can do that..

When I saw the premise for this movie I thought it looked crazy cool. Scarlett Johansson has more than earned her acting chops as a badass playing Black Widow in The Avengers, and I was intrigued to see which route they would end up taking with the whole concept itself. But what you get amped up for in the beginning tapers off as the movie plays, and it ends up being a little lackluster by the end.

First half of this film was totally on point. Interesting choices made with the editing sucked me in right off the bat. As Lucy talks to her boyfriend, her responses are intercut with stock film images of wildlife hunting, being entrapped, and generally being in danger. The cuts also give us some information about Lucy's beau and their partying habits. Interesting direction for a mass-audience studio film, and it was refreshing to see some playfulness in editing for a genre that is usually pretty one-note.

The whole beginning half, actually, draws you in because you don't know what to expect. Even immediately after the drugs take effect in her system and Lucy is semi-robotic, we see her making decisions with 20% of her brain that we usually only get to see in assassin flicks. And it's cool!

Girl on a mission.

The problem with the second half is just a matter of jumbliness. The drug lord is trying to hunt Lucy down, Lucy's trying to give info to these scientists, she befriends a French cop that we become momentarily invested in, and then we get to see a brief history of time itself. What I went in expecting was to see a bunch of crazy-cool things that she'd be able to do with a large portion of her brain. But with the way the movie plays, she ends up being so much bigger than humanity itself, that the plotline that we're all focusing on (the drug lord one), gets lost in Lucy's existential fog.

Basically, the main thing keeping you awake in the second half is simply wondering what happens when she reaches 100% of her brain's capacity (and by that point--I mean, good Lord, she can do a whole lot).

Like seeing cellular signals and weaving through them

like the air is a giant iPad screen.

I would've liked to see this one's beginning stretch a little more and have her doing much less transcendental nonsense by the end. If we can't comprehend it, then why are you showing it to us? I rest my case.

6.5 outa 10. Not half as crazy-awesome as I'd thought it would be, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first half. Good acting from Scarlett Johansson as well!

**EDIT** Also, it must be said, there is no evidence to support the claim that humans only use 10% of our mental capacity. That is all.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Ok, Seriously, Why Doesn't Anyone Call Them Monkeys?

Seriously, the word "monkey" maybe happens once. Why. Does anyone in real life ever actually use the term "ape???"

Anyway.

So, disclaimer going into this review: I saw this movie on about 4 hours of sleep and I've been seeing nothing but action movies lately, so my opinion may be slightly skewed. However, I've got to say that I wasn't crazy impressed by anything but the aesthetic of this movie and I don't understand why everyone is stopping the presses talking about how "AMAZINGG!!?@" it is.

I mean the poster art is cool and all but...

The movie basically picks up where the first (remake) left off. Sort of. In the time following the first movie's progress there has been an outbreak of what is called "simian flu" (people getting reeeal creative with all these various 'flus' popping up all over the film industry...). As a result, the human population is a mere fraction of what it once was. By contrast, when we meet up with our ole pal Caesar (voiced by Andy Serkis, the guy who made Gollum so famous..), his ape community is thriving. They've been living in the forest for upwards of 15 years and thriving as they develop ways to communicate via sign language as well as voice, albeit primitively in the case of the latter. Their world is shaken up, however, with the arrival of a human scouting group looking for an old dam that could provide electricity to their severely diminished city community. After the arrival of the humans, old prejudices arise and threaten human survival as well as peace between the apes.

Let's start with the good things about this thing: um, it's beautiful. The CGI effects are straight crazy. Straight. Crazy. Especially in the more villainous characters, who you can tell they had a grand ole time creating.

PS He's not real. He was made by a computer.

Just a small reminder in case you forgot.

The acting isn't bad either. Nice to see Keri Russell picking up a big role again and Gary Oldman is always fun to watch. New guy Jason Clarke is...eh okay.

But other than that I found this movie to be hugely predictable. From the overly-humanist (speciesist?) character that is all about shooting all of the apes down before they can hurt the human population to the apes that are basing all of their interactions with humans on their tortured lab days, we got nothing new under the sun here. It's a very basic "fear of the other" principle that meets its predictable conclusions at the end: wow, both humans and apes are neither wholly good nor wholly evil.

Yeah I'm bored.

I also found the usage of another pandemic in the film to be boring. From Resident Evil to I am Legend to Godzilla to Walking Dead, we've all seen the broken-down visages of cities that have experienced huge drops in population. Overrun with vines, dirty, lack of government, etc. etc... Seent it. Gimme something different.

More power to them for trying to make a bigger message out of an enormously predictable plot. (I mean...we ALL know that the apes eventually win.) But it's such a tired, used, plot that the movie ends up being kind of...-sigh-...boring...

It's only been like 15 years. Even Chernobyl doesn't look this run-down...good lord...

I dunno. Maybe I'm jaded from watching too many action movies lately, or else I'm spoiled by having watched a bunch of futuristic dystopian movies that have been way more impressive, but I found Planet of the Apes to be a little lackluster.

Conclusion: 6.5 outa 10. Shmeh. Didn't hate it but still can't understand what the huge reaction to it has been. Obviously none of those people saw any of The Hobbit films...

Snowpiercer: Because Bastille Day.

For those of you who may not be aware, Bastille Day is basically the French equivalent of Independence Day. So called over here (in France they just call it July 14th Day, much like our Fourth of July) because of the storming of the Bastille that set off the whole French Revolution, it commemorates France's political switch from monarchy--woo!

So what better day to watch a revolutionary tale than Bastille Day?

Snowpiercer is the tale of a train. In a post-apocolyptic world, the train is the only thing holding the remnants of the world's population. After humans released a chemical into the atmosphere to remedy global warming, the plan backfired and sent the world into another ice age. The train is all that is left.

Circling the world on a series of interconnected tracks, it is kept running by one thing and one thing only: "the eternal engine." But all is not so well on the Snowpiercer. Passengers living at the tail of the train are having a hard time surviving, and have been for the 18 years that the train has been running. Fed protein bars by the regulators of the train, they are not allowed beyond their caboose car,  are perpetually filthy, and are essentially treated like prisoners. Rising up against the hierarchy of the train is Curtis (Chris Evans) and his band of misfits. Tired of the unfair treatment they receive, he embarks on a mission to take over the engine at the front of the train and to win better conditions for his co-passengers.

Assisted by security specialist (and one of my favorite Korean actors)

Namgoong Minsoo (Kang-ho Song)

I was immediately intrigued after seeing the trailer for this. It seemed hugely different than the majority of the films out right now and with a star-studded cast--what more could you want!?

I was NOT prepared, however, for the massive amount of violence that greeted me in the theater. Good lord. So many deaths. And I mean, I guess I should've seen it coming. No revolution set up in earnest ever really worked without a huge amount of sacrifice--but still. Lots of battles.

And they use axes, for God's sake.

AXES.

I will say, though, that the fascinating thing about the battles on the Snowpiercer is that they must take place within a confined space, and that they must be mindful of doing the train damage. (I mean, come on, it's their entire life source. If the train dies, no one wins.) Consequently, there are a bunch of wild card battle scenes that take you totally by surprise simply by the way that they are fought.

Apart from their revolution strategy, what I liked about this one is that the general plot of the movie is hugely original. The concept of living in a thousand-car train is thought-provoking in and of itself, not to mention the problems that one would encounter in regards to class equality. To be fair, the movie is based on a 1980s French graphic novel called Le Transperceneige, so it's not completely original. (Fun fact: "perceneige" en francais means "snowdrop," like the flower.) But still, as the movie plods on and you move up and up in class and rank, you begin to see the horrendous contrast between the squalor and inhumanity in the last car and the pointless excess of comfort in the first classes. And should you forget, there is a damn memorable tale told by Curtis in one of the final scenes that makes you just...woah. Nothing anyone has ever done could merit the conditions of the lowest class. And having that sort of class contrast wrapped up in something as compact and simple as a train is pretty genius.

It's a greenhouse.

Jk lolz, it's a train.

The train itself is pretty memorable as well. On the journey throughout the train, you go from a car that resembles a shanty town of bunks and rags to an elementary school car to a high-luxury car that houses people in the lap of luxury. Throughout the train you see things such as how they recycle water, sustain plant life, feed the people, and survive.

All in all, this movie was pretty great. Different, refreshing, smart, and chilling. Highly recommend if you're in the mood for an intense ride.

8 outa 10.

Escape from Tomorrow: No, Not 'The Edge of Tomorrow.' Different.

Hmm. In hindsight, this may have been why I had such a hard time remembering what the title of The Edge of Tomorrow was. Very different film.

Anyway.

I had heard about Escape from Tomorrow way back in October when I was at the New York Film Festival. Well...kind of. I saw a postcard in the lobby that looked like this:

Pretty neat, right?!?

And I thought to myself "Woah! Disney movies and horror movies coming together!? What an intriguing union!" These thoughts were further buoyed by the fact that I had heard that they got in major trouble with Disney by sneaking into Disney World and filming on location without a permit. Disney was pissed. And the movie seemed way cool.

And then...I actually watched it.

Sigh.

So the plot revolves around a family's trip to Disney World. The dad has just been fired from his job when the film starts, and it's the last day of his family's stay in Disney World. Determined not to let it damped their last day, he doesn't say anything to his wife, and they take off into the park. What then ensues is a bunch of weird stuff. He eyes up two French 13-year-olds, blacks out a few times, hallucinates (?), neglects his kids, has sex with some rando lady he meets, fights with his wife, and get into some increasingly bizarre situations.

Oh look, dad's hallucinating for some reason that never gets explained...

Wow, this movie was freakin' terrible. And I say that with authority. Because it could have been SO. COOL. And it totally and utterly failed.

The main problem with the movie (if you couldn't tell already) is that it is lacking a plot. When I first saw the tagline of it, "Bad things happen everywhere," I remember thinking "Wow, that is the most vague statement I have ever heard." and the movie plays that to its advantage. The only central plot is that bad things happen. Bad things that have nothing to do with one another. Weird bad things. And the end result is a scatterbrained attempt at being creative that flounders and falls short.

All you end up with by the end of The Escape from Tomorrow, is a ton of questions and no answers:

"Why is his wife being such a bitch?"

"Why is this dad so gross looking?"

"Why did he hallucinate his son's eyes doing that thing?"

"What the fuck is cat flu?"

"Is there a reason he's attracted to these 13-year-olds!?"

"Okay, seriously, how do you lose your kid in a 20 foot radius."

"Who's this guy in the motor scooter??"

"It's not turkey--it's emu??? Is this real life???"

"Who the hell is THIS lady???"

"WHAT the fuck is CAT FLU????"

You'd think if you're going to take the time to sidestep the laws of the world's second largest entertainment company, you would take the time to put out a stellar film. And not this thing. The fact that it's in black and white too looked really promising. Unusual, even. But the movie is a trainwreck. Half of it is green screened to make sense. But it doesn't.

wtf, cat flu.

The one TINY redeeming thing about this movie was how it was filmed. Interesting to see a movie and know that these things are happening in real life. But other than that it was incredibly disappointing.

2 outa 10. Possibly my lowest rating ever. It could've been SO COOL. Damnit.

The Edge of Tomorrow: This Cruise Sci-Fi Flick is Actually Good

I wish that they had picked a better title for this one, every time I try to think of what it is I'm like "Tomorrow Never Dies...no...The Day After Tomorrow? The End of Tomorrow? Tomorrow?" and then have to consult IMDB before I lose my damn mind...

Fortunately, the forgettable title is little indicator of this hidden gem of a flick. Don't be dazzled by the promise of Maleficent, or by the ultimate sob-fest that is going to be The Fault in Our Stars (and we thought A Walk to Remember was bad, amiright?). Step a little outside your comfort zone this weekend and check out this fusion of Groundhog Day and Starship Troopers. Seriously, I was way more impressed than I had suspected I would be.

Badasssss.

The plot revolves around Cage (Tom Cruise), a lieutenant who has launched a propaganda campaign for the government in a war against an alien race. When the movie kicks off we are in the thick of the action. Cage has just been asked by Britain's head of command to be on the battlefield on the day of the action to give people a close look at the action. The only problem is that Cage is not an actual member of the military, and has never even gone through training. After a rude awakening at base camp, he is put through hell on his first day as a soldier, enduring an unexpected slaughter on the battlefield. But out of nowhere, something happens. He kills a special kind of alien, and as he is dying, becomes covered in its blood. For reasons that are uncovered later in the film (but let's be honest, kind of irrelevant right?), Cage is then forced to live out every single day with the ability to start off with his first day at base camp. Going from a fraidy cat to a badass soldier, he recruits the help of Rita (Emily Blunt), who has experienced what he's gone through as well. Together they become the ultimate weapon against this alien enemy. And each day begins to count towards uncovering how it is they can beat them.

So wow. For those of you who (like me) grew up watching your siblings, friends, or significant others play video games and get caught up in the action: this movie is for you. It's the same adrenaline rush coupled with the concern for the (somewhat artificial) life that is given the main character. And much like a video game, we know everything that the main character knows and are given a special peek inside what is going to happen in the day to come (yes, one day only).

Outside of the story structure, though, there is still a lot to love about this movie. The fact that we can anticipate each scenario with a different reaction each time makes the subject matter new each time. One day Cage is focusing his energy into forming relationships with his bunk mates, the next he is researching a way to destroy the aliens, and still after he is falling in love with the formidable Rita (because, let's be real, who WOULDN'T fall in love with Emily Blunt). Additionally, seeing Cage morph from a coward into a certified BAMF keeps you on the edge of your seat. Distinctly unlikeable in the beginning, he becomes a weathered soldier with a mind to save the world. And that is cool.

The ONLY complaint that Bill and I had about this movie was that they seem to take some liberties with how smart the aliens are. For example, these things are craaaaazy fast and don't look unlike those tentacled things from The Matrix. Yet they (consciously?) decide to take their time going after Cage and Rita at pivotal parts of the movie where you would expect nothing short of a battle royale. So that ends up being kind of a weird coincidence that you have to gloss over.

Neo? Oh sorry, wrong movie...

All said though, this is such a refreshing new perspective from ye olde tired action flicks that I would highly recommend. I wasn't expecting much, but this one had me wide-eyed and staring at the screen for the entire 113 min. Check it out!

7.5 outa 10 stars. Extra points for attention-grabbing action and fun with a tired genre.

Chef: If the Food Doesn't Kill You the Feelings Will

After seeing the trailer for Chef a few months ago, I was struck by the food fact that Jon Favreau was starring in a new flick about food family, job vocations, and the value of your life.

...And food.

omnomnom

The plot follows Chef Carl Casper, a guy stuck in a thankless position as head chef of a restaurant that refuses to embrace his talent for cooking his own dishes. After a well-known food blogger shames his skills as a cook, Casper finds himself publicly humiliated after a (very) social media war. Taking time to reevaluate his life, he decides to take some time off to spend with his son, and ends up discovering the food truck that reinvigorates his passion for cooking and mends his broken bond with his son.

d'awww food and fam

This movie totally caught me off guard. I was walking into a flick that I thought was going to be pretty straightforward (and full of food porn). But there are so many layers to this one that it just ends up being a very delightful film. Jon Favreau's Chef Casper is a tough guy at first, hardened by his stifled creativity and his inability to communicate with his half-estranged son. But watching his fully believable transition from a jerk into a well contented man is just so sweet. And the interactions that he has with his son Percy (played by the FANTASTIC Emjay Anthony) are so realistic that I was muttering an "awww" about every five seconds he was on screen.

Actually, let's give this kid his own paragraph:
I have a serious problem with kids that cannot act. Seriously. Child actors are known movie-ruiners. Because child actors have a tendency to be assholes. They think that they're special because they've been picked to do a movie and they're eating up being the center of attention and sometimes their smugness is so tangible that it posses me off. Contrary to being one of these asshole child actors, Emjay Anthony's Percy is the perfect blend of standoffish boy and emotionally invested, starry-eyed kid. His acting in this was tremendous and I felt it necessary to make mention of the fact that this kid is outside the usual parameters of this-kid-has-a-cute-face-so-let's-pretend-he-can-act-ness.

this sweet, sweet babychild

Ok, end rant.

The other thing that I loved about this movie was the commentary that they make about the pros and cons of social media. While Casper is at first about as social media savvy as a three-year-old, he learns quickly that the things that you say publicly have enormous consequences. By the same token, he ends up owing the success of his food truck to this original media outburst and subsequent social media outreach executed by his son, Percy.

The internet, amiright?

And lastly (but certainly not leastly): tha food. Omg.  Seriously, do not go into this movie hungry. You will regret it for the rest of your life. It would be like going grocery shopping hungry. Times a bajillion. Seriously, the food that they make in this movie is so damn delicious that I had to immediately go out and buy a Cubano sandwich from the nearest diner (that actually happened.). If you have time, make sure that you can buy the ingredients for one so that you can make it yourself as soon as you get home.

I'm not kidding.

This movie was total magic. I give it 9 outa 10. Great story. Great music. Great food visuals. Love.

Also, side note: there's like a million celebrities that have cameos in this thing. Awesome.

In Defense of Stupid Movies (And a List of My Faves)

A couple weeks ago I had the interesting experience of getting free tickets to see The Other Woman. So of course I went and saw it (hello? free?) and I didn't hate it. If you had seen the trailer for it, it was very clearly not Oscar material, but there were a lot of one-liners in there, and comedy veterans Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann held their own in roles that were very obviously typecast. Kate Upton is along for the ride as the dumb blonde, a gratuitous role and I think we can safely say they didn't pick her for her acting chops.

Still, the movie was a good dumb movie, a breed becoming rarer and rarer in legitimate Hollywood studios that have an actual budget. It didn't teach me any lessons about my life, but it was fun seeing a drunk Cameron Diaz and a drunk Leslie Mann bond over the infidelity of men. Entertaining.

and the clothes. the clothes.

Still, when I came home, I happened upon Rotten Tomatoes' reviews of the movie and got annoyed. Film critics en masse complaining about the movie's half-assed feminism, the failure of it to pass the Bechdel test, the total miss at attempting a forward-thinking movie about women banding together against evil men, etc. etc.

So okay. Not like I think that this movie was all that awesome. If I had had to pay for it, I probably wouldn't have seen it unless it was on cable a few years from now. But at the same time, I feel the need to speak up in defense of dumb movies like these, who get crucified by critics that are judging them as harshly as they would any Oscar-nominated flick. I have one question for you uppity critics:

Do you really think that they were aiming that high?

I'm as big a fan as anyone of overanalyzing a cookie-cutter movie made for the masses (I believe I've mentioned more than once that my senior paper in college was a feminist reading of The Swan Princess...). And when you're dealing with an audience of academics that's to be expected. But writing reviews meant for the masses should really factor in the audience of the movie (not just the publication!), and I feel like that is becoming more and more unusual.

all movie audiences are NOT created equal, damnit!

On the one hand, it's nice to see that people seem to be clambering towards wanting smarter, more realistic films. The extreme ease with which we can tape and post our own videos socially, whether it be a home-movie or a masterpiece of a film, begins to put pressure on media execs to make things better. For example, these days we don't typically accept some white person dressing up as a different race, a story that seems wildly unrealistic, or dated agendas that have to do with nuclear families, traditional obligations to jobs, etc. We're exposed to so much these days that we can't be fooled by what the media offers up as "normal." And that's actually pretty cool!

On the other hand, though, it feels a bit as though we've lost our taste for pure entertainment in favor of coming off as more academic than we need to, and I really do believe that we are beginning to overthink things. Especially in the Hollywood sector. Of course it's always nice to see a well thought out story that plays out realistically and artistically, the equivalent of a very fine, high-quality meal (movies like American Hustle, Only Lovers Left Alive, Django, and every other auteur film known to man). But there's nothing wrong with a little junk food. And guilty pleasure movies (as long as you can acknowledge them for what they are) aren't gonna hurt ya. I will always love my dumb movies for the fact that they are unrealistic and over-the-top. And yeah, I probably will never buy a copy of The Other Woman. But I'm not about to critique it with the likes of Vivre Sa Vie and other serious feminist films. Because that's not what it is. It's pure fluff. And it was made to be pure fluff. And anyone that stacks it up against serious films, is wasting their time and energy. Factor in the intention and audience of the film, peeps. And then maybe you'll enjoy it a little more.

fans of Madea's Family Reunion called Vivre sa Vie "boring and weird"

So, now that I'm off of my soap-box, here are my favorite stupid movies of all time:

1. He's Just Not That Into You

Every time this movie comes on, I'm like a moth to the flame. It's really got too many characters making epically abismal stupid decisions to look away. Gigi throwing herself at that guy who looks like he's twelve but somehow has all of the relationship advice? Cringe! Coming to the conclusion towards the end of the movie that this man is somehow the bad guy(what.)? Incredulous! Totally fun to watch? Apparently. Because I can never not watch this when I see it's on TV.

2. Mystic Pizza

Sweet Jesus, the hunger that comes over me with every shot of the pizza that they eat in this film...it's not a laughing matter. Girls working at a pizza place encounter life lessons the hard (best) way--through intense melodrama. Julia Roberts plays the town bicycle, Annabeth Gish (over)plays her nerdy sister, and Lilli Taylor plays a conflicted young person in love or something. But omg the pizza.

3. Rush Hour

Would this movie ever survive the box office today? I pose that it would not. Still, who doesn't love Rush Hour? WAR. HUH. YEAH.

4. The Heat

Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock. Nuff said. So the buddy cop genre is a little tired? Don't care. Love this flick. Extra points for the scene when they get wasted and put scotch tape all over their faces (seriously, who thought of that?).

5. Beautiful Creatures

Some ole science fiction nonsense set in the South with a moody teenager and a boy who (like in so many other terrible sci-fi romances) loves her unconditionally (and inexplicably). I'd be lying if I said I hadn't seen it more than once.

6. The Watcher in the Woods

So bad, but so brave of baby Disney to make an attempt at a scary movie. Gave me the creeps when I was little, but I would recommend watching it now if only to see the absolute horror that is Bette Davis's hair and outdated acting technique (bless her old heart).

7. Anything on Lifetime

Seriously. Some of the worst flicks I've ever seen. But who doesn't like the occasional tale of a homicidal teacher going after her ex-lover's stepson? Or the teenage girl who inevitably has to raise her siblings because her mother is a coke addict? Or perhaps watch the suspenseful saga of a woman in her fifties embracing a reinvention of her personality and going after a guy who is in his 20s because that's not gross at all! (?) Obviously not written with the highest of expectations, but highly entertaining anyway.

8. Babycakes

I know I talk about this movie way too much, but I couldn't NOT mention it on my list of faves!!