CliqueClack

Men, Women & Children is a good film until you start to think about it

I’ve talked about technology before and how it affects and changes us. There are the ones that do a good job of talking about it, like Her, with its dangerous but hopeful look at humanity’s future. Then there are the ones like last year’s Disconnect, which was basically mediocre and a box office bomb about “scary new technology.” Watching this new movie, I was strongly reminded of Disconnect, which isn’t really a good thing. Sometimes after seeing a movie, I change my mind after thinking about it. That’s the problem with thinking too much: you might realize something you didn’t want to realize. Like that something you liked wasn’t as good as you remembered. Case in point …

Men, Women & Children is the latest film from director Jason Reitman, known for such movies as Juno and the underrated Young Adult, based on the novel by Chad Kulgen. The movie uses a series of mostly interconnected storylines, each about a particular family or character. Throughout it all, there’s the unsubtle way technology affects our lives. At first I didn’t think it was meant as an overarching theme, that it wasn’t simply “technology has made a lot things harder.” I had the radical idea of being optimistic, of assuming that it was more along the lines of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” and “hey, we’re all humans here.” Those messages are in the movie, but they are undercut by the problematic elements. The film is wrapped with footage of the deep space probe Voyager 1 as it leaves our solar system, while Emma Thompson provides amusing and not frequent enough narration and commentary. In point of fact, it wasn’t until after the movie ended that I realized there wasn’t nearly enough of her, as she was consistently excellent. But that’s just the wraparound — what about the characters?

Continue reading 'Men, Women & Children is a good film until you start to think about it' »

Dracula Untold blends fact and fiction with middling results

The story of Dracula has been around, well, since Bram Stoker published his book in 1897 (which was by no means the first vampire tale). Stoker introduced the world to the aristocratic count from Transylvania, but Stoker’s tale was made up from whole cloth. The author’s point to the story was actually about Continental Europeans invading England. The book wasn’t even titled Dracula until a few weeks before publication when Stoker came across the name and historical accounts of Vlad Tepes (the character was originally called Count Wampyre).

Since then, it’s been believed that Stoker’s Dracula was based on the real Dracula, blurring the lines of fact and fiction. No film has really touched upon the historical Dracula except for a brief prologue in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and further blurring that line is the new horror/action thriller Dracula Untold.

Continue reading 'Dracula Untold blends fact and fiction with middling results' »

American Horror Story gets its freak on

Step right up, come one, come all to Fraulein Elsa’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Otherwise known as season four of the FX hit American Horror Story (this time subtitled Freak Show). AHS is really like nothing else on TV today, and its closest antecedents were the anthology shows popular back in the 1950s and 1960s (and those had different casts and stories each week).

Season three, Coven, brought an even wider audience to the show and the anticipation for season four has been at a fever pitch since tidbits about the story and characters began to “leak” out not long after the last season concluded. So far we’ve had a modern day haunted house in Los Angeles, a New England asylum (with demons and aliens!) in 1964, and a New Orleans based coven of witches that bounced around between two eras of witchcraft.

Season four takes us to Jupiter, FL, 1952, the site of Elsa Mars’ Freak Show (and also historically a place know for its circus background). But like any town on American Horror Story, Jupiter has more than a few dark secrets to reveal. As the season starts, Jupiter is beset by a series of gruesome murders perpetrated by one of the most frightening clowns in TV history (sorry, Pennywise). But why the clown (we’ll come to know him as Twisty) is killing people and kidnapping children remains to be seen … as does what he hides behind his half mask that covers his mouth.

Continue reading 'American Horror Story gets its freak on' »

Is The Flash the best comic book TV adaptation yet?

After what felt like an agonizingly long wait, The CW finally gave us the debut of the new DC Comics TV series The Flash. Has all the tease, all the build up, all the anticipation been worth it? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

Last season, Fox’s Sleepy Hollow was the new show to get me excited about the new fall season, and this year it’s definitely The Flash. (Sorry, Gotham. While watchable, you’ve already fallen into a rut after three episodes of “Jim Gordon: Good Guy” constantly being doubted, questioned and suspected of nefarious deeds by everyone around him. At least Jada Pinkett Smith and Robin Lord Taylor bring a little comic book life to the show.)

But The Flash has all the elements that make not only a good comic book TV adaptation, but a good TV show as well. Right off the bat, we get Barry Allen’s backstory quickly out of the way. Even if you have no idea who Barry Allen is coming in to the show, you pretty much know him within the first ten minutes: he’s a kid who lost him mom under mysterious circumstances, his dad is in prison for the murder, and he has a close relationship with a detective (who raised him) and works as a forensics assistant. And he can run really, really, really fast.

Continue reading 'Is The Flash the best comic book TV adaptation yet?' »

A superior version of Godzilla … from 1954

As a kid growing up in Southern California, Godzilla, King Of The Monsters wasn’t about the deeper meaning and not-so-subtle references to World War II’s turning point or the horrors of war.

I didn’t care anything about that. (More accurately, I didn’t know any better.) None of my friends did.

We were just thrilled with the giant monster aspect. And Godzilla was the pinnacle of those thrills, the epitome of giant monster flicks.

So imagine my further thrill years later when I discovered there was so much more to Godzilla than simply fond childhood memories of the rampant destruction of Tokyo by sheer kaiju brute force and devastating atomic breath; Godzilla, King Of The Monsters wasn’t the original film at all but a hastily put together, Americanized version utilizing just over an hour’s worth of the Japanese Gojira, the superior, deeper and thought-provoking forerunner to the classic Godzilla more commonly known to the masses.

I was riveted to the screen when reporter Steve Martin (Raymond Burr) detailed Tokyo’s ruination from the rampaging Godzilla each time it graced the family television set, times that were too few and frustratingly far between as a kid. I was equally riveted at finally getting a copy of Gojira to see what was cut out of and changed in the film, how it differed from what I affectionately recalled from those youthful years. Was it a completely different film as I’d heard? Continue reading 'A superior version of Godzilla … from 1954' »

Now is the time to give Edge of Tomorrow a chance

Movies and movie-goers can be strange things. Sometimes a movie comes out of nowhere and becomes a hit, or is a huge, badly reviewed studio film and inexplicably earns boatloads of money. Then you have a movie like Edge of Tomorrow, with a 90% favorable critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 91% audience rating, that goes on to become one of the year’s notorious flops with a $178 million budget and just over $100 million at the box office. What happened?

Some point to the age of star Tom Cruise (52) drawing an older skewing audience, the film itself skewing predominantly male (despite the fact that Emily Blunt was just as important to the plot), younger audiences flocked to other PG-13 films (mainly The Fault In Our Stars and Maleficent). It probably didn’t help that Cruise was in another big, sci-fi blockbuster just a year earlier (that would be Oblivion).

Continue reading 'Now is the time to give Edge of Tomorrow a chance' »

Download passes for The Book of Life in Chicago, Indianapolis and Milwaukee

CliqueClack has partnered with Twentieth Century Fox to offer readers in Chicago, Indianapolis and Milwaukee an opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new animated family film The Book of Life starring Channing Tatum, Diego Luna, Zoë Saldana, Christina Applegate, Ice Cube, Ron Perlman and Hector Elizondo.

The Book of Life, a vibrant animated fantasy-adventure, tells the legend of Manolo, a conflicted hero and dreamer who sets off on an epic quest through magical, mythical and wondrous worlds in order to reunite with his one true love and defend his village.

Continue reading 'Download passes for The Book of Life in Chicago, Indianapolis and Milwaukee' »

Download passes for The Book of Life in Columbia, MD

CliqueClack has partnered with Twentieth Century Fox to offer readers in the MD/DC area an opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new animated family film The Book of Life starring Channing Tatum, Diego Luna, Zoë Saldana, Christina Applegate, Ice Cube, Ron Perlman and Hector Elizondo.

The Book of Life, a vibrant animated fantasy-adventure, tells the legend of Manolo, a conflicted hero and dreamer who sets off on an epic quest through magical, mythical and wondrous worlds in order to reunite with his one true love and defend his village.

Continue reading 'Download passes for The Book of Life in Columbia, MD' »

Win passes to see The Book of Life in San Francisco or Sacramento

ALL PASSES HAVE BEEN CLAIMED. COMMENTS ARE CLOSED.

CliqueClack has partnered with Twentieth Century Fox to offer readers in San Francisco and Sacramento an opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new animated family film The Book of Life starring Channing Tatum, Diego Luna, Zoë Saldana, Christina Applegate, Ice Cube, Ron Perlman and Hector Elizondo.

The Book of Life, a vibrant animated fantasy-adventure, tells the legend of Manolo, a conflicted hero and dreamer who sets off on an epic quest through magical, mythical and wondrous worlds in order to reunite with his one true love and defend his village.

Continue reading 'Win passes to see The Book of Life in San Francisco or Sacramento' »

Win passes to see St. Vincent in Denver

THIS OFFER HAS EXPIRED. COMMENTS ARE CLOSED.

CliqueClack has partnered with The Weinstein Company to offer readers in Denver an opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new comedy-drama St. Vincent starring Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Chris Dowd, Terrence Howard and introducing Jaeden Lieberher.

Maggie (McCarthy), a single mother, moves into a new home in Brooklyn with her 12-year old son, Oliver (Lieberher). Forced to work long hours, she has no choice but to leave Oliver in the care of their new neighbor, Vincent (Murray), a retired curmudgeon with a penchant for alcohol and gambling. An odd friendship soon blossoms between the improbable pair. Together with a pregnant stripper named Daka (Watts), Vincent brings Oliver along on all the stops that make up his daily routine — the race track, a strip club, and the local dive bar. Vincent helps Oliver grow to become a man, while Oliver begins to see in Vincent something that no one else is able to: a misunderstood man with a good heart.

Continue reading 'Win passes to see St. Vincent in Denver' »