PG Cooper: Pain and Gain Review

I’m not sure at what point Michael Bay’s career turned into a complete joke. Not that he was ever seen as a respected auteur, but his earliest works do have their fans and he even has a few films which are generally considered good. Even a film as atrocious as Armageddon has its fans. But after critical darlings like Pearl Harbor and the Transformers sequels, Bay has become a punchline. This is why his newest effort Pain and Gain is so interesting from the outside. The film hasn’t received critical praise, but in general has had a more positive response than Bay’s recent output and looked to have an interesting (and true) story.

The year is 1994; Daniel Luga (Mark Wahlberg) is a personal trainer obsessed with his physique. Despite the great condition of his body, his life is a different story. Luga is tired of being on the bottom of the totem pole and wants to improve his life. One of his clients is an arrogant millionaire (Tony Shaloub) who Luga decides to target and steal his fortune. Luga recruits Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), two fellow bodybuilders, to join him in his cause and enter a world unknown to them before.

Easily the film’s biggest strength is the story. To my understanding, the film follows real events very closely and the film’s story is so absurd I couldn’t help but be interested. I also feel the real events say something about the American dream and even the legal system. Unfortunately I don’t think Michael Bay is the right guy to handle these themes. A lot of people see Bay has a perfect fit due to his aesthetic involving big set pieces, obnoxious people, hot women, and general excess. Unfortunately this is why he doesn’t work. Bay can show the characters enjoying their riches and reveling in their success, but completely fails when it comes to satirizing these people. Bay’s obnoxious style also serves to undercurrent the ridiculousness of the true story. Events which should feel crazy and over-the-top instead feel normal within the universe of the film. Had Pain and Gain been directed by a filmmaker with restraint, these moments would have had more of an impact.

It doesn’t help that the film feels obnoxiously long. Two hours and ten minutes may not seem bad, but the film feels much longer. Most of the story is spent with Luga and his accomplices. Wahlberg, Johnson, and Mackie give solid enough performances and even have some good moments, but their characters are so unlikable that it becomes tedious to spend so much time with them. Some may argue this was intentional, but Bay frames these characters in a way the audience is supposed to relate to for a large portion of the film. On the positive side, I did like Ed Harris as a private eye investigating Luga. Harris has a fun personality and his story is more entertaining than Luga’s.

Many have labelled Pain and Gain as a dark comedy, but this is misleading. The film is only dark in the sense that the things the characters are doing are horrible things. The comedy itself is treated as silliness and the film frequently indulges in juvenile humour. There are a few moments of comedy that work, but a lot of other moments are grating and stupid. In the third act, Pain and Gain becomes more of an action film, and the film works even less on that level. Not that the action scenes are bad, but they’re very standard and uninspired. It doesn’t help that the characters involved are despicable people I can’t root for.

So the film doesn’t work as satire, as comedy, or as an action film, what does it work as? Well, as I said early on, the story here is genuinely interesting, so much so that even with the clumsy handling of the material by Michael Bay I did find myself invested in the film, if nothing else just to see where it would go. Ed Harris and his story-line also work well and I can see the potential in greatness. This isn’t a film I actively disliked while I was watching it, but after weighing the pros and cons, it becomes clear just how little Pain and Gain offers.

D+

PG Cooper: Star Trek Into Darkness Review

In 2009, a little film called Star Trek came out and revived the Trek franchise. The response from fans was mixed as some felt the new Trek drifted to for from the core of the series. Mainstream audiences however enjoyed the film quite a bit and have eagerly anticipated the sequel. Four years later, the sequel is finally here and seems to be just as divisive as its predecessor was among fans. Despite enjoying the Trek films I’ve seen (all two of them), I’m not really a fan of the series and can’t speak for that group. I can however say that as a summer action film, Star Trek Into Darkness works very well.

A year after the events of Star Trek, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is still Captain of the Enterprise and continues to serve Star Fleet in space. However, Kirk’s failure to comply with fleet regulations has brought him a large amount of heat and criticism, both from higher ups like Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) and from crew members like Spock (Zackary Quinto). After a former Star Fleet member John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) initiates a terrorist attack before fleeing earth, Kirk and his crew are thrust back into action on a manhunt to bring in Harrison.

As Into Darkness was in development, rumors began to circulate that the villain was actually Khan and the film would be inspired by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Director J.J. Abrams denied these claims, but the rumors persisted for months. Sure enough, Harrison is in fact this universe’s version of Khan and there are certainly parallels between this film and Wrath. Going into this film, my biggest concern was that it would just be a retread of Wrath of Khan and would bring nothing new to the table. That 1982 film is one of the only Star Trek films I’ve seen and I think it’s pretty damn great. Borrowing from that film too heavily could only serve to hurt the new Trek film not help it. Or so I thought. The fact is, Into Darkness does borrow from Wrath of Khan, however it takes the characters and story and twists them in unique ways which do work quite well. There are also a lot of references, but most of which work and aren’t intrusive, save for one.

One of the areas Abrams first Trek film excelled in were the action scenes. With Into Darkness, Abrams has topped himself in this area and provided a plethora of badass action. These include an awesome scene with Kirk rocketing through space in a special suit, some exciting shootouts and explosions, a few fist fights, and a great disaster sequence. It’s interesting how despite being a smaller scale story in a lot of ways from Star Trek (no planets are destroyed here), the action is ultimately bigger and better. If the action ever falters, it is in the climax which feels too brief and has some holes.

For me, the strongest draw of Star Trek was the characters. I really like these people and couldn’t wait to see their further adventures. In this regard, Into Darkness didn’t disappoint. All of the actors do a fine job in their roles and have great chemistry together. Chris Pine and Zackary Quinto especially are given a lot to do and play off each other well. Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, and Anton Yelchin all do good work as well as Bones, Scotty, Sulu, and Checkof, respectively. I find Uhura a bit boring, but Zoe Saldana is solid in the role. What’s cool about this film is actually seeing them on a mission together the whole movie through. In the last film, all the characters were meeting for the first time and sort of improvising as they go. Here, we see the crew set off together and work together from the get go. They’ve bonded from and since the last film and it’s fun to see where their relationships go.

There are some new cast members as well. Peter Weller and Alice Eve have roles and are perfectly serviceable, but the real stand out is Benedict Cumberbatch as “John Harrison”, aka Khan. Cumberbatch has huge shoes to fill; Khan is widely considered the best villain in Star Trek and even one of the best villains in any film. However Cumberbatch does a great job and stands tall. I think the secret to the success is that both Cumberbatch and the writers aren’t imitating Montalban’s performance, but instead are working to serve the character. Cumberbatch is very menacing and he owns every scene he’s in. I kind of wish he had more screen time actually. Bottomline though, Benedict Cumberbatch is awesome here and I can see why he has the fanbase he does.

On a technical level, the film succeeds well. The production values and effects are great yet again and I can’t think of a single moments where the effects faltered. Michael Giacchino’s music is just as awesome as it was in Star Trek and the movie also makes great use of pre-existing Trek music. The film is edited in a way that is also very exciting. It doesn’t quite match the level of excitement the first film was able to maintain, but the trade-off leads to stronger and more powerful moments. You know the editing is good when a large portion of the film is essentially a stand-off between two ships yet the film is constantly engaging.

So overall, I liked Star Trek Into Darkness a lot. It’s a fun film with a lot of dramatic beats, great characters, and awesome action. It isn’t a perfect film mind you. Despite the many twists the story is very predictable and I do think the climax of the film is underwhelming. But on the whole the film works very well and succeeds to an even greater degree than the last film did. The film also ends in a place which makes me hopeful and excited for the future of the series.

B+

PG Cooper: Iron Man 3 Review

One of the most surprising things I heard from people going into Iron Man 3 is people saying they weren’t excited because of Iron Man 2. Normally that would make sense, but this felt more like a successor to The Avengers, which was awesome, than Iron Man 2. Plus Iron Man 3 had a whole new director and writer than the previous Iron Man film. The Avengers lifted the standards of the Marvel Universe and I’d hoped Iron Man 3 could keep the streak going. While it doesn’t fulfill that hope, it makes an admirable effort.

Following the events of The Avengers, Tony Stark finds himself suffering from anxiety attacks and insomnia. To cope, he spends a lot of his time working on new equipment and suits. Meanwhile, a terrorist known as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is wreaking havoc against America and eventually targets Stark. Looming in the background is the threat of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a business man from Stark’s past.

One thing I really admire about Iron Man 3 is the goal of telling a more complicated story. All of the other Marvel Universe films had really simple stories which played out in a very predictable manner. Iron Man 3 however takes some risks and tells a story with some genuinely interesting turns and focus is put on the story. Granted, this isn’t some revisionist superhero tale; there’s still plenty of action, special effects, and humour, but the path it takes is a bit more interesting. But this story comes at a price; Iron Man 3, like so many other sequels, suffers from bloat. There are so many characters and side stories that a lot of points feel under developed. So while it has a more unique story than say Thor or Captain America, those films flow more naturally.

All the returning actors deliver good work and are fun to see return. Robert Downey Jr. has played Tony Stark in five different films now yet he still brings energy to the character and keeps him fun. The new cast is a bit more problematic. I wasn’t fond of Ty Simpkins as a little kid sidekick to Tony. He wasn’t horrible but added nothing and should have been cut. Rebecca Hall is a talented actress but she isn’t given much to do. She’s ultimately inconsistent and I didn’t care about her at all. Then there are the villains. Guy Pearce gives a solid performance and the film stresses his power as a villain, but at the same time he’s not terribly interesting or original and I’m not entirely sure what his goal was. Ben Kingsley and the film’s treatment of The Mandarin have divided people. I’ll just say I loved it and leave it at that.

The film’s highest points are the action scenes. There are quite a few action scenes, all of which entertaining, with three set-pieces really standing out. These are the attack on Tony’s mansion, a scene involving a plane, and a shootout where Tony is lacking most of his suit. These three scenes are all awesome and the best action in any of the Iron Man films. I was less fond of the film’s climax. The scene is entertaining on its own but within the context of the film doesn’t make any sense and shatters the tone to an extent. I also found the rules of the villain’s powers pretty undefined. And while we’re on the topic of things that don’t make sense, I don’t understand why Tony never contacted S.H.I.E.L.D. I can buy that the other Avengers are busy, but you’re telling me this government agency devoted to national security couldn’t lend a hand, especially when they played such a prominent role in the first two Iron Man films? This is especially odd considering The Mandarin is a terrorist and a threat to American security. I realize this is a hump these Marvel films will have to get over and I tried to just go with it, but it became harder to swallow as the film went.

Overall, Iron Man 3 is a good film. There are elements that don’t work, things that don’t make sense, and stretches were the film just sort of sits there, but the movie’s high points elevate it to being something worth seeing. Robert Downey Jr. is still a blast to watch, the special effects are great, and there are some excellent action scenes. It is also fun to see a big budget Hollywood film with a genuinely unique and unexpected twist, even if it won’t work for everyone. It isn’t on the level of The Avengers or even Thor and Iron Man, but it’s still a solid movie that holds to the Marvel Universe tradition of being solid but not great. At least Iron Man 3 had the ambition to be more.

B-

moviebuff801: Get Smart (2008) Review

Release Date: June 20^th, 2008

Running Time: 1 hour and 50 minutes

Written by: Tom J. Astle, Matt Ember

Directed by: Peter Segal

Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, Dwayne Johnson

By seeing Get Smart, you’ll automatically receive a certified license to kill once the film is over.

Would you believe a license to seriously injure?

Would you believe a license to give a warning punch?

How about a license to drive?

Those familiar with the ’60′s television show Get Smart will obviously recognize that as one of many trademark wording methods of Agent 86, a.k.a. Maxwell Smart. In the show, he was brilliantly portrayed by the late Don Adams, who brought a casual and confident demeanor to the character that made the show so much fun. The character of Maxwell Smart was someone who convinced himself day in and day out of his natural prowess for executing acts of espionage, but in reality was so bumbling, he was lucky to complete a mission without seriously injuring himself. Adams made Max’s ineptitude so believable, that it brought a refreshing spin to the spy genre. Before Maxwell Smart, never before had we seen a secret agent who caused accidents almost everywhere he went and had a phone built into his shoe. And I suppose that the shoe phone could have been a possible inspiration for the cellphone. Hey, you never know.

I did grow up on reruns of Get Smart, which aired on Nick At Nite and TV Land for quite some time. I grew to love it, and the moment I first heard that they were turning it into a movie a few years ago, it instantly went on my “To See” list.  And within the first ten minutes of my first viewing of this film, I breathed a great sigh of relief in seeing that the magic of Get Smart was still intact. I guess that has to do with the fact that the show’s creators, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, served as consultants on the film. You know that they must have gotten it right if this final product made them happy, despite some changes. And believe it or not, I wasn’t too upset with the changes, because in the end they make the movie that much more enjoyable.

So, the first change made will be recognizable to other fans within the first sentence of my plot description. The movie opens with Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), an intelligence analyst for a secret government agency known as CONTROL.  His specialty is decoding the conversations of monitored terrorists. No, Max isn’t already an actual agent when everything begins, but he’s taken the test for a position as a field agent numerous times and he feels like his most recent attempt went well. Max’s very lengthy reports concerning the information he deciphers almost always go unread.  Max’s idol in CONTROL is Agent 23 (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), the field agent who always gets the best assignments. Agent 23 does acknowledge the fact that what Max does is important, and the two have a pretty friendly relationship. But Max’s dream of being a field agent comes true when CONTROL is attacked by the terrorist organization they’ve been working against for years, KAOS. The attack leaves CONTROL with all of its top agents compromised and this leads The Chief (Alan Arkin) to promote Max to active field duty. Max is given the agent number 86 and is partnered with another expert field agent, Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). Fans will no doubt notice the role reversal here. In the show, it was Max who was the more experienced agent, with Agent 99 being the new recruit; she was originally played by Barbara Feldon.

Max and 99′s assignment is to find stolen nuclear weapons and the man who stole them. That would be the head of KAOS, Siegfried (Terence Stamp), a stoic terrorist who plans to use the bomb to blow up The President (James Caan) when he attends a concert at the Walt Disney concert hall in Los Angeles. As in all buddy comedies, Max and 99 bicker with each other during their mission as they work hard to get the information they need. Well, 99 works hard and is successful while Max certainly tries hard, but ends up making matters worse more often than not. The mission takes the team from a dance party hosted by a Russian KAOS operative to a bakery which is really a front for developing high-level uranium. From then on out, if you know Get Smart, you know how everything else likely plays out.

Let’s start with the center of this movie: Steve Carell. I will admit that at first I was pretty skeptical about the decision of casting him in the role of Maxwell Smart; but that was before I grew to like him as a comic actor. Get Smart came at the perfect time for me, after I’d seen and liked Carell in Dan In Real Life and just as I’d grown fond of his T.V. show The Office. Does Carell work in the role? Absolutely. He almost has the same nasal voice as Adams and perfectly captures Max’s inept yet self-confident state of mind that makes the character so lovable. Whenever Max screws up, we are actually convinced of what we’re seeing because of Carell’s almost natural performance. Not only are we convinced, but we’re also laughing hysterically.

Carell and Anne Hathaway have surprisingly good chemistry in the movie, and that’s what makes the scenes between them so special. Hathaway is especially good in the role of Agent 99 and she brings a sexual volatility and ferocity to the part that makes 99 very attractive and badass at the same time. Yes, Hathaway definitely has great looks, but it’s not because of her looks we attracted to her; it’s because of her character. Well, OK, her looks do play a part.  I mean, c’mon, it’s Anne Hathaway!  Need I point out the laser hallway scene?  But it’s not just her body — her character is sexual; she’s smart, assertive, commanding and beautiful, and Hathaway really pulls it off. And her character makes for a great one for Max to play off of. The silent looks that 99 gives Max whenever he does something Maxwell Smart-ish are funny in and of themselves, and Hathaway nails that exasperated woman quality perfectly. We can not only sense, but also feel the sexual tension between the two, and a romantic relationship between them is more than inevitable. And if you’re concerned about the age difference between the two, an explanation for that is offered on the part of Hathaway, and it was an explanation I could go along with.

Not only does Get Smart work as a comedy and a buddy movie, it also works as an action movie. Curiously, I didn’t find the action here to be routine but rather exciting and entertaining. Get Smart has action sequences that are clearly inspired by and executed in the style of the James Bond pictures and it all ends up working. The way the filmmakers are able to make the audience laugh at jokes that occur in the middle of an action sequence without it feeling forced or contrived is pretty darn good. Granted, this film being released in the year 2008, the action definitely has been raised to the newer standards, with the elaborate finale involving planes, trains and automobiles. In any other movie, this finale would have felt redundant but in Get Smart, there’s always a sly edginess to this and every other action scene that the Bond films don’t have. I rarely found the action boring, mainly because I was waiting to see what Max would do next, and how it would often prove beneficial for our two main characters.  Also because there are some really good physical gags interwoven into the action.

Get Smart is a surprisingly strong movie with crackling performances, entertaining action and satisfying comedy. The past few years have been populated mainly by comedies that rely heavily on sex and dick jokes, but Get Smart has remained one of my personal favorites of these years because it manages to be damn funny without having to resort to any of that.  And maybe because of that, it still feels fresh.

Too bad we never got that sequel which would’ve inevitably been entitled Get Smarter.

***1/2 /****

PG Cooper: The Films of Quentin Tarantino Ranked

Quentin Tarantino is one of the most important filmmakers of the last 25 years and one of my personal favourite directors. I’ve wanted to do a list ranking his filmography for some time and now seems as good a time as any. This list will only rank his directed works (no From Dusk till Dawn, True Romance, or Natural Born Killers) and will not count films he only directed a segment of (no Four Rooms or Sin City). It is also important to note Tarantino’s two-part Kill Bill will be counted as one film.

 

7. Death Proof (2007) This is easily Tarantino’s worst film, but I don’t think it’s bad. Stuntman Mike is a great character and Kurt Russell’s performance is especially good. I also like the second group of females Mike stalks (played by Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Tracie Thoms). The film also has two great set pieces; an extremely brutal car crash and a spectacular car chase. I also like the way the film switches gears with who the hunter and the hunted are in the third act.

But the film has a lot of problems too. There are a lot of dull stretches and the first half is especially slow. Even in the second half Tarantino drags things out too much. I usually don’t mind when Tarantino does that but neither his characters nor his stories are interesting enough in this film. Finally, even if these problems were corrected, Death Proof is still a very minor work in Quentin Tarantino’s filmography. Nothing much actually happens and Tarantino doesn’t reveal anything interesting thematically. Still, has far as two hours of escapism go, you can do worse.  

 

6. Django Unchained (2012)

 When I first saw Django Unchained, I knew it was one of Tarantino’s weaker films but it was hard to explain why. There are some obvious flaws; the film needs tighter editing, some of the musical choices don’t work, and Tarantino’s cameo is awful, but there was something else I couldn’t place my finger on. Finally after some time, I’ve figured it out. My biggest issue with Django is that it deals with the theme of revenge but does not say anything interesting about it. This is especially problematic because so many of Tarantino’s other films handle the topic with greater insight. Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds had similar core themes but explored them in unique ways. One could even argue Death Proof handled the topic in a more clever manner.  Django on the other hand is a pretty simple revenge tale. It is interesting and strangely cathartic to see a slave so directly enacting his vengeance, but there’s nothing profound about it.

Still, there is a lot to love about Django Unchained. The film is very entertaining throughout and while it does lose steam with an elongated ending, the payoff is satisfying. There’s also some great dialogue and the performances from Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson are especially good. This might also be Tarantino’s funniest film and the action scenes are a lot of fun too. At the end of the day, Django Unchained is an entertaining film with the ambitions of being something more, but probably falls closer to just being highly enjoyable escapism.  

 

5. Reservoir Dogs (1992) Reservoir Dogs was the second Tarantino film I saw and for a long time I thought it was easily one of his best. It’s easy to see why fourteen year old me would respond to the film. It’s got fast-talking gangsters, hilarious dialogue, runs at a brisk pace, and has a bit of violence sprinkled in. What’s not to love? Watching it at an older age, the flaws jump out more. For starters, despite being an unconventional heist film (the heist is never shown) with a nonlinear storyline, this is a very simple film and it’s pretty easy to figure out the entire film in the first ten minutes. The only thing left open is who the rat is, but even that is really easy to predict in my opinion. This robs the film of a lot of energy.

Still, the highs in this film are too high for it to be placed lower than the top five. The characters here are all awesome with Michael Madsen, Harvey Keitel, and Steve Buscemi really shining. The film also has the classic Tarantino dialogue at its most stylish. Mr. Pink’s rant about tipping is still amazing and I think he actually brings up some good points. The musical choices are excellent and moments like the torture scene are unforgettable. It may not be the masterpiece I once thought it was, but Reservoir Dogs is still pretty damn great.  

 

4. Jackie Brown (1997)

Jackie Brown might be Tarantino’s least celebrated work. Admittedly, when I first saw it, I was a bit disappointed. Sure there were gangsters, but they weren’t the same as the badass crooks in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and while the dialogue was good, it just didn’t have the same ring as it did in Tarantino’s aforementioned films. But the more I see it, the more I realize just how great Jackie Brown is.

The film is a much more restrained than Tarantino’s usual films which helps it stand on. The cast is also really great with damn near every cast member really shining. The crime elements of the story work well, but what I really love is that Jackie Brown is a film about getting old and having unrealized expectations. It’s an interesting theme and I love that Tarantino managed to explore it in a crime film. This is easily Tarantino’s most underrated work. It’s a fun crime film, but more importantly it functions as an engaging drama with interesting themes. It isn’t Tarantino’s “coolest film”, but it’s a great low-key story that succeeds in everything it’s trying to do.

 

3. Kill Bill (2003/04)

Kill Bill is in many ways the polar opposite of Jackie Brown. Where that film is Tarantino restrained, Kill Bill is Tarantino unleashed. Simultaneously a tribute to Eastern and Western cinema, Kill Bill is a glorious tale of vengeance and Tarantino throws everything he can at the film. This is a movie which will go from a poignant moment of a mother mourning her daughter to an anime sequence depicting insanely graphic violence without missing a beat. It’s really a miracle Kill Bill doesn’t collapse in on itself, but it never does. Tarantino creates a lot of great characters and gives them a lot of depth. Uma Thurman is great as the bride and carries the film well and I also love the work from David Carradine and Michael Madsen. The action scenes are also incredible and among the best action of the last ten years.

What really makes Kill Bill special though is the way it takes a simple tale of vengeance and makes a much more interesting and complicated story than one would expect. The film is really about how revenge is messy and by seeking it one only perpetuates the cycle of violence. There’s also an interesting running theme of warriors and their enemies and death. Finally, I love that Tarantino’s blood soaked climax ends on a conversation and not an action scene. That takes balls.

 

2. Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Inglorious Basterds is a cross between the zaniness of Kill Bill and the restraint of Jackie Brown. I don’t know how Tarantino was able to cross the two contradictory tones, but he did, and the result is one of his greatest masterpieces. Inglorious Basterds is a wild film which refuses to conform to any standards. It’s an American big-budget summer film which runs almost two and half hours, consists of long scenes dominated by dialogue, has an unconventional plot structure, and is mostly subtitled. Hell even the title is spelt wrong. It’s hard not to admire that kind of “fuck the rules” attitude. What’s more is that Tarantino still manages to make a great film with great characters. There are super colourful characters like Hans Landa, but also more introspective characters like Shoshanna. The cast is superb with great performances from Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, and the too often ignored Melanie Laurent, just to name a few.

Inglorious Basterds is that rare film where every single scene is excellent. From the opening in Perrier LaPadite’s kitchen to the film’s pitch-perfect climax, there isn’t a dull second to be found. This thanks to a great cast, excellent dialogue, interesting music, and a high level of tension. The film is so entertaining in fact that it’s easy to miss all of the subtext. For example, while on the surface the film is about Jewish revenge, it’s really about cinema’s vengeance for the Nazis poor treatment of German cinema. The film is in fact a testament to how no force on Earth is powerful enough to destroy art. I’m not gonna lie; I’m a sucker for films about the power of movies and Inglorious Basterds fully celebrates this. There are also running themes of legacies and the power of language, and who better to take about the power of language than one of the best writers of dialogue in the business? The film even finds time to have what could be considered a tragic romance at the center of all the chaos. Bottom line, Inglorious Basterds works if one just wants an entertaining film and while also being one of the most thematically rich films in Tarantino’s filmography.

 

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Not the most shocking of list toppers, nor should it be; Pulp Fiction is clearly Tarantino’s greatest work. That isn’t to say I don’t love a lot of the films listed below, I do, but Pulp Fiction is in a league of its own. The film takes three old-school gangster stories and completely reinvents them with great characters and mind-blowing turns. If you can guess where The Gold Watch story goes before it gets there, there’s something wrong with you. The cast here is one of the best in any film. Sam Jackson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, Ving Rhames, Christopher Walken, Eric Stoltz, and several other actors give great perofmrnaces and are given great characters to work with. Sam Jackson’s Jules Winfield in particular is one of my favourite characters in any film.

Tarantino’s dialogue is riveting and Pulp Fiction has the best of his career. The conversations are unforgettable and in many cases iconic. From the differences between Europe and America, to foot massages, I can listen to these guys talk all day. Themes run through the film of the price of sins, causality, and redemption. These are all handled in a subtle matter and the truth is one has so much fun watching Pulp Fiction it’s easy to miss these things. Tarantino’s style is here, but is more subdued than his later work. Pulp Fiction is a perfect film from beginning to end. It’s rare that a movie ends and I find myself wishing it could have just gone on and on, but Pulp Fiction is such a film. It’s an endlessly rewatchable movie that I’m already looking forward to eventually watching it again. It may be a cliché to name it Quentin Tarantino’s greatest film, but it’s the truth.

No Refunds Episode Four: The Naked Gun Trilogy

The podcast of two people may not amount to a hill of beans, but this is our hill, and these are our beans! HT and I tackle The Naked Gun trilogy.

PG Cooper: Oblivion Review

Oblivion is the first of at least three science fiction films this year dealing with a future where the Earth is a shithole. An interesting trend and I wonder why it’s popping up so much lately. This is also the second film from director Joseph Kosinski, the man who helmed 2010’s Tron: Legacy. Personally, I thought that film was over bashed and I had fun with it despite its numerous (and obvious) shortcomings so I was curious to see what he’d do next. That project is a science-fiction film based on a comic he had worked on a few years earlier.

The film opens on Earth and we meet the protagonist Jack Harper (Tom Cruise). We learn that it’s the future and humanity has ended a war with an alien force. But the war has devastated Earth and humans have moved on to a space station. Harper remains to work on gathering resources, with the help of his lover Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), who monitors Harper on his field work. The work however is disrupted by a combination of alien attacks and the appearance of a new human, the mysterious Julia (Olga Kurylenko).

Though Oblivion is based on a work created by the director himself, I don’t think I’d call this a very original film. Several similarities can be noted to other science fiction films, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Planet of the Apes to The Matrix. Most of the nods don’t hurt the film and are actually fun to notice. The real problem is there is one science fiction film Oblivion is strikingly similar to. I want so the name of the aforementioned film because that would spoil most of Oblivion, but I will say I find the two similar from the moment Oblivion started and most of its twists are virtually the same as the “other film”. This does give the film a solid story since it’s ripping off a good film, but it also sucks away the surprises. My issues with the script don’t end there however. Outside of the main protagonist, the characters aren’t very well developed and the dialogue is really bad, which is surprising considering William Monahan (who wrote The Departed) and Michael Arndt (who wrote Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3) did a rewrite of this script. The film also has a tendency to dump exposition on the audience despite the film’s story and visuals, the whole thing feels rather small scale.

One of the most memorable elements of Kosinski’s Tron was the score by Daft Punk. For Oblivion, Kosinski has once again employed a hip electronic group to compose the score in the form of M83. The score they’ve put together is pretty good too. It’s very reminiscent to Han Zimmer’s work on The Dark Knight trilogy and it works very well. It’s not on the same level as what Daft Punk did for Tron: Legacy, but it’s still very enjoyable. The film also has some very impressive visual effects and designs which are cool and look actually look practical to some extent. But what really saves the film are the action scenes. The action here is badass and a ton of fun. The star of the action scenes are these robotic drones with machine guns attached. The effects on them are great and they make for an interesting action scene. An aerial dog fight and the final shootout are particularly fun.

Oblivion more or less falls in line with Tron: Legacy, in fact I might like Kosinski’s debut film more. Oblivion has a more solid story, but Tron had a better score, better visuals, and was in general a lot more fun. Plus a major reason Oblivion’s story has less holes is because it steals from a great source. Still, Oblivion is an entertaining film and while its story is highly derivative, it also makes the film more interesting than it likely would have been otherwise. The visuals are impressive, the sci-fi nods were fun, and the action awesome, and overall I think this film will be far more memorable than something like Olympus Has Fallen. Definitely not great, but if you’re looking for a fun movie to pass the time with, this will do it, and the effects and action make a big screen viewing worthwhile.

B-