The moviegoer is in for a treat each time when either Danny Boyle or Alex Garland is involved in a project. Whether it be Boyle with a timeless filmography of directing credits that include
Sunshine, Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, and
127 Hours, or Garland’s vision with outside-the-box, ahead-of-his-time instant classics, such as
Annihilation, Ex Machina, or
Civil War, you can be confident you will be thinking of the film long after its view.
28 Days Later was the first time the two teamed up (Boyle as director, Garland as screenwriter). They struck a perfect accord of a tense, suspenseful, and foreboding film, painting a grim picture of what humanity could look like under the direst of circumstances.
Continue reading 28 Days Later (2002) →
The much anticipated Steve Jobs exists so much as a single entity that we may forget that the 2013 Ashton Kutcher Jobs movie ever existed. Steve Jobs has been a much bigger hit with critics (85% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes versus 27% rotten) and audiences (the 2015 movie earned more than half of what the 2013 movie grossed in its first week alone). While neither Kutcher nor Michael Fassbender (Shame, 12 Years a Slave) looks anything like the actual former CEO of Apple, Fassbender is a much more credible dramatic actor than Kutcher ever will be. That is reason enough to give Steve Jobs the nod over Jobs if you debate which one to watch. This review will not compare the two movies as I have not seen Kutcher’s Jobs, and I have no desire to see it. For whatever reason, I wasn’t looking as forward to the Fassbender vehicle as I thought I would have been, and it turns out that trepidation was justified. Steve Jobs was a very average movie that I can only recommend with the caveat that, while you might like it, you aren’t going to like it as much as you were hoping to like it.
Continue reading Steve Jobs (2015) →
After seeing an episode of
I Shouldn’t Be Alive a few years ago that showed the story of Aron Ralston, the adventure seeker who got his arm pinned between a boulder and a rock wall and managed to survive, I didn’t know if there was a need for a full-length feature film. I figured that the only way that Danny Boyle’s (
Slumdog Millionaire, Yesterday)
127 Hours would be able to affect me was if there was a masterful lead acting performance, some stylish directing, or a combination of the two. Fortunately, that was precisely what happened.
Continue reading 127 Hours (2010) →
Movies I Watch That Inspire Me to Critique!