Adam Membrey

Building a Titan: Netflix’s “Print the Legend”

July 5, 2015 by Adam Membrey

I know that 3D printing is something incredible. I’ve heard a lot about it. But I can’t, for the life of me, figure out just how it works. So when I heard about this documentary sitting in the great red field of Netflix, I had to give it a go. I’m going to learn what this is all about, I thought. I’ll finally get it!

A short time into Print the Legend, they do a quick demonstration of how 3D printing works. And by quick, I mean I still don’t have a clue how this black magic happens. You design something on a computer, things move around in a machine, and before you know it – it’s there. But as the film went on, I realized it doesn’t matter if I understand how 3D printing works. This is not about 3D printing – this is about building a business that’s attempting to catch the wave of the future.

At the beginning, we’re informed that there have been two giants in 3D Printing since the 80’s – 3D Systems (1986) and Stratasys (1989) – but their primary focus has always been making 3D printers for industries that can afford and benefit from their super-expensive machines. We are then introduced to two companies intent on building the first personal 3D printers – Makerbot and Formlabs. You can see the importance of this race – the goal is not unlike that of the race to build the first personal computer. It’s an area of relatively new technology that has yet to mature – its potential is increasing by the day and the possibilities are out there for companies to capture and run with.

But the film wisely poses the problem early on: it’s easy to start a company – it’s a lot harder to grow one. From the get-go, the film seems to be on Makerbot’s side. Not only are they developing their product with what looks like a great, friendly team, but they’re also led by Bre Pettis, who became something of a technology celebrity in the company’s growth process. Armed with some star power and lots of personality, Makerbot quickly gets investor money that allows them to expand into far roomier, far more expensive digs. Formlabs, meanwhile, has an incredible successful Kickstarter campaign that is almost completely derailed by manufacturing issues that leave them mailing out their printers over a year later than promised.

It becomes clear as the film goes along that Makerbot will persevere. Formlabs has too many communication issues and no clear leader like Makerbot has with Bre Pettis. But with great expectations comes great responsiblity, and as Makerbot adds more and more members to it’s fast-expanding team, the rules of the game begin to change. There is perhaps no better illustration of just how much a company can change than when Makerbot goes from an open source technology – in which the program is open to the public to help work on and improve it – to a closed source technology – where patents and copyright are put in place and the business side of things kicks in in a real way.

Amidst this fascinating tale of two rising companies, a wild card by the name of Cody Wilson is thrown in. A former UT law student, I admit feeling a bit unnerved that this guy called Austin, TX his home. Wilson creates his own company, Defense Distributed, of which publishes open-source gun designs that anyone with a 3D printer can make a reality. It’s more than a little jarring to see Wilson brag about how he has created the first 3D printed shotgun, and then shows everyone in a Youtube video that he not only printed it, but that it totally works. Even more jarring? The video got over 3.7 million views in a week whereas a MakerBot video about making a prosthetic arm for a limbless child – a great story and use of 3D printing – couldn’t even crack 500,000 views in the same amount of time.

Wilson represents how the best of intentions can go wrong, and even more disturbing is how much he seems to relish the chaos he is creating. He’s smart enough to word any argument so that disagreeing with him is disagreeing against human nature. He’s a politician in disguise, armed with responses to each of the complaints flung against him. It’s no surprise Wired Magazine recently named him the 5th Most Dangerous Person on the Internet.

But for all of Wilson’s provocation, this is still a film about growing a business and what it does to a person. One of the former high-ranking sales people in Makerbot says that Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs did the start-up industry a real disservice because it seemed to justify to many that being an asshole was a totally okay way to get your business where it needed to go. There are two choices, he says: to run the company based on the values you want – the values of hard work, creativity, collaboration, or to run the company as a personal revenge service, firing people who disagree with you and leading with an iron fist and fiery mouth. It’s a pretty nifty trick the documentary pulls when you get pretty used to seeing the job titles of all the subjects interview…and then see “former” added to the front as the story starts wrapping up. A lot of amazing, talented people didn’t make it through this story. But who’s really to blame?

Which way these companies go is up for you to see. I found myself shocked at the directions these companies took, which is a great credit to Print the Legend for making such a compelling narrative out of such chaos. The future is coming. Know who you’re going to root for and who you’re not going to listen to. History is being printed as we speak.

Print the Legend is currently streaming on Netflix.

‘Paddington’ AKA ‘Utterly Delightful’

July 5, 2015 by Adam Membrey

You could call this movie Utterly Delightful and my eyes would do the exact opposite of roll. This film, from start to finish, is a joyous, delightful, and incrementally heartwarming exercise in storytelling. There’s an increasingly welcome amount of gentle British humor. Paddington himself, a CGI creation, avoids the uncanny valley by having the kindest brown eyes ever. The characters are as charming as they are relatable. I thought I knew what I was getting with Paddington before it even started, and where I went wrong is where the film goes ever more right.

The most delightful thing to me, and which makes it as pure a moving picture book as I’ve ever seen, is how Paddington is received by the world. It’s rather odd seeing a 3-foot-6 bear walking around a train station. Even more so that he speaks rather perfect English. But there are no alarms. There is no Animal Control Center salivating at the scene. Paddington simply is who he is, an upright-walking, English-speaking bear looking for a home, and that’s that. In a culture that seems to want to explain everything away – ‘origin story’ and ‘prequel’ seem to be even bigger buzz words in Hollywood than ‘profit’ – it’s rather refreshing to see all the unusual business accepted for what it is.

And there’s a lot of delightful unusual business in this film: an incredibly charming backstory (this is an origin I can get excited by) regarding an overprotective father; a bizarre, but well-meaning neighbor in Peter Capaldi; Jim Broadbent’s white shock of hair; a grandmother who judges the weather based on how her knees feel. The list goes on. In fact, the most usual, standard bit of business in the film – a villain played by Nicole Kidman – almost seems at odds with the rest of the story’s whimsical nature. They sanded just enough edges off of Kidman’s character and ultimate plans to keep it from letting the darker parts overwhelm the lighter parts of the story, and by the end it all works out.

Speaking of the ending: Devin Faraci referenced this during his own screening of Paddington, and it’s a very real thing here. There is a moment where you really do fear for Paddington’s well-being. You know there’s no way he will die, but like the furnace scene from Toy Story 3, there is an element of danger that is pushed about as far as it can go.

When The Game Plays You: Zak Penn’s ‘Atari: Game Over’

July 5, 2015 by Adam Membrey

Imagine you’re one of the best video game designers in the world. You work for Atari in 1982, when the company’s 2600 console has an over 80% share of the video game market. You’re given a project that normally takes 6 months and asked to do it in 5 weeks. It’s going to be released worldwide. Steven Spielberg, hot off the success of his new movie E.T. is going to help sell it. It’s expected to be a bestseller, and there’s a lot of money riding on the fact that it will be. Five weeks sounds like an insane amount of time, but hey – you’re the best. You can do, right?

So you install some of the necessary equipment in your own home so you can, as you know you should, work unrealistic hours. You work to the point where the hours blur and day and night lose all meaning. You come out of your foxhole with his game, confident you pulled it off.

But then the game doesn’t sell. It doesn’t meet the outsized expectations. Atari’s stock drops like a diver, the splash violent and unmissable. From that point on, everyone will blame your 5-week mistake. The remaining copies of the game will be buried in a landfill in New Mexico. You’re out of a job – the best one you ever had – and slowly this urban myth takes on a life of its own: that your game was so bad it ended an entire juggernaut of a company in Atari. It’s so bad, they will say, the the only way to remove the stain is to bury it.

You’re Howard Scott Warshaw, and your game designer career is over. The one thing you could do better than anybody is now the worst thing you ever did.

But let’s back up: Zak Penn’s Atari: Game Over is a pretty entertaining and incredibly fascinating documentary about a central question: where exactly were all those Atari E.T. games buried? Could they possibly be dug up? But pulling on those questions reveals strands that even Penn didn’t anticipate. While part of the documentary goes to New Mexico to meet with a variety of people about where exactly this burial may have taken place, the far more interesting part is about why this urban myth needs to be answered. There are many interviews with a variety of people who know and love video games, including the co-designer of the original Microsoft X-Box, Seamus Blackley, and Earnest Cline, the writer of the best-selling and soon-to-be-adapted-into-a-movie novel Ready Player One.

The documentary takes the idea that E.T. is a game so bad it could kill the unstoppable Atari, and removes the hyperbole from the facts. No, the game didn’t kill the company. Atari ate itself with far more costly decisions than any one game. But in following the history of Atari and how it came to be so dominant (the film paints the picture: imagine X-Box and Playstation combined – that’s how big Atari was), we get to meet some of the people who built this wave in the first place. And one of the most interesting characters in all of this is Howard Scott Warshaw. It’s pretty clear this guy is incredibly talented – he’s only designed some of the best and best-selling Atari games, after all – which makes his martyrdom for the E.T. game all the more heartbreaking.

And here’s the beauty of this story: you will find yourself rooting for HSW. You might even find yourself a little choked up when HSW arrives in New Mexico, and is able to get back some of the credit he never got 33 years ago. The fans know how much of a legend he is. It gives HSW a chance to relive his glory days, reveal the dark period that followed, and then experience a beautiful, bittersweet kind of redemption when that landfill is finally opened and the truth is revealed.

Atari: Game Over is now showing on Netflix.

REDBOX READY: Week of June 16th, 2015!

June 20, 2015 by Adam Membrey

Hey, guys! Sorry this column has been absent for so long. The main reason for this is simple: I’m teaching summer school, taking summer classes, and finding new ways to avoid the Texas heat. This meant prioritizing, and this blog kind of had to suffer. Also: Redbox hasn’t exactly been inspiring lately (as you’ll see in the bottom half of this list). But the good news? My procrastination has led to a plus-sized column. Take a look!

THE SAFE BETS:

McFarland USA – Directed by Niki Caro

Tomatometer: 79%, Audience Score: 91%

The most important thing you need to know about this film is that it was made by Kiwi director Niki Caro. This is a name unfamiliar to everyone who hasn’t seen her incredible 2002 sophomore film, Whale Rider. And even if you have seen Whale Rider, this is the first film American audiences have had a great shot at seeing since her Charlize Theron-starring North Country in 2005. She’s shown time and time again that she’s got a great eye for detail and the ability to get great performances out of young, unproven actors. Whale Rider, like McFarland,USA, had every opportunity to be emotionally manipulative, and yet every single thing in that film felt earned. It appears to be the same case for McFarland, USA. Check it out.

Story: Kevin Costner plays a cross country coach who takes a band of misfits from one of the poorest towns in California to the upper reaches of championship contending!

Blush Factor: a small handful of minor swear words (that every teenager and parent of a teenager has heard) and some thematic content. This was meant to be a film for the family to see.

American Sniper

Tomatometer: 73%, Audience Score: 86%

The runaway box office hit of the Oscar season, this film had two conversations going on at the same time: the millions of Americans that went to see it, and the many think pieces that popped up all over the internet, questioning the factuality of the story. So here’s the thing: this film is supposed to be about Chris Kyle, and presents itself as something of a character study. But it also throws in the “based on a true story” and wants it to have it both ways: to honor a “hero” in impressive fashion, and to be able to say that narrative license was taken when the facts didn’t pan out. So here’s what you should know: this movie is so rife with factual errors – often minor changes that have huge ramifications in your understanding of the truth, changes that include inventing entirely new terrorist characters – that you can’t watch it and believe that you saw something historically accurate. The real Chris Kyle had views that would make a lot of us uncomfortable, and the film completely washes over that with a patriotism paintbrush. What you should focus on, however, is the transformative performance by Bradley Cooper. He’s completely changed his body into something bear-like. You can see the strength in him, as well as the nervousness around dealing with anything other than a military mission. His Texas accent is the first Texas accent I’ve heard on film that didn’t grate me out of the theater. Cooper deserves every accolade sent his way for his performance; it’s just a shame the movie around him didn’t have as much integrity.

Story: The movie follows Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle (Cooper), the deadliest sniper in military history, and the impact four tours of duty had on him and his family.

Blush Factor: Rated R for “strong and disturbing war violence” and lots of profanity – especially all scenes involving the military and their time over in the Middle East.

TheDUFF

The DUFF

Tomatometer: 72%, Audience Score: 71%

Any film that is going to call stalwart actress Mae Whitman a Designated Ugly Fat Friend (hence, the DUFF) is already moving on shaky ground. Whitman has proven her worth in a great deal of TV shows, including Arrested Development and Parenthood, in addition to a great deal of voice acting on American Dad, Family Guy, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In fact, Whitman played the President’s daughter in the 1996 film Independence Day, and, true to Hollywood form, they went with a younger, blonder actress to play the same President’s daughter in Independence Day 2. So when it comes to classifying Whitman for the movies, the only ones that have done her any respect are 2012’s Perks of Being a Wallflower and 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Basically, wherever Whitman goes, we should follow. This movie, despite it’s ugly title, seems to be one worth checking out.

Story: Upset that she has been labeled her school’s DUFF, a high school senior initiates a revolution of the social pecking order.

Blush Factor: Rated PG-13 for “crude and sexual material throughout”, with some language and teen partying thrown in.

Red Army

Tomatometer: 96%, Audience Score: 88%

I had never heard of this documentary until just a few days ago. If it’s anything like “The Other Dream Team”, that fantastic documentary about the Lithuanian basketball superstars, then you’re in for great little intersection of history and fun. The critic and audience scores speak for themselves. If you’re into history, sports, or just a good ‘ol documentary, here’s something to check out.

Story: This follows the story of the Soviet Union’s Red Army – one of the most successful sports teams of all time – from the perspective of its players.

Blush Factor: Rated PG for “thematic material and language”.

Black Sea

Tomatometer: 82%, Audience Score: 62%

Scottish Director MacDonald is mostly known for his documentaries, including the 2003 Andes-climbing Touching the Void and groundbreaking 2011 epic world-spanning montage of Life in a Day. He’s also made a nice batch of interesting, electric films, including 2006’s The Last King of Scotland and 2009’s State of Play. This film, a claustrophobic thriller that takes place entirely on a submarine, is full of great, intense actors, including Jude Law, Ben Mendhelsohn, Tobias Menzies, and Scoot McNairy. This isn’t a film with huge thematic concerns, but rather a nice, tight suspenseful tale performed with a great deal of skill and verve.

Story: As a way to make amends with his former bosses, a submarine captain takes a risky job with a shady backer, leading the submarine into the Black Sea in an attempt to find a sub loaded with gold.

Blush Factor: Rated R for course language throughout the movie, as well as some graphic images and violence.

Still Alice

Tomatometer: 89%, Audience Score: 85%

Julianne Moore won a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar for her performance in this film, in which her character struggles with the onset of Alzheimer’s. What has been pointed out about this film is that while most films about difficult diseases tend to focus on the family, this one keeps the focus on Alice. She’s still trying to be Alice, even while parts of her appear to be disappearing or in decline. Anytime you have a masterful (and yet somehow highly underrated) actress like Moore holding the center of the film, you know you’re in good hands.

Just weeks after Moore won her Oscar, however, co-director Richard Glatzer died at the end of a long battle with ALS. In fact, while filming this movie, Glatzer was unable to speak and gave all his direction and comments through a text-to-speech app on his iPad, typing out each comment with one finger. This speaks to the passion of not only Glatzer – to keep making the movies he loved even after his diagnosis in 2011 – but his co-director and spouse, Wash Westmoreland, and everyone else involved on the film. This movie was a passion project in more ways than one, and the results speak to that.

Story: A linguistics professor (Moore) is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, and her and her family struggle to cope with the changes it brings.

Blush Factor: Rated PG-13 for “mature thematic material” and some brief language.

Selma

Tomatometer: 99%, Audience Score: 86%

Movies like Selma can’t be any more timely. We are at a point in our nation’s history where racism is not only as present as ever before, but where the internet has allowed millions of opinions to be spilled out into the open. Sometimes this has lead to thoughtful discourse. Often it has resulted in hurried, half-thought opinions or heated, misguided comments. There are days it seems like we’re really going backwards. What Selma does so effectively, however, is show just how much of a struggle it was for the change we take for granted, and just how we can find a way to move forward from where we’re at now. The word “powerful” has been tattooed to this movie since its first viewing. Check it out.

Story: this follows the story of Martin Luther King’s fight to secure equal voting rights, and the march from Selma to Montgomery at the heart of it.

Blush Factor: Rated PG-13 for “disturbing thematic material”. This is mostly for the violent scenes of people being pushed, stomped upon, whipped, beaten, and all other kinds of brutal force. The “N” word and other racial slurs are heard repeatedly. There’s a lot of things in here that are disturbing because they should be – there should be no world where these things are acceptable.

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME:

Spare Parts

Tomatometer: 56%, Audience Score: 86%

The based-on-a-true-story fight of an underdog is a movie trope as old as time. But when it’s done well? The impact is nearly peerless. Critics were not as found of this film as it’s spiritual sibling McFarland, USA, but audiences have responded nearly as well. This film may lack the grace and acting of its spiritual sibling, but it’s a great story nonetheless.

Story: Four hispanic high school students from a robotics club, and with nothing but 800 bucks and a dream, they make their way to compete against the reigning robotics champion from MIT.

Blush Factor: PG-13 for some language and violence.

The Rundown

Tomatometer: 71%, Audience Score: 66%

Why is a movie from 12 years ago showing up on Redbox? The easy answer is that Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock is having a great time at the box office and there’s a good opportunity to capitalize on his success. The better answer? Redbox wanted everyone to remind what a good, fun action flick can be. When I saw this film a number of years ago, it completely snuck up on me. I expected very little and got a lot in return: lots of laughs with big scoops of badass action. This is The Rock before he became Dwayne Johnson, when he was still an unknown commodity. You can also tell in the picture above he’s not nearly as huge as he is now. But film seemed to show people what Johnson is capable of – his ability to actually act and be funny on top of kick some ass – and set him on the action-movie superstar path he’s stomping across now. Also: any movie with Christopher Walken as a bad guy is going to demand some eyeballs.

Story: The Rock plays a bounty hunger sent deep in the Amazon to capture a man. When he finds out his capture isn’t who he thinks he is, the two team up to take down the bad guy.

Blush Factor: PG-13 for “adventure violence and some crude dialogue”. The language is mostly the kind you hear a high school boy toss off casually, and the violence comes from Johnson’s character refusing to use guns (because bad things happen with guns) and having to find other ways to take down his enemies.

Your Mileage May Vary:

Chappie

Tomatometer: 31%, Audience Score: 61%

Director Neill Blomkamp had one of the most impressive rookie debuts ever with 2009’s District 9, a movie I felt was one final shot away from being a stone-cold classic. Almost purely on the success of that movie alone – his ability to stretch a small budget wide and to use impressive visual effects to boot – Blomkamp had Hollywood in his hand. But after 2013’s misfire of Elysium, the narrative began to unravel. Maybe we had all jumped the gun with Blomkamp. Maybe he just wasn’t the rising star we all had him pegged to be. If there’s anything that his three feature films have showed us, it’s that he has an impressive, sophisticated eye for design. He knows how to make technology look good, like something you would actually see, and like something that has been used over and over. But the other part of the film’s design – the characters and story – don’t hold up as well. Whether that’s a sign that Blomkamp would be better off as a superstar production designer or a sign that he’s simply growing remains to be seen. Chappie hit theaters with a widely divisive critical response, with many writers going back to the drawing board to reshape Blomkamp’s career narrative. Can you really know everything you need to know about a director after 3 movies? We’ll have to wait and see.

Story: The future sports a crime force led by robots. When a robot is stolen and given new programming, it begins of journey of learning how to think and feel for itself. The consequences of this ensue.

Blush Factor: Rated R for violence, language, and brief nudity. Blomkamp’s films tend to have a pattern here: there is lots of swearing, and the violence can be rather over the top. Lots of shots with blood splatters.

Fifty Shades of Grey

Tomatometer – 25%, Audience Score: 43%

Look, here may be a shocker to you: I actually saw this movie. Here’s the bigger shocker to some of you: it’s not as bad as you may expect, but it’s also not nearly as good as it good be. Dakota Johnson is pretty incredible in this movie, giving Anastasia more depth than probably ever existed on the page. She seems to be having fun with this movie and giving it more humanity than maybe it ever intended. Jamie Dornan may have been shooting for “cold” as his characterization, but he almost fades into the scenery. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson does her damnedest to make this something with taste and to make some kind of sense. I think she did about as good a job as anyone could have expected in translating this to the screen, and her exit from the franchise will be a challenge for the future films to deal with. Hopefully the visibility of the role of Anastasia will help Hollywood realize just how talented Dakota Johnson is and give her a handful of movies more deserving of her talents.

Story: A literature student – Anastasia – meets a handsome, tormented billionaire in Christian Grey. They don’t search for 50 shades of grey in his closet, but they do find other things to do.

Blush Factor: There’s a lot of sex in this movie, as well as a lot of nudity, with almost all of it being Johnson. While this may be about what everyone expected to see, I would say that Taylor-Johnson has done a great job of making it seem at least somewhat tasteful (even if it isn’t).

Serena

Tomatometer: 18%, Audience Score: 28%

If you have a movie with two of the bigger stars in film today in Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, and no one’s heard of it, I’ll spare you the problem-solving: it’s probably not very good. The reviews were pretty savage, with the audience barely able to shrug. If you’re a Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence completist, with your sole mission in life to make sure you see every one of their movies, then this one just might be for you. Even then, I’m not sure you’ll survive it. This might make this the perfect movie for a drinking game.

Story: Set in 1930’s North Carolina (but shot in Europe – who knew?) a man’s timber empire is suddenly threatened when he marries the titular character, Serena.

Blush Factor: Rated R for some violence and sexuality. People have sex in this movie with no nudity shown, and there’s lots of violence using tools more appropriate to the 1930’s, but with blood more appropriate to the 2000’s.

Blackhat

Tomatometer: 34%, Audience Score: 25%

When I first heard this movie was going to be about computer hacking, my first thought was probably yours: since when does a computer hacker look like Thor? This led down a very interesting internet rabbit hole that proved, yes, there is a hacker that looks like Thor and seems to relish in that comparison. Director Michael Mann has always been known as a man of research and detail, and there’s been lots of word that this might be the best/most accurate computer hacking movie of all time. If that’s the kind of movie you’re looking for – an accurate computer hacking movie with Thor at the center of it – then look no further.

Story: An extremely talented hacker, out of prison for the first time in 15 years, finds some of his code as part of a malware program that’s part of a cyberattack and…I don’t know, guys. Basically this involves a lot of computer hacking, some American and Chinese actors, and an arch-villian hacker – who knew those existed?

Blush Factor: Rated R for some violence and language. And not for Thor being naked. Sorry, ladies.

Project Almanac

Tomatometer: 35%, Audience Score: 47%

The critic reviews may not reflect it, but this is one of those movies that seemed to kind of sneak out as a sleeper hit among the various movie websites I frequent. This is one of those movies that, approached with low expectations, may actually turn out to be pretty enjoyable. Also: the director of this one is going to direct the new Power Rangers movie. Is that not a vote of confidence?

Story: a group of teens stumble upon some plans for a time machine. They build it. It works. And things, as they always do, get out of control.

Blush Factor: Rated PG-13 for some teens talking about sex (but not really having it), some violence, and some strong language typical of your average high schooler.

Lost River

Tomatometer: 29%, Audience: 44%

Here’s what you need to know: if you ever wanted to know what it would look like if Ryan Gosling made his own movie, this is what you get. However, this movie is not a 90-minute montage of “Hey, Girl” memes brought to life. This is what happens when Gosling spends his last two movies (2011’s Drive and 2013’s Only God Forgives) deep inside the colorful, violent psyche of Dutch filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn. Gosling and Refn got along so well together on Drive that their friendship isn’t just one of being in their own movies – it’s a kind of creative alchemy that has clearly rubbed off on Gosling. As a result, this film came out and completely floored people. And not necessarily in a good way. What I have heard about this film is that it’s certainly not boring. There’s lots of great imagery and ideas on display, but just not distilled into a coherent narrative. If you’re a Gosling completist or looking for something completely off the well-beaten movie path, then this is something maybe worth checking out.

Story: I’m going to quote this straight from IMDB.com: “A single mother is swept into a dark underworld, while her teenage son discovers a road that leads him to a secret underwater town.” Sounds crazy? It probably is.

Blush Factor: Rated R for “disturbing violent images”, rough language sprinkled throughout, and in a true influence from Refn, lots of extreme blood and gore.

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

Tomatometer: 78%, Audience Score: 57%

I’m one of those weird people who has always found Spongebob Squarepants to be a kind of brilliant TV show. But I get that it’s not for everyone. On the flip side, when I first saw these cartoon characters blown up with CGI like real-life superheroes, I thought I had a bad case of indigestion. It just looked rather grotesquely off. But this film was a hit with critics and not nearly as much with audiences. One possible takeaway from this is that critics appreciated and respected what the movie was going for more than audiences actually enjoyed watching it. Just something to keep in mind.

Story: A pirate from above the sea of Bikini Bottom steals the Krabby Patty formula, leaving Spongebob, Patrick, Sally, Squidward, Mr. Krabs, and Plankton to band together to get it back.

Blush Factor: Rated PG for “mild action and rude humor”.

Inherent Vice

Tomatometer: 73%, Audience Score: 54%

Paul Thomas Andersen has always been a bit of a critics darling, with his films Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, and The Master regularly showing up not just on year-best lists but decades-best list of critics everywhere. But part of what makes PTA so brilliant is also what makes him so alien to the average American moviegoer. His films often play out like novels, dense with complex characters and interwoven themes. While this leads to a great number of incredible performances, buckets of awards, and iconic images, it also sometimes makes us appreciate and respect his films more than we love or enjoy them. His last film, The Master, is a great example of this. I found the acting of Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP) and Joaquin Phoenix to be about the two best film performances I’d seen in a long time, but by the end of the film, it didn’t add up with any kind of gut punch. I found myself respecting the movie far more than enjoying it – and I was not the only one. What’s different about Inherent Vice, adapted from the Thomas Pynchon novel of the same name, is that it very clearly divided the critics. And for the first time in a while, there were critics who came out as loving it. Not just respecting it, not just talking about the great parts, but loving it and seeing it over and over, even when they couldn’t explain what exactly it is that grabbed them this time. So there’s a very real possibility that 10 years down the line, this will be the most loved and underrated of PTA’s works.

Story: Set in 1970, a private investigator investigates the disappearance of a former girlfriend. He takes lots of drugs in the process.

Blush Factor: Rated R for drug use throughout, sexual content, graphic nudity, strong language and some violence.

Everly

Tomatometer: 33%, Audience Score: 31%

If you ever wanted to see Salma Hayek kick some unholy ass, this is your film.

Story: A woman finds out her ex-husband is a mob boss, and fights them off one by one as she’s stuck in her apartment.

Blush Factor: Some brief sexual content, lots and lots and lots of violence and blood (of course!), with bloody fighting and guns being used all throughout. Lots of language as well, because it wouldn’t be intense violence without some intense language.

YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN:

Playing It Cool

Tomatometer: 19%, Audience Score: 33%

When Chris Evans isn’t busy eating chicken and broccoli, lifting heavy weights, or filming his latest Captain America role, he likes to fill his time with some interesting movie projects. I’m not sure just how interesting this movie is, but it seems as though some people have found it rather refreshing and interesting. So take that with a grain of salt. Also, there’s a lot of fine, welcome actors in this one, including Michelle Monaghan, Topher Grace, Aubrey Plaza, Luke Wilson, Martin Starr, Anthony Mackie, Patrick Warburton, and Ioan Gruffudd.

Story: a screenwriting, obviously struggling with his writing, doesn’t believe in love. He looks to other people to give him ideas, and along the way, meets a pretty special girl. It’s classic romantic comedy formula, but considering the main character is a screenwriter, it probably also tries to be a little too clever.

Blush Factor: Rated R for showing a man and woman have some sex, but with no nudity. Some brief violence.

The Boy Next Door

Tomatometer: 10%, Audience Score: 36%

There are two things working against this film from the start: one, the simple fact that Rob Cohen, the extreme action director of such mindless classics as XXX, Stealth, The Fast and the Furious, and Mummy 3, is boxing those macho instincts into a rather intimate story, and two, that this seems to be the kind of movie Jennifer Lopez makes whenever she feels like it, just to prove she can be a movie star. Now, sometimes you can have two opposing forces like this that form a beautiful tension and create something special. And then sometimes these forces combine to create a movie that’s totally worth seeing with some friends, a 12-pack, and bellies that are ready to laugh and laugh and laugh at the ridiculousness. I’m going to bet on the latter outcome.

Story: a recently divorced woman, burnt by her ex-husband’s affair, falls in love with the boy next door. Who happens to look like a model. Obviously, everything is not as it appears.

Blush Factor: Rated R for some sex scenes, some tasteless violence, some scary/intense scenes, lazy profanity, and the casual glass of wine.

Seventh Son

Tomatometer: 12%, Audience Score: 37%

Warner Brothers Studios and Legendary Pictures originally made this film together as if making a little fantasy baby. And then they had a rather ugly break-up where they ended their partnership and Legendary moved out of the house to shack it up with Universal Studios. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, in trying to figure out what to do with their child, Legendary looked at their newborn and it had the name Seventh Son. Being that it was the seventh and not the first son, you can also see how much of a priority it became. Production delays certainly didn’t help matters (we all know how hard it is to raise a kid in the tumultuous throes of divorce), but when it finally came out, it probably felt like a neglected child released into the world. Having said that, this seems to be a rather solid, if basic fantasy adventure story with some nice, spiffy visual effects to spruce it up. If that’s the kind of thing you get a kick out of, then give this unloved child a welcome home.

Story: something about the seventh son of the seventh son going on a quest. I read the synopsis eight times and it still doesn’t make any more sense.

Blush Factor: PG-13 for lots of fantasy violence and some fantasy cleavage.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Tomatometer: 14%, Audience Score: 30%

Comedy sequels are hard to do well. Comedy relies so much on surprise that it’s hard to build on the same jokes or tell them in a different way that doesn’t betray the original that came before it. As a result, we’ve seen more and more recently comedy sequels opt to try something new, hoping they can hit what works while building some new comedy dendrites. The best recent example of this is 22 Jump Street, where Lord and Miller were able to make fun of sequels as if they were playing with Meta Lego Blocks, and yet never lose sight of the emotional core of the story. It worked liked gangbusters and people seemed to really love it. But another route comedy sequels have taken is to get darker and meaner. This seems to be Hot Tub Time Machine 2. Many critics seemed to a be a bit aghast at how far they went with this sequel, going to places that may have traded good taste for questionable laughs, and using the small budget as a reason to get even weirder beyond that. As a result, it hasn’t resonated anywhere near as much as the original. Anything with Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, and Adam Scott is always going to be worth at least a peak in my book. Come for the comedy stars you know and love; stay for the weirdest, darkest ride you never expected.

Story: The guys get in trouble and do some more time traveling in the hot tub. It goes about as well as a comedy sequel will allow it.

Blush Factor: This movie is about as hard an R-rated comedy as they make. Lots of nudity (including a penis!), lots of over-the-top violence (a head gets shot!), lots of swearing, and lots of drugs (of course).

The Cobbler

Tomatometer: 11%, Audience Score: 36%

I’m not sure what happened with this movie. Writer/director Thomas McCarthy has been about as unimpeachable a filmmaker as any in his career thus far, so pulling over with a flat tire was bound to happen at some point. Anyone who’s seen McCarthy’s movies, 2003’s The Station Agent (see it!), 2007’s The Visitor (see it!), or 2011’s Win Win (see it, too!), knows the guy is excellent with actors and crafting simple, subtle stories that ultimately win you over. And Adam Sandler has been known to bring his A-game whenever he walks into dramatic territory. So I’m not sure what went wrong here. If nothing else, this should be an interesting misfire to watch. Otherwise, we’ll start getting in line for McCarthy’s return to form, dismissing this misfire as just a case of bad gas.

Story: A shoe repairman grows weary of his job before stumbling upon the ability to walk in other people’s shoes. I know it sounds like a bad metaphor stretched out to 90 minutes. Maybe that explains it.

Blush Factor: PG-13 for a little bit of a shower scene, some blood and violence (more than you’d anticipate from crossing paths with a shoe repairman) and some swearing here and there.

Cymbeline

Tomatometer: 29%, Audience Score: 16%

One of the the great gifts of Redbox, Netflix, and the world of alternative movie distribution is that the most random of movie ideas ekes its way onto your screen, somehow carrying some fine, credible actors in its wake. Case in point: Cymbeline. This movie is pitched as the Shakespeare play with biker gangs. I read a comment on IMDB.com that someone compared it to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet meets Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy. If that sounds like a good time to you, then maybe this movie is for you. It’s also possible this movie is for nobody.

Story: A war breaks out between dirty cops and an outlaw biker gang. Shakespeare dialogue is somehow used. Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Dakota Johnson, Anton Yelchin, Kevin Corrigan, Bill Pullman, and lots of other great, capable actors found their way into this one.

Blush Factor: Some violence and profanity, along with some drinking and smoking. You know, the kind of things you typically associate with dirty cops and biker gangs.

Tracers

Tomatometer: 22%, Audience Score: 36%

Remember when Taylor Lautner was a big deal? Remember when millions of adolescent girls – and their moms – argued over whether they were Team Edward or Team Jacob? That seems so, so long ago. At the height of Taylormania (before Taylor Swift showed just how crazy it could be), Lautner was shopped around Hollywood with all kinds of potential action franchises hanging around his neck. They were even floating a Stretch Armstrong movie. Stretch Armstrong, people! But since the Twilight franchise has finally gone into that good night, Lautner’s light has dimmed with it. Never trust a movie with a low budget and long layoff – this movie finished filming in August 2013 and didn’t finally come out on DVD until nearly 2 years later in March of 2015.

Story: A bike messenger, somehow wanted by the Chinese mafia, escapes into the magical world of parkour, where he meets a beautiful girl and her parkour posse, and they go on to do parkour-y, definitely criminal stuff.

Blush Factor: PG-13 for some kissing, a scene with a girl in her underwear, some armored robberies/cheap action movie gun shooting, and a couple swear words.

REDBOX READY #2: End of April, Beginning of May!

May 2, 2015 by Adam Membrey

Welcome to the second week of Redbox Ready! I apologize for this being so late. It’s been a crazy time of teaching these days, and so I’ve fallen behind the pace. This edition will be until the next edition on May 5th comes up. Enjoy!

The I Actually Just Saw This And Make It The Pick of the Week Award:

Beyond the Lights – directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood

Tomatometer: 81%; Audience Score: 79%

I can’t say enough good things about this film. You know it’s a great movie when the opening scene is referred to later in the movie, and you go, “Oh man, this is so good.” That’s the kind of movie Beyond the Lights is. On the surface, it sounds rather predictable. But under the surface and everywhere else? It’s a great story of trust and really seeing someone for who they are. Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Kaz (Nate Parker) are two great characters played by great actors. Kaz, in particular, is one of the first leading male characters in a long time that I’ve not only liked a great deal, but had deep respect for. The man has his stuff together. He’s got quotes all over his apartment. He means well and treats his women as respectfully as you expect. You’re actively rooting for him the whole movie just as you’re rooting for Noni to give him a chance. And when they both escape to get away from the facades they live with and see their real selves? That’s where the magic and the beauty and all that wonderful stuff happens.

This is a deeply felt movie with care and love spread all over it. I truly believe it will get it’s day in the sun years from now, and you’ll be able to nod emphatically and say, “Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. That’s a good one.”

Blush Factor: The movie is PG-13 for some sexual content and suggestive language/gestures – understand that Noni is a pop star. You won’t see anything in the movie you haven’t seen on MTV or your average music awards show a hundred times. Don’t be deterred by the early imagery – the movie allows Noni the chance to see all the sexual imagery for what it really is and how it’s negatively impacted her life. And yes, she makes a change for the better.

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies – Directed by Peter Jackson

Tomatometer: 61%; Audience Score: 76%

When it was first announced The Hobbit would be adapted into 2 films, with the second being a bridge film into Lord of the Rings, the hook seemed simple enough. We all liked our Lord of the Rings movies, and why not spend a little more time with those cool hobbits and their terrible ability to stay out of trouble? But then Peter Jackson, slumping through Hollywood after beating his last two films (King Kong and The Lovely Bones) to death with too much CGI, backed his back into Middle Earth. I had hope that maybe this would be a nice return to form for Jackson. The Lord of the Rings trilogy showed a great affinity for merging practical effects with the necessary CGI to make it all work. Middle Earth felt tangible and lived in. The threats felt real.

But I should have known better. Two Hobbit films quickly became 3, with each one veering dangerously close to 3 hours. It made sense for the Lord of the Rings films to be as dense as they were. But a much smaller book like The Hobbit? You could hear the bloat before you even saw it. I completely skipped on the first Hobbit film, assuming it would be 3 hours of walking and eating (turns out I wasn’t too far off), and then gave the second, The Desolation of Smog a try. But here’s a hint: if you make your audience sit through 2 1/2 hours of a barely-there story only to hear “Oh, no, what have we done?!” and CUT TO BLACK? You have failed in your job to tell a complete, worthwhile story. I gave up after that ending. I didn’t care what they had done and I didn’t care to see anything more.

So here’s where it’s entirely up to you: this is the last of the Hobbit trilogy. It’s a trilogy that’s almost 90% made by a computer, 5% taken up by actors, and the remaining 5% a product of the New Zealand Board of Tourism. The subtitle, however, is The Battle of Five Armies. You are guaranteed to see a lot of action. Most of it will probably be CGI, which means that some of it will look great and a lot of it will look like a video game. If this is the kind of thing that hits your sweet spot, then look no further. The best part? You can pause the movie as often as you want to for those necessary potty breaks.

The Plot: It’s in the subtitle. There’s a battle involving five armies, one of which may or may not be a bunch of hobbits.

Blush Factor: PG-13 for “extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence” and “frightening images”. Basically, one violent, slightly frightening video game.

UNBROKEN - 2014 FILM STILL - (L to R) Mac (FINN WITROCK), Phil (DOMHNALL GLEESON) and Louie (JACK O'CONNELL) - Photo Credit: Universal Pictures © 2014 Universal Studios. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. — UNBROKEN – 2014 FILM STILL – (L to R) Mac (FINN WITROCK), Phil (DOMHNALL GLEESON) and Louie (JACK O’CONNELL) – Photo Credit: Universal Pictures © 2014 Universal Studios. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Unbroken – Directed by Angelina Jolie

Tomatometer: 51%; Audience Score: 71%

Every year, Hollywood loves to preordain films they know will be Oscar contenders. All you have to do is look at the people involved and if it was based on a bestselling book. There are important actors and directors taking it on and the sentiment seems to be, “Well, as long as they don’t completely screw it up…” as if they could take a checklist to Oscar Night and trade it in. But the thing about these preordained films is that while many of them do indeed roll into Oscar season with all the PR buzz to power a small town, many of them completely fall away.

I can’t think of a film that came with more pedigree than Unbroken. It’s based on an incredible true story. Angelina Jolie is directing it. The Coen Brothers co-wrote the script. The cinematography is being taken care of by none other than one of the very best in the game: Roger Deakins. And yet once the film started to screen for those around town, the buzz never materialized. What does that say about the film? It’s highly possible you will enjoy it a great deal. There seems to be a something certain missing from this film that makes the whole thing snap together in an unmistakably award-winning way.

If nothing else, you’ll see an inspiring story draped in the some of the most beautiful imagery you’ll ever see in a film. If that’s how you like your movies, then Unbroken is here for you.

The Short Story: After nearly dying in a WWII plane crash, Louis Zamperini spends 47 days in a life raft before being sent to a Japanese POW camp. He also does some other really inspiring things.

Blush Factor: The film is PG-13 for “intense sequences of brutality” (the POW camp) and some brief language. The torturing at the POW camp is supposed to be pretty intense, so be aware of that.

Accidental Love – directed by David O. Russell (sorta)

Tomatometer: 6%; Audience Score: 22%

Before David O. Russell become a perennial awards contender with The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and American Hustle, he was a tough, neurotic director that Hollywood didn’t quite know how to handle. You don’t have to go far on Youtube to find videos of Russell having epic blow-ups with his actors. Accidental Love – formely Nailed – is the last film Russell filmed before his pre-Oscar-streak exile. He didn’t even really finish it, actually, with the film being suspended multiple times due to completely running out of money. If you’re the kind of completist film fan who loves to see all those train wrecks that great directors sometimes make, then this is the film for you.

The Short Story: a small-town waitress gets accidentally shot in the head with a nail. This causes unpredictable behavior of which the entire movie is based upon.

Blush Factor: some swearing, some brief sex scenes with no nudity, and the scene in which the waitress gets the nail in her head – might be a bit much for viewers.

Paddington – Directed and Written by Paul King

Tomatometer: 98%; Audience Score: 83%

Back in Fall of 2014, the Paddington teaser seemed to be at the front of every movie I saw in a theater (of course, that might say more about my taste in movies than anything else). And you know what? I hated it. The CGI bear kinda creeped me out a little; the gross-out humor with the ear wax just seemed completely out of place. It all just felt wrong.

So guess what happens? Turns out the teaser is not at all representative of the rest of the film! I’ve never heard of that one before! Snark aside, I’ve heard some amazing things about this film. It’s supposed to be utterly delightful and delightfully heartwarming. Colin Firth is the voice of the bear, for crying out loud. You know the film will survive on pure charm alone. Check it out. I know I will, too.

The Short Story: a young Peruvian bear somehow travels to London in search of a home. A family takes him in and takes a liking to him.

Blush Factor: PG for some mild humor and some scary moments, including whatever villianous character Nicole Kidman is playing (Kidman herself said her character was scary enough she wasn’t going to show her kids the movie for a while).

The Wedding Ringer – Directed by Jeremy Garelick

Tomatometer: 28%; Audience Score: 71%

This looks to me less like a movie and more like the logical conclusion of How Many Movies Can We Put Kevin Hart and Josh Gad In? Of course, you gotta have a movie with them together! And of course you have to make a bunch of gay-panic jokes! Gotta get those 13-year-old boys laughing!

I don’t know what to say about this film other than it’s been in development hell for a long time. Anytime a film has been cooking this long and comes out looking this lame, you gotta give it a moment of respect. If Kevin Hart somehow tickles your funny bone (I have yet to see him say a line that isn’t full-on yelling) or Josh Gad is the lovable loser you’ve grown to love, then this is the film for you.

The Short Story: The groom needs some groomsmen, but is too socially awkward to have any real male friends (this is Hollywood, people). He hires a man to help him fill out the Groomsmen Lineup.

The Blush Factor: Rated R for topless women, a brief scene of a dog licking peanut butter off a penis, physical comedy and slapstick violence, lots and lots of profanity – basically the kind of stuff added to a movie script when the filmmakers feel a PG-13 isn’t enough and they need to make it more ‘R’. None of this adds to the story.

Wild – Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee

Tomatometer: 90%; Audience Score: 78%

This is one of the best films I saw of all last year. I can’t recommend it enough. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll find something in it that will stick with you for a while. Stop reading this. Go watch it.

The Short Story: A woman loses her mother and her marriage, setting her off on a mission to hike the entire Pacific Coast Trial.

Blush Factor: Rated R for some “sexual content, nudity, drug use, and language”.

See you guys next week with more Redbox Ready picks!