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Star Trek Into Darkness

22 May

‘Star Trek Into Darkness’: Adrenaline-infused trip through a convoluted tale

By Tom Meek
May 21, 2013

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I now know why Paramount was so tight about letting the press get an advance peek at the second installment of J.J. Abrams’ reboot of the Star Trek enterprise; there’s a huge reveal in the middle of “Star Trek Into Darkness” that will have Trekkie loyalists either in rapture or hell.

That aside, the 2009 release of Abrams’ series resurrection hit a nasty snag here in Boston when the Globe ran a review more than 24 hours before the embargo date the studio set and expected the media to respect. It was a four-star review, but you could see people at the studio and the PR firms here in town that were handling the press leaping from the windows.

But back to the darkness. Many sci-fi franchises – including “Star Wars,” “Alien” and the initial big-screen launch of “Star Trek” – hit their golden moment in the second coming (“The Wrath of Khan,” “Aliens” and “The Empire Strikes Back”). Not so much here, but it’s close. “Darkness” has a lot more action and twists than the 2009 film, but while that film was hampered by set-up and backstory, It is addled by too much circumvolution and plots within plots. It’s great to see how it intertwines with longstanding Trek lore, making connections that hit with sudden realization and nostalgia, but I’m not entirely convinced all the plot threads that begin here tie neatly into the Trek future we already know.  Continue reading →

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The Iceman

20 May

‘The Iceman’: Potentially titillating, but tale of suburban killer for hire leaves you cold

By Tom Meek 
May 19, 2013

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Back in the ’60s there lurked a semi-notorious hit man by the name of Richard Kuklinski who was known as “the Iceman” for his detached demeanor. Allegedly he killed more than 100 people while in the employment of the mob over three decades. Pretty pat stuff for a homicidal sociopath who enjoys gruesome grunt work, but what makes Kuklinski intriguing is that he did it while married and living a suburban existence, replete with two teenage daughters. Whitey didn’t have those numbers or a family.

Comparisons to “The Sopranos” or “Goodfellas” are more than fair, especially since “The Iceman” does feature ’prano  John Ventimiglia and ’fella Ray Liotta, but this is Michael Shannon’s show. As Kuklinski he’s aloof, repressed and always about to explode. The hook is he’s awkward socially, most notably when he first meets Deborah (Winona Ryder), the woman he will marry, but after a pool hall game where an opponent briefly derides her as a “virginal cock tease,” Kuklinski slips into the heckler’s back seat and cooly slits his throat.  Never mind that he has no problem blowing away a friendly bum as a screen test for a mob heavy (Liotta) who had formerly employed Kuklinski as a porn distributor.   Continue reading →

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The Great Gatsby

12 May

‘The Great Gatsby’: Fitzgerald classic remixed with lots of spectacle, but no soul

By Tom Meek 

May 10, 2013

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald never really made it in Hollywood (he was an uncredited revisionist on the script for “Gone with the Wind”) and Hollywood never got his seminal novel “The Great Gatsby” right in four attempts and a TV movie, or the latest go by gonzo stylist Baz Luhrmann.

The bookgot midling reviews when it was published in 1925 and sold only 20,000 copies. Fitzgerald died in his forties unfulfilled and unrecognized, topics (fame, wealth, longing and loneliness) that are recurrent and at the fore of his works. Some of his works, such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “The Last Tycoon,” his reflection of his feckless times in Hollywood, have translated well onto film, but not Gatsby, not yet.

The original title Fitzgerald had for the book was “Trimalchio,” a reference to the Roman purveyor of porn who orchestrated wild orgies in “Satyricon.” Luhrmann takes this all to heart, staging the bashes at Gatsby’s estate on the near tip of Long Island as both festive and fetishistic. Imagine Victoria Secrets’ angels, salvos of fireworks and bottomless buckets of confetti in a ceremony of pomp and display with all the resources of an Olympic opening or closing gala – and a descendant of Beethoven is brought in to tickle the keys on the massive pipe organ.  Continue reading →

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Iron Man 3

6 May

‘Iron Man 3′: Director of excess brings some kid, kiss, bang bang

By Tom Meek
May 5, 2013

Fans of Iron Man born after 1980 might not be familiar with the name Shane Black. They may recognize him as one of Arnold’s soldiers in tow in “Predator,” but probably didn’t know he was one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood (along with Joe Eszterhas) in the late ’80s and early ’90s, churning out the “Lethal Weapon” series and “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” He also directed one film – starring Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr. – called “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” There must be something about all those kisses and RD Jr., because Black, after a stint in hibernation, is back behind the camera and pen for the latest installment of the marquee Marvel movie franchise.

Strange pairings seem to be a part of “Iron Man” history. Start with the casting of RD Jr. I always thought of him as the actor who made small, edgy, near-indie films. Who knew he could don a cape (or metal suit)? Then there’s Jon Favreau, the guy who starred in “Swingers” and has a minor reoccurring role in the series. He directed the first two “Iron Man” chapters, yet cedes the task to Black here.  Continue reading →

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Mud

26 Apr

‘Mud’: Pulpy crime noir, love story and coming of age, all found along a river

The titular substance usually connotes filth, squalor and entrapment like quicksand. About the only positive spin I can think of are mud baths in a health spa. But I digress. Mud acts as an effective tapestry in Jeff Nichols’ follow-up to his doomsday preparer saga, “Take Shelter.” It’s the name of the arcane protagonist (played with vigor and game by Matthew McConaughey, whose trademark southern drawl is aptly perfect for the Arkansas setting), a metaphor for the sticky situation he’s in and can’t get unstuck from, and it’s everywhere in the Arkansas Delta where many of the characters live in ramshackle houseboats and eke out a living pulling fish, pearls and salvage from the silt-lined bed of the mighty Mississippi.

Like the olio of treasures found at the river’s bottom, “Mud” is a lot of diverse things compressed into one. It’s a southern gothic, a pulpy crime noir, an account of a fading way of life, a contemplation on love and most of all a coming of age tale that evokes shades of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. As Ellis and Neckbone, the proverbial Twain tandem, Tye Sheridan – one of Brad Pitt’s lads in “The Tree of Life” – and newcomer Jacob Lofland imbue the film with a sweet innocence and impish teen know-how.

Neckbone lives with his uncle (Michael Shannon, who starred in “Take Shelter”) and never knew his parents. Ellis lives in a dingy but cozy floating shack, and his parents are on the verge of splitting. The two find solace in each other and their mini adventures. Their latest involved the rumor of a boat lodged high up in a tree on an island after a recent flood. The rumor turns out to be true, and the boat happens to be where they meet Mud, scraggly, starving, feral and needing their help to get food. He can’t set foot in the mainland, because he’s a wanted man.  Continue reading →

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Pain & Gain

26 Apr

‘Pain & Gain’: Michael Bay gets you rethinking a rep as studio-incubated hack

“Pain & Gain” documents the American Dream gone amok in another Day-Glo Miami. Think of Tony Montana in “Scarface” and imagine comedic inepts such as Stan and Laurel wielding the Uzis and machetes and calling the shots. It’s not a pretty picture. One worthy of a few laughs perhaps, until you consider it’s based on a true story.

No joke.

Mark Wahlberg’s reliably effective as Daniel Lugo, an ex-con with jacked pecs, a silvery tongue and a tank full of big ideas. He starts out thinking small: Build a following at a niche middle-tier gym as the happening trainer; move in for a cut. Not a bad plan, and Daniel is a pretty amiable chap, but then he starts thinking of short cuts. One of his clients (an uproarious Tony Shalhoub, who at times seems to be channeling Joe Pesci from “Goodfellas”) made it big in unscrupulous ways and shares all the ins and outs with Daniel. There’s also an omnipresent TV guru (Ken Jeong) espousing get-rich-quick schemes, and somewhere in the middle a kidnap and extortion scheme is hatched.  Continue reading →

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Trance

24 Apr

THE RUMPUS REVIEW OFTRANCE

BY 

April 24th, 2013

The dictionary defines memory as “the ability to recall.” For a computer, it’s an exact science when regurgitating programs, data, and facts, but for humans, that process can be ephemeral, flawed, and selective. It’s also an essential component of our existence, as our memories and emotional attachment to our pasts define who we are; it’s been argued that memories, along with the pillars of civilization, war and sex as a pleasure sport, are the defining cornerstones that separate mankind from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Human memories and their mercurial, inexact nature also make for high drama in life and story, most especially in film. What if you couldn’t remember your name, or you blacked out during the critical moment of a murder or robbery? What if, as in Rashomon, different players’ POVs of a series of events result in diametric outcomes, onuses, and liabilities? There’s immediate conflict and intrigue, but to make the payoff and to sell the feasibility of it throughout—and often through the eyes of an unreliable narrator—requires work, artistry, and agility. Take Lenny in Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending Memento, or Dr. Edwardes in Hitchcock’s Spellbound. One has short term memory loss, the other amnesia, and what they know in their impaired states of mind is all the audience knows. Their stories build one foggy bread crumb at a time with many false steps and sudden revelations along the way. Each new reveal, true or not, ripples through the audience’s understanding of what has transpired, halting, upending, and enriching it. In Memento, we yearn to know who killed Lenny’s wife, and in Spellbound, the world sits rapt to see if the virtuous Gregory Peck (well, his character, Dr. Edwardes) is actually capable of murder. The gradual reparation of the splintered memories takes the viewer teasingly close to the truth, and then, in the denouement, the final curve masterfully reshapes and cements everything that came before it.  Continue reading →

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The Independent Film Festival Boston

24 Apr

The Independent Film Festival Boston

Thirteen films to see at the 11th Boston Independent Film Festival, which runs April 24th through the 30th.

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Oblivion

20 Apr

‘Oblivion’: Where the clichés go when Earth dies

It’s some 70 years in the future and Earth is a wasteland, barren and plucked clean by nukes. Nukes mind you that weren’t unleashed on man by fellow man, but man nuking invading aliens who, during their incursion, blasted the moon in half, throwing off the tides and setting off tsunamis and earthquakes that accelerated Earth’s demise to a radioactive and near uninhabitable state. So the final vestige of mankind, which lives above the planet on an inverted-pyramid-shaped monolith/spaceship, waits as turbines on Earth siphon off seawater and convert it to stored energy so they can jet off to a distant moon where a new Eden awaits.

All that’s the “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” preamble before we get to Herr Cruise. And the movie, in case you were wondering, is all about Tom Cruise. As one of the only two people remaining on the surface of the planet, there’s plenty of Tom time. Cruise plays Jack Harper (not to be confused with Jack Reacher, Cruise’s last role), a one-man militia and maintenance crew who keeps the turbines chugging and, with the aid of a smattering of drones, keeps the remaining aliens, embedded in caves and subterranean mazes of ruined stadiums, at bay. Jack’s partner Victoria, (U.K. actress Andrea Riseborough) helms the control console and reports up to command while Jack dashes about in his ornithopter (stealing that term from “Dune” because it’s applicable – more on that later) and tends to the drones and turbines. Continue reading →

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To the Wonder

14 Apr

‘To the Wonder’: Malick makes us wonder a little too much

The title says it all, and questions permeate. What’s it all about? Is Ben Affleck that wooden? Has Terrence Malick finally hit the skids and lost his uncanny ability to evoke through hypnotic lilts?

Many might have said the same about Malick’s last film, “The Tree of Life,” which ended up on most critics’ top 10 lists and even Ebert’s final top 10 of all time. Perhaps since that film was a contemplation about life big and small and the intricate interweavings that ripple through time and the endless cycles of joy, misery and death we all experience, it had a profound impact on the famed film critic as the final frame rolled.

It’s no wonder too, as that film was imbued with self-discovery and revelation, a veritable experience with different conclusions. Ask anyone who saw it and took something from it and they’ll likely have different interpretations and insights than you, and you’d both be right.

Continue reading →

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