Rob Reiner, a.k.a. “Meathead” and creative force behind such quirky classics, This is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride, gets back to his roots with this bag of mixed nuts about an embittered widower hit with some life-altering events that threaten to melt his icy heart and make him feel again. It’s a clichéd premise no doubt, but thankfully Reiner and cast play up the comedic angle and make what could have been a flat, Lifetime weepy something springy and possessed of an intermittent joy.
Set in the coddled community of Fairfield Connecticut, realtor Oren Little (Michael Douglas) is trying to get over the loss of his wife and sell his palatial estate (for a cool 8 mill), but because of a professional slump and the personal setbacks, he slums it in a four-unit rooming house on the Long Island Sound and grouses about his neighbors with three-olive rancor. The script written by Mark Andrus who pennedAs Good as it Gets (you’ve gotta love these inspired titles) employs some pretty frilly shenanigans—and not all of them stick. Take the fact Oren’s son (Scott Shepherd) is a recovering addict and heading to jail for insider trading. It’s never explained how he got from shooting up to shorting shares, but so it goes. He’s also got a ten-year-old daughter, Sarah (Sterling Jerins), who needs a custodian as mom’s whereabouts are unknown. When asked to take on Sarah, Oren pushes back, declaring he was a lousy dad. That’s the kind of prick we’re dealing with, at least initially. Continue reading
Much of this percolates up in the “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” the newest chapter in the series reboot that has swapped top-shelf makeup and costume craftsmanship for CGI wizardry and crash bang FX (the old-school costuming is still a wonderment, and more impressive than its computerized successor, especially given the test of time). It’s 10 years after the last episode that left Caesar (Andy Serkis, who as Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy elevated animation acting to an art form) and his ape posse living in the woods outside San Francisco. In those years a simian virus has wiped out most of the human population, but pockets persist, including one on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge in the burned-out bowels of the bay city. The humans wanting to get a dam flowing to get power back on infringe upon the apes’ territory (neither really knew the other existed) and so a rub for resources and rights ensues.
Ebert, who grew up of modest means in Illinois, was obsessed at a very young age with newspapers and telling stories. At the University of Illinois he relished being the school paper’s editor and making critical editorial and ethical decisions on matters of world-shaping importance, most notably the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He would later stumble into the post of film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times when being a film critic was not a coveted or much respected job. Along with Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris and Gene Siskel, he helped redefine the role of the critic and transform it into an art form. 
Pearce plays the barely named Eric, an aloof loner with an ostensible military background. The film opens with the tacit protagonist making a pit stop at an isolated karaoke bar (which looks more like a grimy torture chamber from a “Saw” movie than a place of merriment) for some water and a bite when a speeding truck laden with unsavory lads crashes, and its occupants quickly disembark and carjack Eric’s sleek, lean coupe. That’s it – from there on out, Eric will stop at nothing to reclaim his car. It’s a straight-up one-noter like “Duel,” propelled by Eric’s simmering resolve and the ever pungent question as to what else has to be in that car to make Eric want it that bad. 
The hook has three computer nerds on a cross-country trip to take the lone female, Hayley (Olivia Cooke of “Bates Hotel”) to a California tech school. One of the guys, Nic (Brenton Thwaites, most recently in “Maleficent”) is her beau and on crutches, the result of some sort of poorly explained disease or condition. The relationship is strained, not only because of looming long distance and physical barriers but because Hayley is defecting from MIT, where Nic and Jonah (Beau Knapp) remain. The two lads are also engaged in a hacking war with an online entity known as Nomad. Nomad’s bona fide; he can hack into a security cam and send the trio a pic of their dusty station wagon as it heads through the plains, or take over one of their laptops. Finally, the two get a bead on Nomad somewhere in Nevada and they decide to take a detour. It’s also where the boldness of “The Signal” starts to fade. 
For What it's Worth 