Category Archives: Trailers
The Zen Diaries of Gary Shandling
Annihilation
Based on Jeff VanderMeer’s best-selling Southern Reach Trilogy. I read the first book in the trilogy and found it… disturbing. Didn’t feel a pull to read the other two. The film is directed by Alex Garland who did Ex Machina, 28 Days Later, two films I enjoyed very much (if one can claim to enjoy 28 Days Later).
Atomic Blonde (trailer 2)
Jason Bourne can just sit the fuck down. I’m not gonna say Atomic Blonde is a great movie. We could argue all day about that. I am gonna say it’s one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time. Boy, oh boy… where to begin?
I’ve heard critics say there was no story. Well, if you need a story, take my library card and go check out Great Expectations. If you want an entertaining movie, look no further.
Now let’s talk about action. I thought the fight sequences in Atomic Blonde were as good (better?) as anything since the first Bourne movie. Remember the fight scene in Kill Bill: Vol.1 between Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah (in Michael Madsen’s mobile home)? And the scene where James Gandolfini kicks the living shit out of Patricia Arquette in True Romance? Every fight scene in Atomic Blonde was at the level or a smidgen above.
You might not have noticed but after a long, protracted fight scene, male stars might have a cut lip and be breathing hard. Charlize Theron LOOKED and ACTED like she’d been in a brawl. And during the brawl? Grunting and screaming and gasping. I mean, you were _there_! Oh yeah. I’ll bet there was a half gallon of fake blood splashed on the camera lens during these scenes. And watch for the quick POV (point of view) camera shots.
What else? The sound track! Best I’ve heard in awhile. Every cut worked.
And last but not least… girl-on-girl sex. That’s become standard far in these liberated times. Every action movies needs some hot lesbians. Was Charlize Theron’s character a lesbian? Don’t know. But there was a 20 second scene that was so hot they should have handed out welder’s goggles as you entered the theater.
I was expecting a cartoon but got way more with this movie.
Tired: Ethan Hunt, James Bond, Jason Bourne
Wired: Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde
Travelers
“Thousands of special operatives, sent back in time from the future, are tasked with preventing the collapse of society. These operatives, known as “travelers”, take over the body of a 21st century individual via a “transfer of consciousness”; to minimize impact on the timeline, it is performed moments before the person’s “recorded time of death”. The transfer requires the exact location of the target; smartphones and GPS have made this possible only from the early 21st century onward. Prepared using social media and public records concerning their targets, small teams of travelers must maintain their hosts’ pre-existing lives as cover while carrying out missions, dictated by their “Director” in the future, aimed at saving the world from a series of catastrophic events. The Director communicates with travelers via pre-pubescent children used as “messengers”; unlike adults, any child can safely be taken over for a few minutes and then released from control. The show focuses on one team of five travelers, starting from their transfers of consciousness. As the series progresses, changes in the present make significantly unanticipated changes in the future.” (Wikipedia)
Atomic Blonde Trailer
The best thing about Alien: Covenant was the preview for Atomic Blonde. Ridley Scott gave us a scifi classic with Alien. James Cameron delivered a darn good follow-up. That would have been the place to stop. Very disappointed in Ridley Scott.
Meet Walter
Arrival
“Arrival” is a science-fiction parable in a distinctly more idealistic hopeful key than most movies in this genre, one in which the best solutions don’t necessarily materialize in a gun sight. It has a little action, a bit of violence and clenched-jawed jittery men. Mostly, it has ideas and hope, as well as eerie extraterrestrials who face off with a soulful linguist-heroine, Louise Banks (Amy Adams), the story’s voice of reason and its translator. She’s thoughtful, serious, at ease with her own silence and fears. — New York Times; The Atlantic review; Time review
Good movie. Don’t think it will do well at the box office because there was no car chase and you have to entertain the idea that time is nonlinear. But my kind of alien flick.
Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
Zero Days
The story of Stuxnet, self-replicating computer malware that the U.S. and Israel unleashed to destroy a key part of an Iranian nuclear facility, and which ultimately spread beyond its intended target.