Stop Frame

I'm still trying to process why I like this film as much as I do. Part of me is screaming that it's my favorite of the Marvel films, handily displacing my previous champion, Guardians of the Galaxy . Meanwhile, another part is screaming that it's a fairly standard yarn, superhero or otherwise. I know, right? Confusing.   Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is a gun for hire who, seemingly the day after he falls hopelessly in love, discovers he hasn't very long to live. The creepiest salesman on Earth (Jed Rees) convinces him to undergo a covert operation that will cure him while bringing out his innermost mutant. Naturally, creepy salesman has ulterior motives. NSFW language and violence ensues.   On the big screen, Deadpool first showed up in one of those standalone Wolverine films. The film was terrible, Deadpool was terrible, with Reynolds doing the best he could with a horrible part. The fans howled and Reynolds, a serious fan of Deadpool, vowed revenge. Thus, Dead...

My favorite film composer of all time is Jerry Goldsmith. His music was always inventive, often challenging, and thoroughly engaging. It's a shame the Academy so seldom recognized his work, so let's discuss someone who the Academy has recognized and delivered a bevy of Oscars to, John Williams. Williams' career is somewhat contemporaneous to Goldsmith's. Both started in television. That's where I first heard Williams' music, for Irwin Allen's Lost in Space . This relationship with Allen would lead to Williams composing the music for Allen's two greatest disaster films, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno . Williams became the master of the disaster suite. His music always struck me as almost startlingly different from other composers. Goldsmith could shock you with an inventive use of one instrument or another, but Williams would seduce you with lush melodies and rich harmonies. Listen to the track "Planting the Charges" from T...

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) keeps churning along and now presents it's second most bizarre addition. The first was Guardians of the Galaxy, my favorite Marvel film by a long shot. Now, Ant-Man, which I love despite myself.   Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) just wants to leave behind his life of petty crime and make things right with his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder), who lives with his former wife Maggie (Judy Greer) and her new police officer husband, Paxton (Bobby Cannavale). His life takes a turn for the strange when he's recruited by brilliant scientist Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to stop his former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from doing something stupid. Hank's daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) objects. Superhero hijinks involving tiny superheroes and villains ensues.   Originally this was going to be Edgar Wright's contribution to the MCU, but apparently producer Kevin Feige expected the writer/producer/director of, among other things, Scott Pilgri...

The Force is Meh with this one... In 1977, Star Wars was a revelation. I never thought of it as science fiction, because it isn't, but it was fantasy that I could love. Give me blasters and spaceships over broadswords and horses any day of the week. And then The Empire Strikes Back came along and it was even better. It's been downhill ever since. The Force Awakens does very little to reverse that. Some 30 years after the fall of the Empire, a galaxy far, far away is in a state of upheaval. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), the last Jedi Knight, has vanished. In his absence, the First Order has risen up from the ashes of the Empire, and seeks to crush the nascent New Republic. A Resistance stands in opposition, led (at least in part) by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) who sends one of her finest pilots, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) on a mission to recover information that may lead to Skywalker's whereabouts because he is, apparently, her only hope. Everything hits the fa...

This week, Star Wars: The Force Awakens , the 7th film in the series, hits big screens all across the galaxy. It will make more money than is comfortably conceivable by the human mind. Therefore, it's time to remember the best of the series, which also just happens to be one of the best science fiction films ever. In destroying the Death Star, the Rebels have dealt the Empire a serious blow. However, the Empire is relentlessly pursuing them across the galaxy. At the same time, young Luke Skywalker is attempting to come to terms with his growing ability to use the Force. Action, adventure, love, betrayal, education, and revelations ensue. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is one of those rare examples of a sequel being better than the original. Not that there's anything wrong with Star Wars (aka: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope ) , but Empire pretty much expands and improves on everything. It's impossible to overstate how great a film Empire is. Irvin K...

The Holocaust remains an unfathomable atrocity, the unholy benchmark by which all such are measured. Stalin and Mao both make Hitler look like an amateur when it came to sheer body count, yet the Holocaust remains unique. It seems to boil down to two reasons. First, the Nazis were terrifying in their systematic approach to the slaughter of Jews, driven by their ideological belief that they were acting for the greater good of all mankind. And second, they hunted Jews in any land they conquered; the goal wasn't merely to "purify" Germany, but the world. Few films have captured these points as well as HBO's 2001 film, Conspiracy . On January 20, 1942, a group of senior officials of Nazi Germany met at a lovely house in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The purpose of their meeting was to determine the "final solution" for the Jews. The Wannsee Conference developed what is referred to as the Wannsee Protocol. A single copy of the document remains. Conspiracy , draw...

Completely disappointing, a failure on many levels, and easily the worst of the Daniel Craig Bond films. Indeed, it is arguably one of the worst Bond films of all time. Am I too subtle? A message from the immediate past sends James Bond (Daniel Craig) on an assassin's errand. The fallout of that unsanctioned action sees him suspended by M (Ralph Fiennes) but with the assistance of Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Q (Ben Whishaw), Bond inexorably pursues leads that will bring him face to face with the architect of all his pain (Christoph Waltz). In the interim, women (Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux) and henchmen (David Bautista and a parade of nameless thugs) cavort. I felt ridiculous writing that because it's a ridiculous plot. It wants to have twists and turns but really it just meanders from exotic locale to exotic locale. The film starts with a brilliant, long tracking shot during Dia de Muertos in Mexico City. It truly is a marvel. Right after, though, you can feel things fa...