Interstellar

After having a week or so to digest Interstellar, my feelings are the same as after I first watched it: its a pretty good sci-fi movie, with awesome visuals, a fantastic soundtrack, and some fun (at least for me) concepts that it plays around with.

It tries a little too hard in places, but overall this movie is Nolan in fine form: a strong narrative voice, clear themes, and very impressive cinematography. More in-depth and spoiler-y thoughts after the break.

One last thing before venturing into spoiler territory: we saw this movie in IMAX, and I think it did make a difference. The already impressive visuals of some of the space travel sequences were astonishing on that huge screen, and the sound was used very effectively to pull you into the experience. The biggest downside is that the movie ends up being so damn loud in places that I walked out feeling half-deaf, but that aside it felt like money well spent.

John Wick

There is a phenomenon I'm running into more and more often nowadays: the question of "is it out yet?" This seems to happen most often with movies; between early reviews, rolling trailer releases, and weeks of promotions, I often find myself excited to see a movie, only to realize that it won't be out for another two weeks.

Such was the case with Interstellar, a movie my wife and I are very interested in seeing, but apparently doesn't come out until this week. Which was a damn shame, because we were all psyched up to go see it this past weekend. I'm not entirely sure why we thought the movie would be out (my guess is that the media buzz leading up to it's release tipped us off early,) but, due to a malfunction in my time machine, we had to bump our plans back a week.

A similar thing happened with the latest Keanu Reeves action movie, John Wick. I first read a (very positive) review of the movie around a month or so ago. For whatever reason - chalk it up to originally only seeing reviews on TV or reading them in newspapers/magazines - I'm conditioned to expect that, by the time I read a movie review, the movie is either out or will be out shortly. So when I read the review I expected John Wick to be in theaters, and I was excited to see it.

Apparently I had gotten a hold of an early review or something, because I was off by a few weeks. John Wick eventually released and more positive reviews came along. I was still interested in seeing it, though it being an action movie made it a difficult pitch for movie night.

Fortunately I managed to have some extra free time this past weekend, which allowed me to catch John Wick before it slid out of theaters.

And goddamn was that worth the money.

There isn't a lot to say about John Wick that hasn't been said elsewhere, but I'll add my praise to the pile all the same: it's one of the best action movies I've seen in awhile. If you're a fan of action movies and you've been looking for your fix, go see it ASAP. You will not regret this decision, and everyone behind John Wick deserves to have fistfuls of money thrown at them as a reward for bringing us this beautiful-terrible ballet of bullets and revenge.

That's the short version. Join me behind the break for extended impressions, some of which may be very vaguely spoiler-y in nature (though I won't be discussing anything you couldn't find in an average press release for the movie.)

A Walk Among The Tombstones

This weekend my wife and I headed out to catch the latest Liam Neeson movie, A Walk Among The Tombstones. Suck it, The Maze Runner. You're not getting a goddamn dollar out of me.

First, a quickie, spoiler free review: I enjoyed it. I like it more the further removed I am from watching it (a good sign,) though it definitely isn't perfect.

Tombstones is sort of a semi-modern update to the old school style detective story. You have your damaged goods main character, working for an employer of dubious employ (in the 40's and 50's they were mobsters; the updated analog makes them all drug dealers.) You have your somewhat twisty investigation that reveals more than anyone initially let on. You have your noir-ish moments where you don't know who or what to trust. And I guess because test audiences couldn't handle 113 minutes of Neeson being gruff as hell, you have a young sidekick.

All of it is pretty standard stuff for the genre, but two things help raise it up from "mediocre" to "pretty good":

1) Neeson is great at playing damaged goods tough guys, and he does a tremendous amount of work elevating the character of Matthew Scudder beyond just another gumshoe. There are few actors who would have been able to handle the material as well, and a miscast here would have sunk the movie. Which would have been a damn shame because...

2) There aren't many movies like this around nowadays. You get a lot of serial killer movies, crime dramas, tough guy redemption stories, character vehicles, etc, but very few people are making detective story/noir thriller movies anymore. It's understandable, given the market - studios are banking on big, flashy movies to draw audiences in, two things which Tombstones definitely is not - but it's a damn shame for anyone who is a fan of that style of movie.

Because of that, I'm willing to cut Tombstones slack I may not have otherwise. Though even with that consideration, I think Tombstones still holds up fairly well.

I can readily recommend Tombstones to anyone who is looking for a detective/noir-style movie, with a double down bonus if you like Liam Neeson. This movie is fairly far removed from his recent action movie star stint, so don't expect him to come in guns blazing and faces punched. There are some fisticuffs and guns are indeed blazed in a few parts but Taken 3 this is not (and thank all of the gods for that.)

After the break I'll dive into some move elements of the movie that struck me. This is getting into spoiler territory, so anyone who hasn't watched the movie should beware. I'm not sure how far I'll get into deep spoilers but I'm probably going to reveal some things you're better off experiencing for the first time during the movie.

Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer is a movie that reminded me why we all pan for gold in the "now available" section of any given streaming video service: sometimes you find a nugget, and once in a rare while you'll find a vein.

Three Quick Movie Reviews

As part of vacationing recently, my wife and I watched three movies (great way to spend a flight): The Wolf of Wall Street, Her, and The Iceman.

Quick reviews/thoughts after the break for each movie, with possible spoilers so beware!

Captain America: Winter Soldier Review

I'm not a big comic book reader, but I do enjoy the characters and the stories. I pick up enough facts through my various nerd hobbies that I feel like I have a vague understanding of most of the popular characters (and even some of the not so popular ones.) Like most, I've enjoyed the recent boom in Marvel movies; in addition to being pretty solid comic-to-film adaptations, they're almost all pretty great action movies in general.

(As always, more thoughts after the break)