“We are the East, and this is just the beginning.”
Brit Marling seemingly materialized out of the blue. The beautiful, thirty-year-old actress has less than ten casting credits and yet she’s on a fast rise as one of this generation’s most mature actresses. Though she’s still indefinitely an up-and-comer, I have yet to see her nab a role that didn’t suit her or that she fumbled with when she embodied it on screen.
In 2009, The Hangover went from sleeper hit to worldwide blockbuster, becoming the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time and jumpstarting the careers of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis. Crude, outrageous, and absurd, The Hangover was a breath of comedy fresh air. The Hangover: Part II, not so much. Trying to replicate the original’s success, Part II bombed hard critically in summer 2011 by being nothing but a “do-over” of its predecessor. While the film still managed to take in over $200 million at the domestic box office, Part II left a very, very bad taste in many fans’ mouths. Now here we are two years later and The Hangover: Part III, despite changing up the formula, has done the same thing and then some: it has tarnished the reputation of the Wolf Pack so severely we’re not even sure we can call the original such a milestone anymore. After fizzling out over Memorial Day Weekend with an underwhelming $50 million 4-day haul (Fast 6 grossed $120 by comparison), it seems many fans are also over the Wolf Pack. So what the hell happened? How did a breakthrough R-rated comedy become a cautionary tale of what not to do to a movie franchise? In our latest critical podcast, Zack Sharf and Mike Murphy debate the latest Hangover movie and the franchise’s legacy:
Raw, honest, tender, fearless, intimate, humorous, and heartbreaking, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight is more than just the best film of 2013 thus far. Along with its equally-as-daring predecessors – 1995’s Before Sunrise and 2004’s Before Sunset – Midnight makes for one of the most unique and emotionally startling cinematic experiences I’ve ever been apart of. Entirely composed of slow-burning conversations, these films depict the evolution of a couple, irresistibly played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, following them as they slowly open up to one another and climaxing in moments of catharsis that will have you questioning and confronting your own thoughts on life, love, regrets, and dreams. Not even the world’s most cold-hearted man will be able to keep his emotional guard up and his vulnerabilities suppressed, especially during this third installment, easily the best and most meditatively gut-wrenching entry in the series. In other words, Before Midnight is damn perfect. It’s also unshakeable too.
I often refer to the Fast & Furious franchise as the Citizen Kane of mindlessness and Fast & Furious 6, despite some initial disappointment, lives up to this title. In other words, Fast 6 is bat shit crazy – it’s super insane, super ridiculous, and, most importantly, super fun. Not every franchise lives through six films, but by embracing the meta age with each installment, the Fast movies have become makeshift blockbuster tentpoles, films that know just how absurd they are and relish in their macho-charged lunacies, leaving the audience with movies that do nothing but entertain on a steroid-injected level. What’s not to love? This “leave your brain at the door” mentality turned 2011’s Fast Five into a franchise milestone as it mixed elements of Bullitt with Ocean’s Eleven to create one wild cinematic ride, and while this sixth installment doesn’t quite reach the speed of its predecessor, Fast 6 is an outrageous summer ride nonetheless.
“You’re cold as ice.”
Trudging through a sudden downpour in the Fenway area of Boston, co-critic Zack Sharf and I practically swam to the Regal Fenway 13 movie theater in order to see a press screening of Todd Phillips’ The Hangover Part III. Until the rain began, it seemed like a ‘no worries’ kind of activity since it wasn’t conflicting with any school work or classes, like some of the screenings do throughout the year, nor was it going to cost me any money or alleviate me of anything valuable other than time. Well, I should have taken the heavy rain as a bad omen because not only is The Hangover Part III an inarguable waste of time, but it’s also a relentlessly vulgar and unfunny excuse for a comedy that lacks each and every thing that made the 2009 original so likable. It’s bland and empty, superiorly pointless, and so over-the-top offensive that, at times, I almost couldn’t believe I was watching a movie featuring three characters that, four years ago, I was praising as a comedic triumvirate of legendary status. Truthfully, you’d be hard pressed to find a more foul 100 minutes of film.
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trap in, set your fazers to full blast, and get ready to explore strange new worlds in one of the most highly anticipated films of Summer 2013, Star Trek Into Darkness. Since the release of the smash 2009 reboot, Trekkies and first timers alike have been yearning for another intergalactic mission into J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek universe and after four years at not-so-warp speed they have come to their destination. Obviously, there has been a lot of skepticism surrounding this film. Will it live up to the first? Can J.J. Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof stay true to the original? Can they bring something fresh to the franchise? Who the hell is Benedict Cumberbatch actually playing? There were a lot questions to be answered and a lot of fans to please. I even had high hopes going into the film and even though Into Darkness was an amazing, edge-of-your-seat, summer blockbuster, I couldn’t help but leave the theater with a shroud of disappointment hanging over me.
I was raised on science fiction. My dad never saw much in it past Flash Gordon but my mom was quite the opposite. She saw, and still sees, science fiction as one of the most sophisticated and absolutely unbeatable genres in literature, television, and film. She brought me up on Star Wars and Back to the Future, introduced me to A Wrinkle in Time and the written works of Ray Bradbury, and she is quite possibly the only person who religiously watches programs on the Sy-Fy Channel and she’s currently churning her way through all ten seasons of the much beloved The X-Files. She’s a sci-fi geek through and through and continues to give me a strong education in the genre when she tackles something new (she was teaching The Hunger Games to her middle school students before the movie adaptation was even on the table) and enthusiastically embraces any new project within the sci-fi umbrella (she loved District 9 and is looking forward to Elysium).
The summer season is one marked by big-budget special effects, high-octane action, and laugh-out-loud comedies, all meshed together in four months where everyone in Hollywood looks to cash in. In these four months, studios are not always looking for critical praise of their films but for high grosses and a film like The Great Gatsby is a great example of this summer conformity. It’s got flashy 3-D effects, an all-star cast, and a soundtrack with all the synth pop of a warehouse rager, but unfortunately, when weaved together in a two and a half hour film, it is nothing but a great mess.
With the school year winding down, everyone has been seeing a lot more papers and exams than movies and spending a lot more time in the library than at the theater lately. Luckily, last Friday not only brought the end of the Emerson College school year but it also marked the start of the 2013 Summer Movie Season with the release of Iron Man 3. From May-August, Hollywood will break out the big guns as studios release many of the year’s biggest and most anticipated movies. Ah, the blockbusters! We’ve missed you this year more than ever! While it will be hard reaching the box office heights of last summer’s The Avengers, the 2013 season has its fair share of blockbuster epics, comedies, and superhero films to make it one of the highest grossing summers on record. After last summer’s independent boom thanks to Moonrise Kingdom and Beasts of the Summer Wild, recent Sundance winners are also making their way into the season with hopes of jump starting early award buzz. In other words, the summer is bound to have at least one movie you’ll absolutely love, and in honor of the season’s official start, here are the 20 movies we’re most anticipating this Summer Season:
Watching a comic book movie makes me feel like a kid in a candy shop. These films not only inspired me to look at filmmaking as a medium to express myself but they also sparked my interest in comic books, both of which have become life-defining passions of mine that I still pursue to this day. One of the first comic book films I remember really sinking my teeth into was 2008’s Iron Man, which had the benefit of being released 2 months prior to Nolan’s The Dark Knight. The story of this cock billionaire trying to survive on his wit by creating a weaponized metal suit to escape from imprisonment, although obviously very unrealistic, was absolutely captivating to my 14 year-old eyes. With how much of a disappointment Iron Man 2 was, the return of Tony Stark needed to be explosive, and in The Avengers it was. Now all eyes turn to Iron Man 3 which not only marks the first time Stark has had his own film since the events that took place in New York but also jumpstarts Phase Two in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe).
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