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Edge Of Perfection.

He might be a crazy, couch-jumping, Scientology-loving nutcase, but Tom Cruise doesn’t go into a film with a half-assed performance. If there is one thing you can count on with Cruise, it’s that he invests himself thoroughly within a character (and a film), and it’s through this investment that he remains one of the world’s preeminent A-list superstars. While 2012′s Oblivion may have lacked audience appeal or a fresh plot, Cruise wasn’t the weak link in that film, and he isn’t again here. Not that Edge Of Tomorrow has any real weak links (other than its ending, more on which I’ll discuss shortly); Doug Liman has crafted a thrilling, involving, intelligent sci-fi actioner that will appeal to a broad spectrum audience – with both its leading man and leading woman asserting their authority on the screen, Edge Of Tomorrow is a blast from start to finish.

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James Garner – 1928-2014

Legendary Academy Award nominated film and television actor James Garner has passed away.

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I’ve been to Budapest. This is far better.

Watching films can be a cathartic experience. Sometimes, wading through all the crap ejected from the sphincter of Hollywood’s lower echelon one might stumble upon a hidden gem, a hitherto unheralded masterpiece for which universal acclaim is not only expected, but deserved. Typically, however, one must look externally of the Hollywood Mainstream for a better chance of quality film-making, at least in terms of non-action genres. Independent storytellers are less constricted by commercial demands (but not always),and often deliver “passion” pieces (for want of a better phrase) that work irrespective of mainstream audience expectation. Wes Anderson has been delighting film lovers for years, much like his contemporaries the Coen Brothers, with obscure, laconic, often kooky films that definitely do not fall into the category of “mainstream”. Folks who have enjoyed Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom, for example, would be well suited to appreciate the nuance and delicacy with which Anderson crafts his stories, and Grand Budapest Hotel is no exception. Given that I have yet to tap into the complete Anderson oeuvre to-date (sorry, Wes) I can’t say for sure whether this film is his most accomplished work or not, but I can say one thing with absolute certainty: The Grand Budapest Hotel is one of those films that were it to come out of the Hollywood production line, might very well be missed or avoided (probably the latter more often, more’s the pity) but it really does deserve your time and attention.

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I think they mean Rise of Slo-Motion.

Anyone familiar with pop-culture will doubtless be aware of the significance of Zach Snyder’s sophomore directing effort, 300, the film which launched Gerard Butler and Lena Headey into A-List, and more then enough internet memes. With that film’s success came the allure of a follow-up, yet inconsistent with the Hollywood mantra of churning out direct-to-video slop to capitalize on said success, the second film in the 300 franchise took seven years to come to fruition – an eternity for audiences clamoring to see more of the stylish slo-mo Snyder made (in)famous. Eventually, a prequel film of sorts arrived in multi-plexes around the globe, subtitled Rise Of An Empire. Starring French actress Eva Green, original film co-star Rodrigo Santoro reprising his role as Xerxes, and newcomer Sullivan Stapleton, Rise Of An Empire followed the franchise’s visual beats to the letter, overseen by executive producer Zach Snyder, who was filming Man Of Steel at the time. Considering the original 300′s status among film fans, critics and casual viewers, it’s little wonder that expectation was high (or at least positive) for the follow-up; so what was the result? Is Rise Of An Empire a worthy sequel to the original, or does it struggle to…. ahem, rise to the challenge of providing audiences with a captivating, entertaining mix of gore, brawling and stylish violence?

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Lord of the apeshit.

I’m not sure entirely why Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story about a man lost in the African jungle remains as popular as it is a century after its debut, but 2013′s animated attempt isn’t gonna do it any favors. Produced in Germany, Tarzan is the first major attempt to bring the story to the screen since Disney’s 1999 effort – a seminal film which sent the millennium out in style for the studio – and, as is to be expected with “new” versions of the classic, now made in a motion capture studio. Yeah, I rolled my eyes at that too. For no matter how hard Robert Zemeckis tried, he just couldn’t quite nail performance capture on film; The Polar Express, Beowulf and his attempt at Dickens’ Christmas Carol all found fault with the “uncanny valley” scenario of the human characters in those films lacking “life” behind their eyes, something audiences generally baulk at. And it’s fair to say that the director of this film, Reinhard Kloos, isn’t a director of the caliber of Zemeckis. 2013′s Tarzan falls into the same trap (and a few others, surprisingly) of having its human characters looking a little…. off, preventing the viewer from really attaching emotionally to the film and thus rendering it disappointingly inert.

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Don’t look in the mirror. Or at this film.

It’s fair to say that the older I get, the more jaded and cynical I have become, and nothing nails this feeling like watching a modern horror film. Modern horror, be it the R-rated torture porn of the Saw franchise, or the PG dreck such as… well, everything else, really, has begun to blur into a tableau of mediocre, uneventful, non-creative trash just willing the money from the wallet at the hopeful thought of some blood, gore or hair-raising frights. For every good or great horror film there are about three dozen shitty ones, and these odds do not make a genre fan happy at all. Horror fans aren’t the most demanding viewers when it comes to these kinds of movies, and it’s sad fact that the genre has been looked upon by mainstream critics as a lower class of cinematic tripe, so I guess one could be forgiven for just throwing in the towel and accepting whatever rubbish Hollywood decided to dish up; not me – I expect more from my horror film than just random crash-bang jump-edits designed to elicit a momentary thrill of panic. I expect film-makers to be brave enough to try something new, to experiment a little within the bounds of the genre, to be daring. Oculus, in many ways, isn’t daring at all, but you get the sense that even though director Mike Flanagan was hard up against it with a largely incoherent script, he was at least trying to make this film as good as it could be.

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For those times you absolutely need a gun aboard a plane.

The hardest part about watching mystery-thrillers like Non-Stop is stopping yourself from trying to outguess the hero as to the “twist” or “reveal” before it actually happens. Somtimes, the film twists and turns so much it’s like a damn Moebius strip, outreaching all but the most intelligent viewer with its crucial climax. Other films tend to spoil themselves too early too often, leaving audiences aware of what’s happening but still assuming some mass delusion might have kept one or two folks from figuring things out. Non-Stop falls somewhere in the middle ground of this scenario – it’s a well played mystery thriller, although its third-act twist is jaw-droppingly out of left field, reducing a taut, terrific opening half or so into something less than it aught.

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It’s long been a sad state of affairs that our stable of cinematic heroes – specifically of the action variety – have, by a wide margin, tended to be dominated by men. Name me a dozen male action heroes from the last 20 years and you’ll have no trouble whatsoever. Try that with female stars, and you’ll struggle to list even a handful who have the pop-culture standing to be even worth remembering. It’s this factor which contributes somewhat to Stallone’s Expendables franchise being so testosterone-laden. While modern stars such as Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson appear in movies seemingly every other week, the lack of female action heroes on our screens is an imbalance that, frankly, needs to be addressed, and soon. Thankfully, though, Hollywood seems to be trying – former MMA star Gina Carano has attempted to make the transition to film, no doubt aided by her bruising, bashing fighting style and grim, determined-faced demeanor giving her a somewhat masculine femininity (is that even a thing?) to bridge the sexual gap between the Statham’s and the Stallone’s of the world, and the girls! In The Blood is a fairly transparent attempt to build Carano’s Hollywood “brand”, with her front-n-center for the entirety of the film as she smashes and crashes her way through the slums of Puerto Rico; does Carano make a solid action star we can enjoy, or is this film another Haywire, devoid of charisma, light on action, and lacking in quality?

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Everything in this movie is awesome.

There’s a fair chance that if you were ever a child, or had a child, you’ve enjoyed the escape from life that is playing with those tiny, multi-hued plastic bricks designed to clip together, otherwise known as Lego. Naturally, I count myself among the millions who grew up tinkering in the toybox with these incredibly durable, entirely interconnected, utterly infinitum-testing little bricks of fun, creating entire worlds from a collection of random pieces attained from a multitude of Christmas and birthday presents down the years. While Lego’s popularity has only increased with age, so to has the brand’s expansion into alternative media, from computer games of increasing variety, board games, clothing, books and magazines, and then to cinema, with The Lego Movie being the first big-screen outing for this iconic toy brand (hard to believe it’s taken this long!). Helmed by directing duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the brains behind the original Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, as well as the live-action hit remake of 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie comes amid a glut of animated fare saturating cineplexes across the globe; considering the franchise’s loyalty to fans, and its interchangeable connectivity to people’s emotions, would the Lego brand’s first foray into cinema be a “block”-buster success, or a brick-shattering failure?

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Too much, too often, with too little.

As one of the increasingly fewer people who actually enjoyed the reboot Spider-Man entry by Marc Webb, I was anticipating this film well before its release; the massive promotional campaign indicated a larger amount of action, more villains, and more of Peter Parker’s search for why his parents up and left when he was a kid. Admittedly, I could care less about that latter thing, but the increase in action and a new set of villains, in Electro, Rhino, and the Green Goblin, promised much. Would the film deliver? Perhaps at Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 level? Or would it be a miasma much like the now-reviled Spider-Man 3?

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