Blind Panic: Don't Breathe

Nearly every summer, a sleeper emerges that you've never heard of that seemingly comes out of nowhere and captures audience's attention - usually a horror thriller. As summer gasped out its swan song, this year that distinction went to Don't Breathe.

You probably know the premise - a trio of young thieves plan a home invasion where the victim is blind. An easy score. Except the man in the dark is a Gulf War veteran, for whom blindness has become a superpower. He knows every inch of his hermit-imposed environment, his ears attuned to even the slightest noise. Played by the great Stephen Lang (Avatar), his blind man is a powerful, dangerous presence - a coiled spring. His quiet patience reminds you of Charles Bronson.

Directed by Fede Alvarez, (Evil Dead), Don't Breathe is a really hard movie to talk about without veering off the highway into spoiler territory, which I don't want to do. It's an extremely visceral and effective film, and the premise is stupendous. That first half of the movie is pure gasp-inducing adrenaline. The blind man's house is deep in the abandoned wasteland of derelict Detroit neighborhoods, and the absence of neighbors or passersby creates a foreboding, apocalyptic mood.

The trio of thieves are solid, especially Jane Levy. Dylan Minnette is a little too earnest, his character feeling more like he belongs in a John Hughes movie. But the movie calls for extremely personal, physical work from these two, as well as Daniel Zovatto, the most unrepentant of the three. The house is practically a character unto itself, feeling decrepit and real. Alvarez has a keen sense for what rattles an audience, and this is a great picture to see in the theater. It's claustrophobic and in your face.

The film owes a real debt to Panic Room, as well as the 1967 Audrey Hepburn thriller, Wait Until Dark, directed by the great Terence Young (if you've never seen it, find it). I'll just say that Alvarez makes the audience's sympathies a moving target. When the tables turn, as much as you want the blind man to triumph over his invaders, they're not stock bad guys, especially Levy. In the second half, you'll find there's more than one kitchen sink in play, and I found my allegiances in a fair amount of flux. Maybe I had some issues, but let's keep it spoiler-free.

When they bring the check, you've really got to hand it to Alvarez for delivering a super taut, economical premise with pretty tight lug nuts. Made for about $10 million, its dog-days box office is at $67 million so far. That's why you gotta love a good thriller.

So Long, Summer: 2016 Fall & Winter Movie Preview

A lot of us are doing Back to School shopping, so like it or not, summer is drawing to a close.

Suicide Squad just overcame a critical keel-hauling with box office gold, and it feels like that’s going to pretty much act as the capstone on the summer movie-going season. Latecomers Sausage Party, Pete’s Dragon, Hell or High Water and Hands of Stone could all see some sleeper success, while Ben-Hur is destined for disaster.

So what’s next? Looking ahead to the fall and winter months, I have to say, it doesn’t exactly look like the most awe-inspiring autumn, let alone Christmas. Unquestionably, films are going to surface we didn’t see coming, but as it stands now, there’s less than ten films that look cool enough to lure me into the theater. It’s a surprisingly short list this year.

The Magnificent Seven  (9/23) – Most remakes are just a cash-grab, but this 21^st Century Tombstone from Antoine Fuqua feels like the real McCoy, and seems likely to continue Chris Pratt’s winning streak. Note that these are all different characters than we saw in the Steve McQueen, Yul Brynner classic.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (9/30) – This feels like the return of the real Tim Burton – a surreal tale of misfits and outcasts. It’s sure coming out at the right time of the year.

Birth of a Nation (10/07) – by all accounts, Nate Parker’s Sundance triumph about slavery in the South is the film of the moment and seems destined to win Best Picture. But it’s still really early and Toronto hasn’t even happened yet. But as of now, Birth is the front-runner.

The Girl on the Train (10/07) – This Emily Blunt mystery was a massive best-seller and has already been tagged as this years’ Gone Girl. Fall’s a great time for a smart, moody thriller, and Blunt’s been picking ‘em really well.

Doctor Strange (11/04) – I love all the ingredients here. The Marvel Universe, I loved the comic, Cumberbatch is awesome – but that first trailer is a little too Inception lite, and we need a bigger sense of the supernatural forces at play here. Hopefully a stupendous trailer’s just around the corner. Marvel so rarely stumbles, and I want this one to be worthy.

Arrival (11/11) – Denis Villeneuve’s first sci-fi film before embarking on Blade Runner 2? Count me as interested! Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. Villeneuve is an astonishing talent, so here’s hoping this doesn’t end up being The Invasion. 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (11/18) – Harry Potter is back in bookstores again, and the winter months have always been very welcoming to J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. Here’s to new characters and environments agreeing with audiences.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (12/16) – Reshoots be damned, this is the Mt. Everest of the holiday season. Disney is banking on December lightning striking twice, and director Gareth Edwards could sure use some love. It’s hard to imagine anything dampening my enthusiasm for this unique Dirty Dozen take on that galaxy far, far away. Plus, two words: Darth Vader.

Passengers (12/21) – More sci-fi, from John Spaihts' 2007 Black List story, tagged as one of the best unproduced scripts of the year. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt star as two voyagers on an interstellar colony ship. Hundreds of travelers are in suspended animation for a journey lasting over a century. When Pratt somehow wakes up early, he decides to thaw out a companion, rather than endure a lifetime of solitude. Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) directs.

That's about it! I'm sure there will be other standouts yet to emerge, but from where I'm sitting here in August, these are the ones I'm most intrigued by.

Suicide Squad Review Wreckage

Well, I’m sure that the phones are ringing off the hook at Warner Bros. today – and pretty much not in a good way.

The reviews for Suicide Squad are about exactly the opposite from what everyone hoped. When a consistent theme of “Not as bad as last years’ Fantastic Four” begins to emerge, you know you’re in trouble.  They’re currently 33% Rotten over on Rotten Tomatoes, and it sounds like they continued the too-dark muddy nature that was a source of so many of the critiques of Batman v Superman. That the first part of the film rocks hard, but then quickly devolves into tame and muddlesome predictability. Everyone consistently praises the cast, especially Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, in what sounds like a completely star-making turn. But shockingly, Jared Leto’s highly anticipated Joker is evidently barely in the film. Sounding like a lot of bad decisions were made in terms of focus and editing, and that the vibe seems to be that director David Ayer took a good swing, but that studio meddling delivered a hamstrung product that pulls its punches. It will be interesting to see how all this translates into weekend box office. Can they even land first place, or will Jason Bourne continue to dominate? A huge factor is the Olympics, and if audiences decide to stay home and watch those this weekend and skip “Skwad,” it could be a killing blow for the picture. Man, DC just can’t seem to catch a break. Stay tuned.

The Needful Nostalgia of Stranger Things

By now, if you've got Netflix, you've likely already binged your way through all 8 episodes of Stranger Things, one of the few entertainment bright spots of the summer. Released with almost no advance word, the show caught fire instantly and became The must-watch show of the season.

 

In case you've been away, Stranger Things is a delirious fusion of all things Eighties, a frenzied and faithful story of childhood friends in peril that sprays gleeful reference shrapnel invoking the works of Steven Spielberg and Stephen King. E.T., Poltergeist, Stand by Me, Firestarter, The Goonies - you'll get whiplash counting the nods and callbacks. The opening credits echo the font of every King book jacket, backed by a synthesizer score that screams John Carpenter. Even the poster art (from Kyle Lambert) is meant to evoke the legendary style of Drew Struzan, he of the iconic Star Wars and Indiana Jones one-sheets. For anyone who grew up loving eighties movies, Stranger Things is a heady trip back in the time machine. Set in 1983, it looks, smells and feels like a product of that simpler, pre-internet time. Part of the show's appeal has undoubtedly been the interactive fun of connecting the pop cultural dots, and bathing in a warm pool of nostalgia for a genre of film we kind of take for granted now.

 

But Stranger Things isn't just a magic act, and it's definitely not paint-by-numbers. Created and directed by The Duffer Brothers (Matt and Ross), Stranger Things is the story of a lazy town next to a government research lab that's rocked by the disappearance of a small boy under disturbing circumstances - and his friends' determined quest to somehow find him.

 

Just watch that pilot, and if you aren't immediately all kinds of hooked, I'll be surprised. I may even sick a Demogorgon on you. Eighties stalwarts Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine are the most familiar faces, both doing excellent work. As the town Sheriff, David Harbour is a new face to me, but he won't stay unfamiliar long, as he's fantastic here. A damaged, near derelict sleepwalker straight out of Carpenter or Dean Koontz.

 

But it's the young cast of friends that deserve a huge amount of credit for Stranger Things' success. Led by Finn Wolfhard (right?), Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLoughlin, Charlie Heaton and Natalia Dyer do an amazing job of creating believable and unforced energy in their roles and keep you rooting for them every step of the way. But it's Millie Bobby Brown as "Eleven," who's going to come out of this thing in a major way. It's a star-making performance and she becomes a galvanizing force for this band of D&D loyalists in a way you won't soon forget.

 

With so much nostalgic hat-tipping, it may be tempting for some to view Stranger Things with a cynical lens. But viewers have embraced this show like a beer on a hot afternoon, and I gotta say I just enjoyed the hell out of my time in Hawkins, Indiana, and I can't wait to see where the Duffer Brothers take us next.

Cameron's Abyss on Blu-ray Next Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While speaking at Comic-Con's 30th Anniversary Aliens panel this weekend, director James Cameron revealed that at long last, his 1989 undersea opus The Abyss will be arriving on Blu-ray next year.

“We’ve done a [new] wet-gate 4K scan of the original negative, and it’s going to look insanely good,” he said. “We’re going to do an authoring pass in the DI for Blu-ray and HDR at the same time.” The Abyss should arrive in 2017, which is great news, as it's been on fans' high-def wishlist since the format arrived.

Review: Star Trek Beyond Warps to Success

Cancel Red Alert, you can lower your deflector shields - Star Trek Beyond is Fun with a capital F, a winning crowd-pleaser that will easily go down as one of the biggest hits of the summer.

 

After that first trailer, I was among the many fans who were nervous as hell. "So the Fast & Furious  guy is bringing dirt bikes to Star Trek?!" My "dumbing-down-o-meter" was twitching wildly.

 

So it's a pleasant surprise to see that director Justin Lin and screenwriter Simon Pegg (with Doug Jung) have - for the most part - scored a real return to the fundamental dynamics that have kept Trek alive for five decades.

Of the "Nu-Trek" films, this is the first one to take place entirely in deep space, far from Earth, as the Enterprise is more than halfway through its five-year mission. Captain Kirk (the superb Chris Pine) is feeling a little weary, finding life a little "episodic." His early heart-to-heart with Bones (Karl Urban) is reminiscent of a similar confessional vulnerability from Christopher Pike to his doc, way back in The Menagerie (aka The Cage), back where this amazing universe began.

After a visit to an Elysium-esque Starbase, the Enterprise crew must journey into a nebula to answer a distress call (guys, never seen Alien, or taken the Kobayashi Maru test? Come on!), the ship is ruthlessly attacked by Krall (Idris Elba), an aggressive alien out for blood, who nurses a real chip on his shoulder for the Federation.

The setup is really just a means to have the crew abandon ship and be split-up on a hostile alien world. And this is where Justin Lin and Simon Pegg get major props - because while Star Trek Beyond is full of outlandish action sequences, most of it's devoted to character, and to spending time with that core trio we have such affection for. A wounded Spock (Zachary Quinto) and McCoy are marooned together, and these scenes just shine, making the most of that Bickersons relationship between the two that was a hallmark of the original series.

Scotty encounters an alien exile, Jaylah (Kingsman's Sofia Boutella), an independent and fierce outcast who soon becomes a tremendous ally. She's a terrific character and it speaks volumes that she's able to hold her own with Pine, Urban and Quinto on the charisma meter. She's a tremendously engaging and fun addition to the group.

Another breakout star is the Starship Franklin, a castoff from the Enterprise/Captain Archer era. It's a supremely cool ship and its return to service says a lot about there still being plenty of juice left in old relics, if you know what I'm saying.

That's really the operative word here - fun. While it really is a souped-up blockbuster, Star Trek Beyond has tremendous affection for what makes Star Trek Star Trek, and is replete with little asides and deft callbacks that will bring plenty of smiles to fans' faces. It's a tremendously entertaining film and moves at a nice clip, not suffering at all from any 3rd act largesse.

If there's a weak spot in Beyond, it's the villain, Krall. The makeup design of Krall and his minions is pretty awful, and a little too reminiscent of the bumpy-faced alien syndrome that befell Deep Space Nine. He's very difficult to understand, and his motives are too much of a muddle, even by the third act. Also, if you're the kind of fan who bristles at anachronisms, you'd better know that you'll be getting Beastie Boys and Public Enemy writ large here, because demographic equals box office, even in the far reaches of deep space. So brace yourselves and just go with it. As enjoyable as the film is, it's a shame that the plot (and villain) don't connect to some kind of larger metaphoric ideal, as the original series did so well. There's really no Big Idea at play here, which is too bad, as it could have fit in very easily. There's nothing grand being said about the human condition or mankind's place in the cosmos, other than our tenacity.

But audiences are loving this picture, and at the end of the day, this is one of the most joyous depictions of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic we've seen in ages. Its place as one of the highlights of the summer box office is a good thing, and fans should embrace it, because it's going to go a long way towards keeping Trek alive and well for future iterations. It may be propelled by high octane flash, but it's so great to see a modern audience wildly enjoying what's essentially just a souped-up episode of one the most enjoyable cast of characters of all time. Boldly go.

 

#SDCC - Dark Tower Choo-Choo and Planet Hulk

It's been an exciting Saturday!
 

Without a doubt, the most sought after collectible at Comic-Con today (at least for Steven King fans) was a hardcover book called Charlie the Choo-Choo, a bit of Dark Tower viral promotion from Simon & Schuster. Only 150 copies of the book were handed out - with no barcode, never to be sold in stores, the 19 page "children's book" quickly showed up on eBay for anywhere between $1,600 and $5,000. 

Charlie the Choo-Choo is kind of a dimensional ripple of Blaine the Mono, the sinister bullet train from book 3 of The Dark Tower series, The Waste Lands. 

Simon & Schuster had fictional author "Beryl Evans" there to autograph copies, despite the fact that she was murdered decades ago in another dimension. This is cross-platform marketing at its very best.

 

If like me, you're sobbing at not having nabbed a copy, the fine folks at Entertainment Weekly have hooked us up with the entire book, gallery-style, here.
 

In other news, a very cool reveal came from Marvel Studios, where a display of enormous armor and weapons confirmed that the events of next year's Thor: Ragnarok will indeed integrate in the fan-fave Planet Hulk storyline, with the Big Green One fighting gladiator-style on Planet Sakaar!

 

Also, we learned that Brie Larson will be taking on the role of Captain Marvel..

...and the new Star Trek TV series will be called Star Trek Discovery.

 

Very cool indeed. Look for Thor: Ragnarok November 2017, which as we've seen today, is shaping up to be one helluva year!