Curiosity Inc.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been blogging as much of late. That’s partially because of all the various other projects and obligations that suddenly sprang on me over the past few weeks. And it’s also because there’s been nothing of interest to hit wide release lately.

Furious 7 was supposed to be the early start to the summer movie season, but that turned out to be a false promise. Between then and this weekend’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, what have we gotten? Paul Blart 2? The Longest Ride? Unfriended? The Age of Adaline? For various reasons, I simply can’t muster up the energy to even think about these movies, much less see them and write about them. Read the rest of this entry →

Earlier this year, I sat through a little film called Chappie. I didn’t like it. Fantastic production values aside, it was still a film about artificial intelligence that ripped off so many other films about the same tired subject without adding anything new.

Read the rest of this entry →

I was not expecting to write a review this weekend. When I found out that this Friday’s only wide release was a Nicholas Sparks borefest, I was perfectly content to rest up for a while. But then I heard about a very different romantic drama that just hit my local arthouse, complete with a decent critical reception and a spectacular cast. How could I pass up such an intriguing alternative?

5 to 7 tells the story of Brian Bloom (Anton Yelchin), a struggling young unpublished writer with enough rejection letters to wallpaper his apartment. Of course, he’s still somehow able to afford an apartment in New York City without a roommate, but I digress. Our female lead is Arielle, played by Berenice Marlohe (best known to American audiences as the thoroughly useless Bond girl of Skyfall). She’s a 33-year-old French woman who used to be a model. Arielle meets Brian on a purely chance encounter and they hit it off famously. But of course there’s a catch: Arielle is married to a French ambassador (Valery, played by Lambert Wilson) and they have two kids together.

So you’d think that this is going to be a marital infidelity drama. Big deal, right? We’ve seen a million of these movies before. But not like this. Read the rest of this entry →

The Coen Brothers classic, Fargo, opens with a text card that reads “THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.” This in spite of the fact that Fargo is clearly a work of fiction, and the Coen Brothers themselves more or less admit as much.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter opens with the exact same title card, as shown on a scratchy, beat-up VHS copy of Fargo. And then it goes even further, zooming in extra close on the words “THIS IS A TRUE STORY.” Even though it totally isn’t. Read the rest of this entry →

I do try to keep things professional in my reviews. I don’t do this to start flame wars or advance any kind of sociopolitical agenda, I do this because I love movies. And I presume that you read my reviews for similar reasons. However, another reason why I keep this blog is because I want to put in some kind of effort at helping to promote good movies that have the gumption to present challenging material. This naturally means that I’ll occasionally have to cover movies with politically charged messages, since those are some of the toughest statements to make.

With all of that said, let’s talk about Merchants of Doubt. It’s a documentary about the various tricks and tactics used by special interest groups to fight science-related issues that are against corporate interests. So in many ways, it’s like the non-fiction version of Thank You for Smoking.

Read the rest of this entry →

There comes a point in most film series, usually around the third or fourth entry, when the franchise becomes critic-proof. There’s nothing left to write about, because everybody knows exactly what to expect already. Those who want to see the next film are going to, those who don’t want to see it won’t, and there’s nothing anyone can say or do to convince anyone otherwise. At this point, the franchise becomes self-sustaining.

The Fast and the Furious series, quite oddly, is an exception.
Read the rest of this entry →