All aboard the Snowpiercer

I heard that Chris Evans, aka Captain America, was in a South Korea sci fi thriller. That may have been enough for me to watch Snowpiercer on its own, but I didn’t make it a priority. Movies like this usually have two fates in store from them. A swift death followed by a decent into obscurity or it gains a cult following, an under-appreciated gem. I started seeing it mentioned more often, so I finally gave it a go. So which will it be, had to find out for myself.

In a not so distant future global warming is becoming a serious issue. A mission to release a chemical into the atmosphere will bring down temperatures. Unfortunately the mission works too well and forces falls into another ice age. The only survivors inhabit a massive globe running train called the Snowpiercer.  The rich live in comfort in the front of the train, while the poor live in harsh cramped conditions in the back. After 17 years of these conditions, the inhabitants of the rear car are preparing to lead a revolt.

Hell Hath No “FURY”

“War never ends quietly” is the tagline of this film. Which seems very appropriate because the chosen vehicle for the loud noise of this film is a tank. In 1998 Steven Spielberg transformed the genre with “Saving Private Ryan”. A gritty film universally praised for its accurate and real portrayal of battle in WWII. This would open the flood gates of WWII material in entertainment as a whole. It starts out initially being close in tone to “Saving Private Ryan” but after 15 plus years you see the genre take a shift. No longer was the focus on grounded realism, but instead on idealistic satire. Quinton Tarantino 2013’s Inglorious bastards being a prime example (Still a great film!). FURY is an emphatic return to the tone of “Saving Private Ryan”.  It just may be the most realistic portrayal of WWII I have ever seen. It’s brutal, shocking and mostly uncompromising in the message it tries to communicate.

Fury takes place in the waning days of World War 2 during the invasion of Nazi Germany. You follow Don ‘WarDaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt) as he commands a five man Sherman Tank affectionately named Fury. His veteran crew consist of Main Gunner Boyd ‘Bible’ (Shia LaBeouf), Loader/Mechanic Grady ‘Coon-Ass'(Jon bernthal) , Driver Trini ‘Gordo’ (Michael Pena). The crew recently loses its 5th man and is replaced with recently enlisted Norman. Norman has never seen the inside of a tank or been exposed to any battle. Needless to say, the war isn’t waiting on anybody. Norman is set to have one hell of a first day as the Fury immediately embarks on another mission in support of the allies push into Germany.

Cross the Galaxy with Interstellar

Christopher Nolan is arguably the most popular director in the world. This is a double edge sword because his popularity is so polarizing: you love him unconditionally or can’t stand him. He described Interstellar as a passion project and his most ambitious adventure yet. This seems difficult to understand because of how ambitious his previous work has been. This is the man revived Batman and probably comic book movies in general. He then goes on to create some truly inspired work with Inception. So what makes this work so ambitious? It’s not the story, it’s the setting. Space is a place where many a movie goes to die and pulling a compelling sci-fi drama about space exploration can be tricky.

Interstellar is about an earth in the not too distant future. This earth is a very different place. Ravaged by global pathogen that makes growing crops extremely difficult. Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, a former NASA pilot who is now a farmer of one of Earth’s last remaining crops, corn. He loves the time gets to spend with his family, especially that of his young daughter Murph. Advancements and research in technology have been globally halted instead to concentrate on survival, making farmers way more valuable than engineers. Cooper never got to go into space as a NASA pilot, and is barely coping with the realization that he’ll never get the chance too. However, circumstance find Cooper reunited with an old NASA colleague Prof Brand portrayed by Michael Cane. Who informs him that the situation is far worst than the public know. The only hope is a deep space exploration mission to find a brand new home world for the people of earth, and he wants Cooper to pilot the mission.

Saw Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary

This year marks the 10th anniversary of one my favorite film franchises, SAW. A low-budget film that took the horror genre by storm and spawned 6 sequels. It’s also sort of responsible for the genre shift into more grotesque torture horror for a while. Let me be clear, the saw series isn’t necessarily that good. I think it does a lot of things right that make you overlook and accept its short comings. The saw movies do a good job of establishing a continued world, the world of the jigsaw killer. Each movie isn’t a random off shoot capitalizing off the style and name of the franchise. Your constantly gaining insight and learning about previous instalments from the new ones. I recently went to watch the 10 anniversary showing of the film and I still love it, so here is my review 10 years late but better than never.

Saw follows the story of a serial killer nicknamed by the police as Jiggsaw. Accept that technically he is not a killer at all. Jiggsaw actually gets his victims to kill themselves. He accomplishes this by placing them in elaborate games themed around a deadly trap. If the victim can solve trap they will live, but it usually comes to great cost like physical pain or even another person’s life. The motivations aren’t exactly clear for Jiggsaw, but he accuses all the victims of taking life for granted. He views his games as therapy in a lot of ways. If they survive his game, they will have a deeper appreciation for being alive , and if they fail.. they don’t deserve to be alive anyway.