Valhalla Rising Brings Vikings To The Arthouse

What defines an avant-garde film, and why does there seem to be such a backlash against feature-length art films these days? 

Tron Legacy Will Reconfigure Your Hard Drive

Disney released a long-awaited sequel this year to a cult favorite film. This sequel featured a chilling villain who, when faced with the possible abandonment of its owner, rebels and rebuilds the world around it in its image.

I’m talking, of course, about Toy Story 3. But I’m also talking about Tron Legacy. Both Lotso and CLU use fear, intimidation, and the destruction of dissidents to build a world that only seems perfect on the outside, and both meet their ends when they face off against a hero who also deals with abandonment issues. While Toy Story 3 has a deep story, Tron Legacy relies more on special effects to blow the viewer away.

This isn’t a bad thing though. I’m a big fan of the original Tron and even I can admit that it’s all style and no substance, whereas some reviewers seem to have been watching it with rose-tinted glasses. I didn’t go in to Tron Legacy expecting a deep storyline, considering I can barely make sense of the one in the original. The same goes here. Sam Flynn, son of Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn, goes back to his dad’s old arcade and finds a secret computer (that looks eerily like the interface of Master Control Program) where Kevin built The Grid, a digital playground that he hoped would unlock the deepest secrets of humanity. Sam gets zapped in, we see some awesome action sequences (including a breathtaking sequence on the Game Grid that beats almost everything actionwise this year) , we get some exposition in which we find that Kevin uncovered a new lifeform that is somehow both digital and organic (I think), and some more action and then the movie ends. It borrows a lot of beats from the original while at the same time feeling fresh, and the one-two punch of bouncy acting by Olivia Wilde (in what hopefully is a breakout role, she needs more great work like this) and scene-chewing courtesy of Jeff Bridges doing double-duty as the aged zen master Kevin and weird CGI monstrosity that is CLU makes star Garrett Hedlund almost invisible and unnecessary.

Where the film stumbles is trying to flesh out a backstory for the twenty years between the first film and now. I get the feeling that writer Steve Lisberger was hoping to turn Tron into a Star Wars-esque trilogy and wrote two sequels and unfortunately Disney didn’t let him make the second sequel. The backstory offered here smacks of Empire Strikes Back whereas Tron Legacy itself is almost certainly Return Of The Jedi. This “two films crammed into one” factor becomes blatantly obvious when an entire race, the weird digital-and-organic-possibly-who-knows Isomorphs is brought up and killed off within minutes with almost no explanation on how they were Kevin Flynn’s “gift to the world”. Also I still don’t see how CLU is so sure that invading the real world is even possible for programs such as himself.

All in all, Tron Legacy is a cotton candy-like experience, a two hour long sugar rush that crashes near the end. While the cheesy sci-fi fan in me hopes that a second sequel is made (indeed, the groundwork is laid both in the film and in the video game TRON 2.0) I know deep down that this may not be the financial success I hope it is and Disney just won’t make another one, making Legacy a fitting, if flawed, send-off to a film that some seem to forget is groundbreaking for its GRAPHICS and not its story.

Scott Pilgrim And The Infinite (Box Office) Sadness

The Scott Pilgrim universe is a world created and propagated by shallow, self-centered characters. This is not a dig at Bryan Lee O’Malley’s creation, the six volume graphic novel series upon which the recent film is based, but instead an explanation. At twenty-something you can’t HELP but be a little self-centered, and main character/hero Scott Pilgrim is the quintessential twenty-something. Concerned more with video games than meaningful relationships, he’s a superhero only in his own mind. Except, of course, when he’s whooping Evil Ex Boyfriend ass Street Fighter-style in an effort to win the heart of his girlfriend Ramona Flowers (“It’s like Ramona Quimby, Age 8, except…flowers.”). This backbone of video game and music references propel the typical story of fresh-out-of-college semi-adults in love to another level. By the end of the series we’ve seen the full arc of a relationship through the filter of a seven level video game, and the bonus stage is just as sweet as you’d think it’d be.

Doctor Who: The End Of Time

This might seem unusual for a film blog to cover a tv show, but I feel like there are some areas of television that equate to, and even surpass film. LOST, Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Doctor Who, just to name a few. (spoilers and write up below the jump.)

The Top Movies Of The Past Decade

Well, here it is. The end of another decade. And this upcoming year is something special, apparently, because it’s going to end with a whole number and then a zero instead of a zero and then a whole number. Who knew.

A Clockwork Orange

I want to apologize on the outset for not being diligent with posting lately. When I set out to do this I promised myself I wouldn’t allow the project to get in the way of my school work, and with finals and term papers coming closer I was getting burnt out on writing and just needed to take a break. But I’m back, and with a backlog of films (both on and off The List) to review that will hopefully carry us until the New Year! After the jump I’ll discuss more of my plans for the blog and also maybe eventually talk about Clockwork Orange?

The Godfather

(the following post contains potential spoilers. reader discretion is advised.)

Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

“God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear, and in true health, through the purity and essence of our natural… fluids.”

Citizen Kane

(the following blog post contains spoilers. reader discretion is advised.)

Where The Wild Things Are

the following post contains possible spoilers for a movie still in theaters. read at your own discretion.

I’m breaking my own rules set in place for this blog just to talk about this movie, so you better listen up. Where The Wild Things Are is quite possibly the best movie this year. It is definitely the best movie this fall season, and it blows almost every other hotly anticipated movie so far this year out of the water. After the jump I will tell you why.