Hercules

We're starting out with the 12 Labors of Hercules? Sweet! Wait, what? We're bypassing the hydras and impenetrable lions and grounding Hercules in reality? Awwwwww.....raspberries. Why does every fantasy movie have to get real and just a little dark? Can't they just be big, dumb fun anymore?

Wish I Was Here

I liken this movie to a sketch or rough draft: it's not completely fleshed out, but it has some interesting ideas. There was an abundance of Scrubsy zaniness--Rabbi watching YouTube, kids duct tapped to chairs, supermarket fistfight, cosplay, Turk. It didn't always contribute to the flow of the story, so at times I wanted Zach Braff to tilt his head and look up...imagining these odd tangents. You have to paint the broad strokes yourself: failed actor home-schools kids, reconnects with family, makes peace with dying father. That's where I would start, but what the fork do I know?

Snowpiercer

This is a film Terry Gilliam would make, go over budget on, have taken away by a studio, throw a tantrum over, then release independently. In short: it's weird. The good weird. People are riding on a train in a dystopian ice age. The train represents society and (literally) the passage of time, as the passengers live on the train. People are separated by rail cars: poorest in the back, richest in the front, and everything in between--schools, foliage, water, sushi, dance clubs. But, with any good revolution, the downtrodden must revolt, disrupt the status quo, and derail the train.  

Boyhood

Filmed over 12 years with the same collective of actors--the child actors mature into young adults, the adult actors become a little more weathered with each passing year. That by itself was fascinating to watch. It's not a longitudinal documentary & it doesn't have a traditional story structure, but you feel like you're being given a glimpse into the development (mentally & physically) of a young boy. He is witness to divorce, alcoholism, abuse--what has unfortunately become the contemporary family bullshoot. But you watch it all unfold as well, like a concerned 3rd party, a voyeur into someone else's life. 

Apes @Dawn

Probably the most unexpectedly unique thing about this movie is that it's about apes. The humans are secondary. Unlike a modern superhero movie where you wait almost an hour just to see the forking costume, the story focuses on the tribe of apes. There's power struggles, familial tension, combat that is brutal and emotional. You almost forget you're watching something a team of tech nerds created on iMacs. They captured the eyes of their subject, which is a difficult task for any artist to accomplish. There's pain and anger, probably taken directly from the motion capture actors. Andy Serkis 4eva.

Transformers...Again

What the fork is a Transformer? I watched the cartoon as a kid, I'm 4 movies deep, and I have no idea what these things are. They're aliens from planet Cybertron. Great! But they're also robots. Robots that can change into cars and planes and split. And they have creators: ancient beings that want to destroy them...like Prometheus. The more I watch these movies, the more I wonder if a) story ideas are transcribed in drug-fueled staff meetings or b) scripts are generated randomly by a Micheal Bay super computer. A sexy computer with tight pants and pouting lips.