Interstellar

If you were going to make a movie about Relativity and time travel, you'd start with a few building blocks.  You'd get some good science and data to start with:  check.  You'd get some great visual effects and sounds:  check.  You'd get Christopher Nolan to direct this galaxy/mind bending concept;  check.

You'd also pencil in a budget of $165 million to land some A-Listers like Matthew McConaghey, Anne Hathaway and Matt Damon (yes!)  That's a good formula.

McConaghey plays Cooper, a dust bowl farmer at some bleak future date.  As the old joke goes, It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.  For a guy raising 2 kids as a single parent, his heart is not really in it.    He does have a slightly closer relationship to his androgoneously named daughter Murph.

As the dust is piling up, Murph and Coop discover a Jumaji-style puzzle that leads them to a secret launch site.  Coop just happens to be ... a trained astronaut.  How convenient!  No time to waste - an awesome jump cut to a rocket launch and, we're off.

Once in space, their mission is to travel through a wormhole to another galaxy, avoid the Black Hole named Gargantuan and minimize the effects of relativity, which is slowing down time for them while the people Left Behind age quicker.  Time is an expendable supply, like food and water.   Lots of monologue-ing as Coop pilots thorough space about the important of children, leaving a legacy, etc.   Kind of like another driver monologue

As with Inception, there's not much need explaining the plot because you probably wouldn't follow it any better.    Suffice it to say, travel to another dimension is a long trip.  Settle in for the 2:49 run time and enjoy the ride.  Here, there and everywhere.

The whole premise was very Speilberg-ish:  the quest to return home (ET), and the realistic future (Minority Report) .  Of course, the main parallels are to 2001:  A Space Odyssey which are quite clear.    Good company to be in.

* * * 1/2 of 4

The Company Man

Who says creativity is not valued in our society?  This is a trailer for an FBI training film on the dangers of Economic Espionage.  It looks like it had a sufficient budget to make it.  Interesting how our tax dollars are spent.

Note the geeky sap and his equally square wife gleefully fingering the cash before it all comes crashing in.



In the words of FBI Assistant Director Randall Coleman,

This spring, the FBI released a new threat awareness film dramatizing the risks of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets to the American economy. Called The Company Man: Protecting America’s Secrets, this 37-minute film is based on a trade secrets case recently investigated by the FBI. In the real-life case, a group of conspirators tried to recruit a veteran employee to steal the trade secrets they needed to build a competing plant in China. The film will raise the awareness of audiences about the threat of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets and help organizations understand the indicators to watch for so they proactively detect attempts by insiders and foreign agents to illicitly acquire trade secrets and intellectual property. These showings will also encourage viewers to report suspicious activity to the FBI, and help the SPCs build relationships with contacts in local industry and academia. Copies of The Company Man DVD have been shipped to the FBI’s network of SPCs, who are showing the film and handing out educational materials during in-person screenings. The SPCs answer questions from audience members and are available for short discussions about economic espionage and theft of trade secrets afterwards.

Trainspotting (1996)

A nice quirky comedy about heroin addicts -  not words you hear in the same sentence often.  But it works.  Reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs - it could have been made on a stage.    Another one from the lost decade of the 90s.

Much of the action takes place in an apartment or a hotel room with a very stripped and vivid design.  Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) has some fun as well with his "toilet scenes"  While the movie has a central theme of the delight of drug use/abuse, it operates at a level slightly outside of reality, just like the drugged characters.

My favorite part was the extended riff on the bad part of being Scottish - "we've been colonized by Wankers"

Worth a look * * 1/2

Fifty Shades of Grey

Just in time for Valentine's Day 2015

Freedom '90

This old music video was directed by David Fincher.  An early work, but the themes and visual effects are very strong.  Kind of like Pearl Jam, how did I sleep through all of this in the 90s?

Pearl Jam 20

If anyone knows a good music story, it's longtime Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe.  Also a noted filmaker, he combines his talents to show the history of Mother Love Bone, better known to you as Pearl Jam.    It's a nice review of the 90s, reminded me of a 30 for 30 episode.

Not so much of the Grunge/Seattle scene is here.  That's where they started but not where they ended up.  There's a nice growth arc of the band, showing their coming into their own, with the help of a mentor, Neil Young.

The different personalities come out with the band members:  Stone & Jeff (the original 2), Matt the drummer, Mike on guitar and of course Eddie Vedder on vocals.  And there's a nice tribute to the original Mother Love Bone vocalist, Andy Wood.

Gone Girl

With the contrived roles of husband and wife here, it's not easy to see if this is a serious study or a satire or fictionalized version of life.  The serialized blog-ishness of the diary coupled with the Amazing Amy subtext certainly makes a case for the latter.  Based on the book by Gillian Flynn, a writer for Entertainment Weekly, definitely gives it a breezy feel.

But throw director David Fincher at it and it all comes together well.  His cinematic touches of the watchful cat (Tyler?), the whisky glass, the foreboding shed, were very Fight Club like.  Nice.

Rosamund Pike as Amy is the perfect Ice Queen.  As a friend would say, she must be really good in bed for a man to want to be with her.  Two mean actually.  Ben Affleck plays the Michael Douglas type of husband and Neil Patrick Harris the hapless has-been.  Reality TV plays a major character a well.  Find Amy!  Call 1-855-4-AMY-TIPS!

The movie is an improvement on the book with the stronger roles of Margo, Tanner and Detective Boney.  I also liked the visual gothic shadows and the general fatness of middle America.  Real life in the Heartland is no walk in Central Park.

* * * * of 4