After making a few movies with budgets in the 9 figure range, writer/director/producer extraordinaire Jon Favreau scales things down to his indie film making roots. Chef is a fun little movie about man who puts his life back together one sandwich at a time.

Favreau plays Carl Casper, a well known chef who’s been headlining a popular restaurant for the better part of a decade. When he gets called out by a food critic for becoming a burned out star, Carl publicly confronts him and the meltdown goes viral on the internet. Spun further into a loop, he retreats and struggles with where his life is going.

Chef is an easy movie to digest and enjoy. It’s a cute personal growth and redemption story shown in a unique environment. Favreau went to great lengths to show the love and craftsmanship for the culinary arts. There are many food montages sprinkled throughout the movie, usually shown as Carl’s safe retreat from life. By figuring out food, he figures out himself and the people he loves.

Beyond the work that consumes him, is his family. Ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara) and his 10 year old son, Percy (Emjay Anthony, who is quite good). He often puts his fatherhood aside in favor for work and as a result, doesn’t really know his son. Carl losing his job and looking for a new one turns out to be the best thing to happen to him as it gives him a change to get connect and teach Percy for the first time.

Chef is a nice return to simple, straight forward movie making for Jon Favreau. He knows how to tell a good story, cast it with great people and make it look really good regardless with how much money he has to work with. Fair warning though: have a good meal before you watch Chef. Getting hungry while watching is a serious issue otherwise!

I heard Edge of Tomorrow was really good, but like most people I never went out to see it. Tom Cruise in a action/sci-fi movie is usually a good bet, plus this movie was directed by Doug Liman who directed and produced three of the Bourne movies. The guy knows his action movies. With that pedigree, this movie is awesome! Right up to the end.

Tom Cruise plays Cage, a military officer doing PR for the military during the alien invasion by “Mimics”. These large, vicious, shape shifting quadrupeds are devastating the human population. It takes an advanced exo-skeleton suit for mankind to have even the slightest chance of killing more than one. Cage gets thrown into the thick of combat and through a fight with one, gains the ability to reset time every time he dies. He’s brought back right when he wakes up in boot camp. Confused at what’s happened and what to do, he meets Special Forces Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) in the field. When he describes his new powers, she tells him to find her when he wakes up again. When he does, she explains what happened and how they can stop the invasion together.

So time travel is the main hook of the movie and it’s handled really well. Cage is the only one who remembers each day, so he gets to know everyone he meets really well over the course of his resets (I figure he does it at least 300 times). So while they don’t know Cage as they only know him for a day or so, he comes to know them as friends. I’m really impressed by the structure of the script and editing as they repeat things just enough to set the stage and wisely show straight continuity (the farm house scene being the best example) to keep things moving and interesting. There’s some great action scenes, some good laughs, great characters (Rita especially), everything you could want in a movie like this. And then the last five minutes happen.

It’s atrocious. It makes no sense whatsoever with how the teleportation ability is established. It breaks the rules and robs everything the characters were working for. The characters essence is completely thrown in the garbage after all of the hard work and planning  of the production. It simply creates a Hollywood happy ending for the sake of having a trite Hollywood happy ending. With how good the movie is up to the ending (I’ve never read the book either), I can only assume a stupid, redundant studio executive trying to justified his/her job forced this asinine ending upon the film makers.

I had a blast with this movie until the end. It completely mars the experience. The true ending is there too, just roll the credits after the final explosion and you have the perfect beginning, middle and end. I would love nothing more to throw nothing but praise at Edge of Tomorrow, but the end annoys me beyond belief, it’s horrible writing. I still think you should see it though.

I heard the buzz about Snowpiercer quite some time ago. It was making the festival and comic/sci fi convention rounds and getting a lot of praise thrown at it. I made a note to see it and forgot about it until it came up on my list. My only regret is not seeing it sooner.  Full of great ideas and execution, Snowpiercer is one to remember.

A climate change experiment goes horribly wrong sending Earth into an ice age. A man named Wilson knew it was going to happen and spent his time and resources on an elaborate train system designed to keep its passengers alive. Not many people make it onto the train (around 1000, I think. The train is about 60 cars long,) and a class system is in place to keep order. It’s broken up between First Class, Economy and what could only be called “cargo”. The closer to the front of the train you are, they better off you are.

Snowpiercer is a really great sci-fi/thriller/action hybrid that rolls up social, economic and environmental issues all into one thought provoking, narrow ecosystem. We join the people in the back of the train on the cusp of the 18th year anniversary of the great freeze. This train has been running on it’s expansive global track for that long and it’s a really rough existence. Through out the movies’ two hour run time we learn how everything works and why the systems are in place. Curtis, who got on the train when he was 17, is the leader of the revolution. The back of the train has had enough of being treated like cattle and come up with a plan to get to the engine to take over train.

To say anymore would really give away the great moments and reveals of this fascinating world. There is a great international cast of characters that make this movie work so well. The production is fantastic with amazing car designs that range from ghettos to factories to luxury businesses, living quarters and entertainment areas. They really sell this unique world through its design. It’s a wonder to see how the only people on the planet left alive live in a segregated and physically narrow (maybe 30 feet across?) existence. There’s some truly great action scenes as well and great care in the  direction (I tip my hat to Joon-ho Bong) make it a pleasure to watch. There is  a remarkable sense of claustrophobic expanse (that might make more sense after you see the movie) from beginning to end.

Clearly you can tell I loved Snowpiercer. It asks you to suspend your disbelief quite a bit though, so a lot could bother some people. While a good amount of detail and answers are given by the end, it doesn’t spell out everything for you. There’s no mention on how this thing was built, where it started and how anyone even got on it. How does this train stay in perpetual motion and where do all the resources come from? The ending is rather divisive as well. Personally, I think it works and really fits with what was going on. The movie really just gives you enough to go on and hopes that you go along for the ride.  I was on board pretty much from the start so it worked for me.

The more I think about it, the more parallels I see between Snowpiercer and the first Matrix movie. If you are up for jumping down a rabbit hole like that again, by all means follow my lead and go ahead feet first and with eyes wide open.

Some quick hits for season!

Fun Size is a cute Halloween movie. Wren is forced to take out her little trouble maker brother, Albert, out for Halloween (so she misses a very important party). For some reason Wren isn’t popular in high school (despite looking like a super model) so that party is a really important one for her social life. Cue crisis when she loses track of him and spends the night looking for him. It’s an easy watch with some weird set ups (Albert makes friends with a convenience store clerk, played by the great Thomas Middleditch, which is odd, but they do mention it so it kinda works anyway). I liked it more than I thought I would. Rated PG-13 because “shit” is said a few times.

Final Destination 5 tries to keep Death in business and it sort of succeeds. These movies are really like the Supernatural Saw franchise so it’s really hard to get this formula fresh. There’s only so many times you can make bolts and other restraining equipment magically loosen and still be scary. They came up with some good kill scenarios, but a heavy reliance on CG effects make them less effective (it came out in 2011, smack dab in the 3D craze so you get a lot of cheesy things flying at camera too). I really liked the end though. Cool idea to tie it into the franchise and it’s really brutal. Effective finale.

Deliver Us From Evil was disappointing as far as horror/scares go, but it was a good, well told story. I like Eric Bana, he’s often a great lead and he can pull of being a new NYC cop. The haunting scenes are surprisingly tame and the last encounter is pretty disappointing. The case itself is fun to watch unfold though. Nice way to start the Prime Evil with a domestic abuse call which leads to a few other odd cases that string things together. Some quality direction, make up work and a solid cast make this a good, but not great movie.

Why anyone thought they needed to remake 2004’s District B13 is beyond me. I guess Luc Besson found a few days to churn this out for someone who had a few bucks to spend. They reeled in Paul Walker as the lead and invited David Belle back for another round (there was a sequel in 2009).

Brick Mansions takes place in Detroit. A large slum has been walled off from the rest of the city where crime runs rampant. An undercover cop (Paul Walker) gets help from an ex-con (David Belle) to try and stop a crime lord’s plan to level downtown Detroit. District B13 is most notable for introducing the world to parkour. David Belle is one of the pioneers of the sport and the free running stunts and choreography gave action fans something new and exciting to watch. The same is on display here with Belle strutting his stuff, something I’m sure Jackie Chan is impressed with.

If you’ve never seen DB13, then what’s here could seem pretty fresh to you. It’s an average action movie in general and RZA being cast as the main villain doesn’t do the movie any favors. While not his worse performance, RZA isn’t a good actor so there’s not a big well of praise to dip into for him. There’s some great stunt work and fight choreography here and there but there’s not much else to raise this movie to its above average status.

Sinister is a decent ghost/demon horror movie. The writer/director Scott Derrickson is a horror movie maker who’s been quite busy in the genre for the passed decade or so. Sinister stars Ethan Hawke as Ellison Oswalt, a true-crime novelist. It’s been awhile since his last hit novel and he moves his family into a home that’s had a rather gruesome murder in it to help him write about what happened there. He finds a box of 8mm film in the attic which gives him huge leads on the crimes he wants to write about. It also awakens a demon that pulls Ellison and his family into the darkness of a decades long killing path, If Ellison can make it through, he has the novel of a lifetime in his hands.

Very easy on the gore front, Sinister goes more for the creepy scares. Lot’s of shadows, things that go bump in the night type of stuff. The movie is well put together and has some good ideas in it, but it’s a bit long in the tooth. It slowly builds up until the last 10 minutes or so where everything comes together. An angle with Elllison’s son is started near the beginning and then completely dropped in favor of focusing solely on Ellison. In fact after that, the son is basically forgotten for the rest of the movie. There’s some great tension build up throughout, but the “monster” of the movie looks like a professional wrestler more than a demon so his visual impact undermines his impressive stalking capabilities

I thought the end was pretty creative, but it’s an easy movie to forget when one or two of these types of demon/possession movies  come out every single year. It’s a packed field with Insidious, Mama, The Conjuring, Paranormal Activity and all of their sequels. It gets hard to remember which ones I’ve seen and which one is new.  ‘Tis the season for this kind of movie, but I found Sinister to be a middle of the road affair.

I like seeing Wes Anderson movies because no one makes them like he does. He has a unique voice and vision that is all his own. It’s like seeing a Quentin Tarantino movie, you know you are in for something unique which is half the fun. The Grand Budapest Hotel is Anderson’s 8th full length movie and possibly my favorite.

GBH is the tale of Gustave, a legendary concierge of the hotel between the first and second world wars. We watch as the story is relayed to a writer in the 1960’s by Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who became Gustave’s protege and best friend. It’s a story packed with adventure, love and murder run by some of the most memorable characters (and actors) around.

This movie is an absolute joy to look at. A color palette rarely seen in this age of orange and teal combined with wild set design, crisp costumes and some of the most meticulous direction and staging. Wes Anderson sees his movies long before he films them and somehow manages to get it all out of his head for others to see. It’s almost like watching a doll house come to life. Wes has somehow come up with this style that is like live action animation.  His actors seem to move in a special way for his films.

As much as I gush about the visual brilliance of GBH, the acting (and amazing characters) need just as much praise. Wes Anderson likes using the same actors from project to project and quite a few return for bit parts (Ed Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson). Ralph Fiennes as Gustave is simply brilliant. The manic pace and line delivery never stops with him. F. Murray Abraham as the grown Zero holds a certain gentlemanly glow and pride that Gustave would have been over the moon about. Tony Revolori as young Zero is the epitome of a Wes Anderson character actor. While Gustave and Zero are the stars of this universe, they are surrounded by greatness. Willem Dafoe as the murderous Jopling, Adrien Brody as the angry and hilarious Dmitri and the always lovely cadence of Jeff Goldblum as Kovacs.

Wes Anderson movies are very polarizing. You either love it or hate it. You understand what it is or you don’t get it at all. The Grand Budapest Hotel hits all my marks with phenomenal dialog, distinct and memorable characters and actors who can pull it all off. Unique production that shows what masters of the craft can do and sumptuous directing. A story that is new, weird, funny and touching. Love every bit of it, I know I’ll be coming back to The Grand Budapest Hotel for years to come.

Four movies into this franchise and it’s more of an endurance test to get to the end. The quality has always been all over the place, from a decent start, to a horrific sequel to a much better third movie. Age of Extinction feels tired and dragged out in every conceivable way.

The set up is mostly the same. The Autobots are in hiding after the events of the last movie as the battle in Chicago turned the nation against these aliens. When a new threat arises, the Autobots are needed to fight again. Most of the human cast is new with cookie cutter characters who more or less just run and scream when necessary.

Everything feels very paint by numbers, it follows the Transformers mold without anything really added to it. Sure there are new characters, but they all do the same thing. One city is replaced by another for the last action scene. Optimus Prime is completely unstoppable as he repeatedly gets up from devastating damage. Massive liberties with the laws of physics. Action scenes that are like watching a circus as there is so much going on at once that you don’t know what your supposed to be looking at. Computer generated images just running into each other. It gets exhausting. The quality of CG also varies quite a bit. The third movie has some truly stunning work from start to finish while Age tends to have compositing issues. While the robots usually blend and match well with the live action, it can get sloppy which is distracting. Direction wise, it’s Michael Bay so you know exactly what to expect (there are some sweet explosions).

Somehow they managed to stretch this out to over 2 and a half hours when it has no business going passed 2. It just keeps going and going and going.  I think not making a movie as bad as the second one is an achievement, but there’s nothing here worth paying attention to. Somehow they keep pulling in massive amount of money, so until more people get bored and move on, I don’t think there’s an end in sight.