Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s a Gummy Worm Hole. He’s the…

Vidiot

Week of February 17, 2017

Constellations are really star gangs. First up…

 
Arrival

Oddly enough, alien abductions decreased around the same time human waistlines increased.

So our girth could be the reason the UFOs in this sci-fi film decided to land instead.

When alien spacecraft strategically position themselves around the globe, a senior military official (Forest Whitaker) recruits a linguist professor, Louisa (Amy Adams), to commune with the visitors.

Partnered with a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner), Louisa begins to decrypt the cephalopod’s pictorial form of communication, all the while suffering from vivid dreams of a dying daughter she has never met.

Meanwhile, the world’s superpowers prepare to annihilate them if their purpose is not uncovered.

With its cerebral stance on an alien incursion, Arrival challenges the status quo sci-fi shoot’em ups. Its violence simmers in the background, while its foreground dazzles with an astounding time-travel tale concerning the human condition.

Incidentally, the sooner we decode their language the sooner we’ll understand their Tweets.  Green Light

 
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Under Trump’s administration troops can look forward to fighting a lot closer to home.

However, the GIs in this drama are just visiting Texas, not invading it.

Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) and the rest of Bravo Squad will be honored during the Cowboys’ Thanksgiving halftime show for an act of bravery that went viral.

Meanwhile, backstage, their sergeant (Garrett Hedlund) works with a producer (Chris Tucker) to get the rescue of officer Shroom (Vin Diesel) made, and his men paid.

When the halftime spectacle starts, however, Billy’s PTSD flashbacks of Iraq and his sister (Kristen Stewart) cause him to question the war.

The troops hustling for funding is the most intriguing segment of Ang Lee’s eye-catching critique of modern hero worshipping, while Vin Diesel’s turn as the philosophical sergeant is the most insufferable.

Incidentally, with their stanch allegiance, violent tendencies and love of face-paint, sports fans would make ideal soldiers.  Yellow Light

 
Bleed for This       

Boxing isn’t that dangerous; it’s the only sport you don’t need a jockstrap to play.

In fact, the pugilist in this sports-drama wasn’t paralyzed anywhere near a ring.

Vinny Paz (Miles Teller) is a junior welterweight who can’t make his division so his father (Ciarán Hinds) hires Tyson’s old trainer Kevin Rooney (Aaron Eckhart) to assist.

While his father doesn’t approve of pushing his son into a new weight class, Vinny’s junior middleweight world championship changes all that.

So, too, does the car accident that leaves him with a medical halo screwed into his skull. But even that’s isn’t enough to keep Vinny from the ring.

The mediocre retelling of the amazing recovery that took the boxing community by surprise in the early nineties, this true story’s charm lies in its dedicated performances, not in its timeworn underdog prizefighter narrative.

Anecdotally, the next weight class in boxing after heavyweight is sumo.  Yellow Light

The Edge of Seventeen

You know you’re turning seventeen when your parents get you luggage for your birthday.

However, the senior in this dramedy is apt to get nothing from her widowed mom.

Falling out of favour with her mother (Kyra Sedgwick) and brother (Blake Jenner) after her father died while in her company, the only people cynical Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) has left is her best friend (Haley Lu Richardson) and her high school teacher (Woody Harrelson).

But when her BFF hooks up with her bro, it sends Nadine into a tailspin that causes her to stalk her crush and crush the nerd who has feelings for her.

With all of the heartbreak, humour and humiliation of the high school experience as well as a career defining performance from Steinfeld and a sardonic script, this comical coming-of-age tale encapsulates adolescents in all its awkwardness.

Unfortunately, all those people you hate in school end up becoming your co-workers.  Green Light

***Milky-Wayfarer***

Contact

The scariest thing about meeting aliens is that they could have bigger guns than us.

Smartly, the aliens in this sci-fi film are transporting a single humanoid to them.

Subsidized by an enigmatic billionaire (John Hurt) after her boss (Tom Skerritt) cuts her government funding, Dr. Arroway (Jodie Foster) is allowed to continue her research into extraterrestrials, which proves fruitful when a coded message arrives from space.

Once deciphered, the data details how to construct a device capable of transporting a passenger across the universe. When word gets out, religious zealots successfully stop the first attempt. But another launch with Dr. Arroway aboard is successful.

While the reveal of the aliens in this adaptation of Carl Sagan’s novel is anticlimactic, the philosophical preamble to the final interaction is so engrossing the unorthodox ending is forgivable, even commendable.

Besides, real aliens would most likely be microscopic organisms…attached to gigantic cephalopods.

He’s an Airlock-Smith. He’s the…

Vidiot













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