When science fiction wants to present thoughtful subtext, it can’t go broad.  The freedom to construct a world has to come down to precise themes.  The world can be derivative (or “inspired by” if you want to be charitable), and the themes can be universal, but they have to be cohesive.  In casting a wide net for influences, Joseph Kosinski‘s Oblivion mashes-up the ideas from better movies, and doesn’t put them towards abstraction or ambiguity, but towards ambivalence.  The film is more concerned with its gorgeous visuals and rousing score while the emotions become lost in a shuffle of reveals and fragmented ideas.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were a cinematic match made in heaven.  The duo began collaborating on movies in 1939, and worked together off and on for over three decades.  Though their films were credited to both as the writers, directors and producers, Powell was more of the director of the two, while Pressburger was the writer.  Though their works have been spotlighted by the Criterion collection since they started making laserdiscs, they are the sort of filmmakers that will never be as well known as David Lean or Danny Boyle, but are arguably among the best – if not the best – filmmakers that England ever produced.  1943’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a strong contender for their greatest film.  Criterion has just released it on Blu-ray and our review follows after the jump.

There have been many attempts to marry the TV and gaming worlds with interactive features that encourage viewers to immerse fully in a fantasy universe.  Most don’t take.  But the Syfy channel and game developer Trion Worlds are betting big — like a reported $100 million big — that their collaboration of science fiction TV show and first person shooter MMO will turn out to be a hit.

Defiance is set a mere 33 years in the future, where humans now live side by side with a number of alien races.  The world looks exceptionally different than it does now, with alien technology augmenting our science, and something called the “Pale Wars” destroying much of the planet.  St. Louis, it turns out, is one of the only refuges of civilization left, but those within its gated walls still have plenty to fear.  Hit the jump for more on this new series, and whether it’s worth a watch.

Has everyone recovered from the Mad Men premiere?  So many mixed emotions this week about that double-dose first episode this season — some great moments, but a dark way to open the new season.  This week though, “Collaborators” settled back down into the show we maybe expect it to be.  We actually spent some time in the Sterling Cooper Draper (Pryce?) offices, and were treated therein to a Reverse Don effect.  There was still plenty of Don staring off into the past and into keyholes (Jon Hamm directed this episode and did an admirable job) and lots of questions about the future, but we also got a healthy dose of office politics and another comparison of Pete’s life versus Don’s.  Hit the jump for why “if you come within 50 feet of this house and so much as open your fly to urinate, I will destroy you.”

Reading the description of a film–and I’m not just talking the marketing spin, but even an honest informative blurb–oftentimes results in false preconceptions about a movie.  That Obscure Object of Desire is just such a film.  “Consumed by his obsessive desire to possess her, his feelings progressively change from overflowing passion to a self-destructive hatred,” inspires visions in tone (if not in content) along the lines of Fatal Attraction.  Not so.

That having been said, such preconceptions did not destroy my enjoyment of the film at all.

Something about Da Vinci’s Demons, a new 8-part Starz miniseries, felt very familiar as I was watching its first two episodes.  The handsome, fit young man, the flowing blouse (chest always exposed), the leather “tunic” that really just looks like a regular modern leather jacket, a portrait of a genius as a young, lusty rogue — yes, I’ve got it: it’s Shakespeare In Love!  Tom Riley, as Leonardo da Vinci, is particularly reminiscent of Joseph Fiennes in his portrayal of a young and lusty William Shakespeare, and it’s neither a wholly good or wholly bad thing.  Hit the jump for my preview of this upcoming drama (which is worth a watch) and why, as it says, “history is a lie.”

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.  Disconnect opens today in limited release.]

Modern technology has radically changed the way we interact socially. Go stand in a line, and I guarantee at least a few people will have whipped out their smartphones and are happily ignoring the world around them. We don’t call anymore; we text as if that were the same as a discussion. As author, psychologist, and MIT professor Sherry Turkle recently noted in a New York Times editorial this past April, “we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.” Henry Alex Rubin‘s Disconnect ignores this contemporary issue, and sacrifices worthwhile social commentary for mere cautionary tales. Disconnect has all the dramatic weight of a driver’s education video, but then pads its thin plots with three loosely-connected narratives, two of which feature character actions so ludicrous that the movie becomes almost completely disconnected from reality.

Football may currently be the most popular sport in America, but baseball will always be “America’s Pastime”.  It was our first widely popular sport, and it contained both the best of our abilities and the worst of our perceptions.  Segregation in baseball was never official.  It was an unwritten rule agreed upon by the owners and “enforced” by the commissioner.  Baseball, in its rules, is a pure sport, but in its practice, was tainted by institutional racism.  Jackie Robinson didn’t just break the color barrier in a sport; he completed the greatness of America’s Pastime. He is a transformative figure, and in 42, writer-director Brian Helgeland pays complete and utter devotion to Robinson’s legend.  Strangely, despite his attempt to paint Robinson’s accomplishment as a mythic battle between good and evil, the story never feels larger than a TV movie.

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.  The Place Beyond the Pines opens tomorrow in wide release.]

Writer-director Derek Cianfrance‘s The Place Beyond the Pines is a rich, multi-layered narrative dripping with fatalism, guilt, honor, and no easy answers. It is an epic family saga that defies easy explanation, and rebels against the structure of a traditional narrative. His gripping tale shows split-second connections that last lifetimes, and old sins that reach across generations. Cianfrance has created a remarkable work that reaches a grand ambition with an intimate tale. And I have to tell you why it works without divulging the twists and turns of its razor-sharp script.

The line between opinion and truth on news outlets has been getting awfully blurry lately.  As corporations dictate the commentaries and presumptions delivered by major media outlets, journalistic integrity seems like a thing of the past.  It’s amidst this cloudy backdrop of subjective news sources that Touchstone releases the Blu-ray of Michael Mann’s critically-acclaimed 1999 drama The Insider – a film that examines the perils of allowing corporations to control the news.  The film, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, resonates today more than ever as it pulls back the curtain on contemporary journalism and the sleaziness of the tobacco industry.  More on Touchstone’s Blu-ray of The Insider after the jump.

The films of prolific South Korean director Kim Ki-duk have delved into some of the ugliest sides of human nature, as well as some of the divine.  He’s an auteur capable of being both grotesquely controversial (The Isle) and peacefully introspective (Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring).  The sharp divide in style and themes meets head-on in his new film, Pieta, a challenging tale of revenge and motherly love that knows no boundaries.  Not even the gross ones.  The film won the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice International Film Festival and now its hitting the States.  Proceed past the jump for my review of Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta.

In 1973, Michael Crichton wrote and directed Westworld, a sci-fi classic that went on to influence The Terminator, Crichton’s own Jurassic Park and one of the best episodes of The Simpsons.  A few years later TV creators Richard T. Heffron, Mayo Simon, and George Schenck made a sequel that remains mostly forgotten.

Futureworld does attempt to take the Westworld concept in an interesting direction.  Had it worked, it’s not hard to envision a world in which the Westworld saga became a series of increasingly bizarre chapters ala Planet of the Apes.  The ingredients are there.  Cool robots, counter culture undertones and the awesome camp inherent in 1970s theme park design.  Unfortunately, despite some lofty goals, Futureworld is kind of a slog.  Hit the jump for our review of Futureworld on Blu-ray.

It’s hard not to see Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln as the Oscar film that didn’t.  The movie was nominated for twelve academy awards, but it only went home with two (though one was for Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in the titular role).  It was trumped by Argo, and though comparing the two is sort of like equating apples and turnips, Lincoln is the better film, and perhaps was underrated for being another in a long line of great Spielberg film.  Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and a ton of great character actors co-star in this story of the passage of the 13^th amendment.  Our review of the Blu-ray follows after the jump.

Since the Mad Men Season Six screeners were sent out to reviewers, series creator Matthew Weiner has kept an iron fist wrapped tightly around any spoilers (which, for him, means pretty much everything).  Maybe he’s earned that right, but it means that until now, no one has been able to speak one specific word about the return of this cultural juggernaut of a show.  I am breathing a sigh of relief to finally talk about all of the redacted things, because there are many.  This two hour movie-like premiere threw in everything about the series, touching on every major person and every theme we’ve come across over the past six years.  It’s no small feat, and the writing (Weiner wrote the premiere) and directing (by Scott Hornbacher) were as top-notch as ever.  So where exactly do we find Don now, after that suffocatingly bleak end to Season Five?  Hit the jump to find out what you see when you die.

After an exciting premiere, Game of Thrones slowed down a little this week and relied on a lot of exposition (but no trademark sexposition!)  Things jumped around quite a bit, checking in on everyone except for Dany and Stannis, which was fairly mind-boggling.  Adding to that, we met quite a few new people.  It’s at times like these I wonder about you non-book readers.  I’m excited to see the faces of familiar characters, whereas I can only imagine most people watching are thinking, “who’s this new, unwashed bearded guy?  I was just starting to get the other 39 unwashed, bearded guys straight!”  Actually occasionally I feel that way, too.  Anyway, this week we swirled all around the Seven Kingdoms and came out knowing a lot more than we did, without really knowing too much.  Hit the jump, I have lemon cakes!