Released in 2012, Directed by Lorene Scafaria
Starring Kiera Knightley, Steve Carell, Martin Sheen
So this is a movie about the days leading up to the end of the world, breaking my stride for post-apocalypse, but it's also Kiera Knightley, and how can you not love anything she does? Intensely smart, witty, and achingly beautiful, she could make Honey Boo Boo bearable.
It's also got Steve Carell, another favorite of mine from the Daily Show Farm League, who finally proves he can play more than a shmuck, though he only just starts to shake the dumb guy robes about halfway through the movie. He seems a bit stiff in places unfortunately, but not in a Paul Reiser way, not that bad. I think he's just gotten so used to being a punchline that he needs a couple more movies like this to pull off a good dramatic role.
So what happens is, there's a huge mammoth asteroid headed straight for planet Earth, and everyone has just three weeks to live. So naturally, it's time to run out and steal big screen televisions and smash cars. Unless you're the guy who was just told he had six months to live with cancer, and now he's got three weeks before impact, so what do? Live it up and celebrate the End of Days, or hire a hitman to take yourself out? Some people, most people, choose to party up and suddenly restaurants are welcoming pets for half price specials and no one calls the cops when an orgy breaks out at table twelve. High school parties become bucket list events tossed up with fireworks and heroin, and more orgies. And some angry men are just plain angry so they run around smashing and setting fire to things while the world goes puddi.
But not our Steve (Dodge), no no, not our well behaved, kind-hearted guy next door. He wont do heroin or jump into an orgy because that's for bad people, and a modern Hollywood protagonist can no longer be a bad boy can he? Because you, dear audience, are not a bad boy are you? You would not do such things would you? Surely no, no. But your wife would. In fact, Dodge's wife freaks out and ditches him right at the start, so in his typical mild-mannered fashion, he puts on some vinyl until the riots reach his walls, then decides to take off for a road trip to visit his high school sweetheart. What else to do with the last days right? But his real genius is deciding to grab up his cute neighbor in the apartment next door, the lovely Kiera Knightley. Hey, I don't care how many drug-packed orgies are going down at Denny's, if Kiera Knightley is my neighbor and she's stuck with a jobless dunce for a roommate who doesn't even have a car to escape, I'm gonna whistle to the lass and hi-tail it outta town.
So off they go to find a few people they really want to say goodbye to before the world goes BOOM, and along the way there's comedy, drama, heartache, and romance. It's believable, funny, and warm. Super well-placed music like The Hollies "The Air That I Breathe" make the right statements.
Pretty unusual for an apocalypse flick, that you actually feel OK when it all ends.
Check out the soundtrack here
To be released in 2014; Directed by Tony Sebastian Ukpo
Starring Haruka Abe, Eke Chukwu, Junichi Kajioka
"From the dust to the great beyond, only we remain"
"1st film in a series of science fiction films from the Earth Future timeline created by Tony Sebastian Ukpo. All the films are set within the same universe and refer to each other, though differing in story, characters, and genre"
This highly anticipated Sci-fi is on my short list of must-see movies this year. In 2458 man is slowly rebuilding itself from the ruins, and out of the rubble come many different stories, and fates, like Babel. Three such fates are represented who will ultimately come together for what, well the teaser trailer and the producers are wisely mum on the details. I hate it when trailers give away the whole movie, so I'm a quick fan of the cryptic bit below. It looks a damn sight better than that Will Smith mess, anyway.
Check it out and tell your friends. And keep up with the Facebook page for more teasers and showtimes. This one looks promising.
Released in 2013, Directed by M Night Shymalan
Starring Jayden Smith, Will Smith
In the starring lineup of IMDB's casting, there's usually three actors listed. David Denman is listed as a starring lead, but he only appears for about 90 seconds. Maybe it's because he has the most interesting bit in the whole film. The rest is just Smith SR and Smith JR.
In a nutshell, this is a thousand years after the apocalypse that forced humans to leave Earth and survive in space. Soldiers become known as Rangers and Cypher Raige (Smith SR) is a hero and status symbol as one who feels no fear, rendering him invisible, a 'ghost', to monsters who can not see or hear, but can only sense fear. Kitai (Smith Jr) idolizes his father and gets top academic scores in the Ranger academy, but lacks the physical prowess to be advanced as a Ranger. His father takes him under his wing on a space mission, perhaps to sharpen his skills and help him realize his potential as Cypher's successor. Sounds good so far, but when the ship crash lands on Earth, on which they're told "everything here has evolved to kill humans", the rest of the movie's potential lies burning with the wreckage.
Father and son are the only survivors, and Cypher's legs are broken. Kitai is given a mission to find the tail and retrieve the distress beacon, since the ones in the cockpit were damaged in the crash. There's enough computer power for Cypher (I keep wanting to call him Dad) to stay in contact with his son and give one exposition after another so the viewer isn't completely lost. The only problem is, I'm probably making this movie sound much better than it is. In fact it's as predictable as anything Hollywood pumps out these days and it's basically I Am Legend all over again, with a lone Smith wandering around an abandoned Earth and pissing off everyone in the audience with his complete lack of wit or charisma.
Truth is I like M Night as a director, I thought the Last Airbender was great, and I was looking forward to seeing Jayden Smith play a lead role and see if he might be nearly as cool as his father, but twenty minutes into the movie you just want to smack the shit out of him. His father is the most respected Ranger on the force and Jayden, sorry, Kitai, constantly ignores his orders and nearly gets himself killed about every ten minutes. There's not an ounce of character development as he transgresses from stubborn apathetic pussy-wimp teenager to stubborn apathetic fearless, er, teenager. He relies completely on his hi-tech backpack and his father's advice, and you just wish he would improvise one damn thing for himself. After about 70 minutes, you still just want to smack the shit out of him because he still wont stop lying and disobeying the one guy trying to keep him alive.
Somehow, by the magic of Hollywood, the stubborn twat with the personality of a pizza box manages to evade a horde of baboons, giant birds, tigers, leeches, and I'm sorry am I spoiling it? Give me a break. It's a Hollywood movie from 2013. What would you expect besides a happy ending? This is a perfect example of why I prefer gritty family-unfriendly movies from before I was born. When Hollywood still had two big balls between W and D.
I'm not sure what amazes me more, the fact that M Night Shymalan could spend $130 million dollars on a barely 90 minute movie with barely two actors and one ship, or that one of the funniest and coolest actors of the 1990s could raise such an insufferable spoiled brat that he spends the whole movie coming across as nothing more than an insufferable spoiled brat. There's a reason this lost $70 million at the box office.
Still, if you're a big Will Smith fan, and he hasn't lost you in the last few years with crap like I am Legend, then you'll prob put this in your collection, on Blue Ray of course, so you can see where most of that $130 million went: into big fancy cameras and lots of compensating CGI.
Released in 2001 Directed by Abel Ferrara
Starring Willem Dafoe, Shanyn Leigh, Natasha Lyonne.
Ah, Willem DaFoe. The creepy smile of "Platoon", the throbbing sexual rib of "Antichrist". He's one of those actors that makes any movie intriguing just to know he's in it. And he's quite in this one. He's a painter, and lucky enough to spend the last day on Earth with Shanyn Leigh, an actress who spends most of the movie with Willem's hand up her everything. If you ever thought about how you'd want to spend the last day on Earth (And if you're on this blog, you surely have), there's little doubt that a sexual fantasy or five ran through your dirty mind. Well grab the popcorn, grab the family, and ditch the shame. Willem is here to get down for you.
