Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

Ready Player One

By 2 Comments

Apple Rating:

The year is 2045 in Columbus, Ohio.  Overpopulation has made housing space so limited people live in “The Stacks,” a labyrinth of trailers and cars stacked on top of each other – looking somewhat like a skyscraper junkyard.  To escape their humdrum lives, everyone spends as much time as possible in The OASIS a virtual reality universe.  The co-creator of this multimillion dollar world (Mark Rylance, as always, a wonderful addition to any movie) has died, but has left his fortune to the winner of a contest who can enter the OASIS and successfully solve three challenges to win the keys to the prize.  (There’s a but in the challenge and prize…think of Willie Wonka).  The evil CEO of IOI, an evil company, wants to win the prize and gain control of the OASIS and it’s incredible wealth.  A teenage gamer named Wade (Tye Sheridan) and his band of on-line friends race the clock to win the prize and beat the evil  CEO, who will stop at nothing to win the game. The story plays out in a virtual world of amazing diversity and a wealth of tidbits that will have anyone who’s lived since Atari first started video games remembering when.  How can you not love a movie that is chock full of cultural references from the 1970s and 1980s?  You will need to see this movie several times to catch them all including The Shining, Duran Duran, Say Anthing, The Iron Giant, Krull, the Bee Gees, Chucky and Back to the Future.  The movie is visualy stunning and the sequences in the virtual world seem very real.  Simon Pegg makes an appearance as a surprise character that I quite enjoyed.  Steven Speilberg does a great job with Ernest Cline’s best seller and has created a wonderful movie experience.  After a sreies of not-so-impressive movies, it’s nice to see one I can recommend to everyone!

Annihilation

By Leave a Comment

Apple Rating:

If you go to see “Annihilation” you will find an intriguing, and yet confusing, movie.  The action starts out slow and even seems a little disconnected, but don’t give up.  After the first half hour, it gets better!  The story involves Lena, a biologist played by Natalie Portman, whose husband went on a secret government mission.  He mysteriously returns after having gone missing for a year,  but seems to be dying.  Government agents kidnap them both and take them to a strange (and ultimately never defined) facility. It turns out he was sent into “The Shimmer,” some kind of alien enclosure that has grown from where a meteorite crashed to earth near a light house, and is slowly expanding.  Everyone who has gone into The Shimmer has disappeared except for Lena’s husband ( Oscar Isaac).  Lena decides to join an expedition into The Shimmer in order to find out what has happened to her husband and perhaps find a way to save him.  Some real strange things happen in The Shimmer: time passes quickly, electronics don’t seem to work, people do not seem to need food, and people and animals change and mutate in some very creative and bizarre ways, physically and mentally-prior teams seem to have gone crazy.  Where did The Shimmer come from?  If it contains an alien life form, what do they want?  Are they benign or deadly? Unfortunately, “Annihilation” doesn’t completely answer these questions. The picture leaves much of the background of what is going on undefined and undeveloped.  You are left with vague hints, and it seems like it is up to you to fill in the blanks.  The team of women, lead by Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh,, and with a great performance by Gina Rodriguez; offers a fresh approach to the composition, dynamic and goals of such teams in these sort of movies.  It does offer breath-taking special effects, imaginative scenery and an inventive ending; yet somehow, I was still left waiting for more.

Blade Runner 2049

By Leave a Comment

Apple Rating:

A sequel to a movie made 35 years ago?  The original “Blade Runner” was a detective movie, a film noir and a  science fiction movie rolled into one.  It was visually stunning and thought-provoking with an ending that people still talk about.  If you loved the original (and I did), then you are going to LOVE “Blade Runner 2049”.  Ryan Gosling is at his best as he plays a new blade runner for the LAPD, who unearths a secret that has the potential to start a war between replicants and humans.  This leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard ,who is reprised by Harrison Ford, a former blade runner, who has been missing for thirty years.  The secret is intriguing and Harrison Ford is spot on as the old blade runner in hiding.  If you didn’t see the first “Blade Runner,” and you are a big action movie person, this movie probably won’t be for you though.  Go see it on the big screen as the special effects are dazzling and the cinematography is amazing.  This is a highly intelligent and cerebral movie, and may or may not be popular at the box office.  However, just like the original, I think it is destined to be a cult classic.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

By Leave a Comment

Apple Rating:

The first 20 minutes of this movie is a breathtaking tour-de-force.  Using minimal dialogue, we learn the origin of the Thousand Planets and are introduced to an intriguing race of Avatar-like creatures who live in a shimmery paradise.  Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is quite a let-down.  Where to begin?  First of all, Dane Dehaan might be a very nice person, but he made a terrible Valerian.  I never once believed that he was a seasoned veteran agent (of what?) of nine years.  He didn’t really have any star appeal, and his performance was pretty bland.  He looks to be about fifteen ( I looked up his age and he is actually 31?!?).  The dialogue he and his partner, played by an equally insipid Cara Delevinge,  were given to speak was dull and uninspired, even when engaging in excruciatingly (un)sexy “banter.”  I was especially disappointed in Clive Owen, as I loved his performance in “City of Men.”  But he wasn’t given much to work with either.  In this role, he was reduced to a stock villain who had a lame reason for his actions.  Apparently the comic this is based on began in 1967, and what may have been innovative then, has been used so often in other pictures and media, it really pales for the modern viewer. On the plus side, the special effects are amazing and the world that Beeson has created was fascinating.  Rihanna’s performance was a welcome surprise.  If you are a fan, though, she wasn’t in the movie enough to be a major draw.  So the bottom line is, should you waste your money to see this movie, or should you wait until it is on HBO?  I would say, save your money and go enjoy “Spiderman” or  better yet “Wonder Woman.”

The Circle

By Leave a Comment

Apple Rating:

As a teacher, I worry about my students’ total immersion in social media.  Is instant access a good idea or is it potentially harmful to society?  “The Circle” attempts to get us to think about these questions.  Emma Watson, sans her English accent, plays Mae Holland, who lands a dream job at The Circle, the world’s most powerful social media company (Think Google+ Facebook+ Twitter).  The “bad guy” is the company’s founder played by the always likable Tom Hanks, who  proposes 24/7 world wide surveillance on everyone, everywhere, by the use of tiny little cameras that blend in with their surroundings.  Emma agrees to become the first person in the world to use these cameras as a way to ‘total transparency,’ to be under scrutiny at virtually all times, sort of like Jim Carrey in ‘The Truman Story,’ except the twist is she is a willing participant.  She is watched world-wide by everyone, except when she has three minute privacy breaks to use the restroom or is sleeping.  As you can imagine, there are some horrendous implications to this kind of public life with tragic results.   John Boyega was so wonderful in the new Star Wars movie, but he doesn’t have much to do in this one.  I would have loved to see more of him.  Apparently, The Circle was Bill Paxton’s last film, and he is interesting in a small role as Mae’s father.  I found the topic really interesting, but the movie itself moves slowly and really doesn’t pick up until the end. ‘The Truman Story’ was a much better movie; I would recommend re-watching that and wait until you can see this one on the small screen.