Ed's Review Dot Com

Marvel Studios,

Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Judy Greer, T.I., David Dastmalchian, Wood Harris, Michael Douglas

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is just getting out of prison, and he misses his daughter. He’s determined to go straight, but he shortly finds that his ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer) and her new guy, cop Paxton (Bobby Cannavale) and those who might give him a regular job, don’t get along very well with ex-cons. So out of desperation, Scott is convinced to try one last heist. But he’s been tricked into crossing paths with scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) who needs his help to fight the guy who ran Dr. Pym from the company he founded and has tried to steal his technology that could turn a human into a tiny creature, the size of an ant. With inside help from his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) he’s able to convince Scott to redeem himself by turning himself into Ant-Man and trying to save the world.

Marvel has surely been on a roll. There is no doubt they are hitting home run after home run. Ant-Man is certainly a risk for them, but one that paid off highly. First of all, what about the history? Dr. Pym was Ant-man along with his wife who was The Wasp. But now Pym is on the sidelines. How can they cover that up? Furthermore, with all the other highly successful characters in this franchise, bring the Ant-Man is a risk, and then assigning it to Paul Rudd to carry is ludicrous. Well, I don’t know if the magic of Stan Lee or if these Disney/Marvel guys are just that brilliant, but they certainly pulled it off. Now this is not really the best of all the new Marvel movies, but it’s a damn good one just the same. Paul Rudd has the right degree of nice guy mixed with screw-up, laced with a little bit of bad ass to handle this, and this is perhaps the best performance of his career. He did an excellent job. The story is really fresh and brand new. Now, granted, evil genius who takes over the corporation and tries to sell the weapons of world domination to the highest bidder isn’t new, but the battles and encounters between the good guys and the bad guys is really well done. Scott has a bumbling group of buddies who create a lot of comedy as well, led by Michael Peña who was simply fabulous in this film. The time flies as we have so much fun, and everyone is so well cast. The action is extremely well done, and the CGI is blended in so well that you can hardly recognize that it’s not really happening in front of your eyes. I was blessed to see this in Digital Extreme size (not quite Imax, but a good challenger), in 3-D. The 3-D was smooth and also seamless so that you could hardly notice it, but it really added to the enjoyment of the movie. All in all, this is a must see for the summer. It’s the best I have seen so far, although there is some stiff competition yet to come.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

DNA Films, Film4,

Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a young programmer at the worlds most successful software company, and wins a contest to spend a week as the guest of the CEO of the company, Nathan (Oscar Isaac)’s home, a remote research facility on reachable by helicopter. But when Caleb arrives, he finds out it wasn’t random that he was chosen. Actually he was personally selected to participate in a high tech experiment to determine if Nathan was actually able to create a robot with artificial intelligence superior enough to pass as human. Caleb was well chosen for his exceptional ability, but things don’t go as expected and it turns into a suspenseful tale of a robot who thinks she’s human.

This film was out of the mainstream, but I think it did generate a fair amount of buzz while it was in the theater. It’s a cerebral sci-fi film with a great deal going for it. One of the keys was Alicia Vikander who plays Ava, the robot. The second is the special effects. The decision to use a mesh suit on Alicia was brilliant and it brought a reality to the movie because the CGI was so seamlessly mixed with the live action. Third is the very clever script. The whole thing keeps you guessing as to whether Nathan is a mad scientist, a nutcase, or a brilliant inventor. Until the ending you keep guessing what is going to happen. It is very thought provoking, quite exciting, very well acted by all participants, and very suspenseful. Each of the major characters is different, but you’ll find yourself rooting for all of them at some point or other. Indirectly it addresses the issue of the morality of what Nathan is up to, but the story is strong enough that it isn’t pushed in your face as you are so interested in the story. This is well told and the technical aspects are very well done. This is a really excellent little film that is on the fringes of the mainstream Hollywood thing that is very much worth seeking out. If you’s a science fiction fan, as I am, or just a fan of a good futuristic story, this is one that you don’t want to miss. I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it.

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A&E IndieFilms, Asylum Entertainment, Passion Pictures,

Matt Sandusky, The town of State College, Pa.

Documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev arrived in Happy Valley (the nickname for the little town in northeast Pennsylvania called State College) along with a slew of news cameras as the breaking story of Jerry Sandusky’s (an assistant coach in Penn State football) arrest on charges of child molestation. The story was huge and dominated the news for a few days and weeks, but Amir stayed. He spent over a year in State College documenting the changes, the fall-out, and the attempts to recover from this regional tragic story. He focuses on Matt Sandusky, a young man who was taken in and adopted by Jerry’s family as a child, and through the turmoil it caused him and his loss of both a Mother and a Father through the ordeal as he tried to decide whether to tell his story at the trial or to protect his father. It’s a complex story and there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye initially. This documentary does a pretty decent job of telling the story while trying to be fair to the people involved.

This film really made me sad. My heart was broken at the end. I don’t have sympathy for the people involved, but the entire thing was tragic. Penn State was one of the most successful football teams in college history. Joe Paterno was the coach and father figure for the town and celebrated as a great hero as he built up the reputation of the winning-est college football coach in history. Joe knew there was something terribly wrong with Jerry Sandusky. It was obvious that something was wrong with him, and it was obvious that Joe didn’t even like Jerry very much. When it became obvious that Jerry was doing some really bad things, Joe went to the leaders of Penn State and told them what he knew. They decided not to do anything about it to avoid harming the school’s reputation. Everybody looked away. Jerry loved kids, figuratively and literally. He rescued so many young men who were suffering from poverty and broken families. He started a foundation to help them, and sent many of them through college at his expense. But was he grooming them for his perverse desires. It would appear so. Meanwhile, in a little town like State College there isn’t much to do but celebrate Football, and the school became known for it, and Joe Paterno became the king of the town with a stellar reputation. When Jerry fell, and the stories came out, the first thing everyone wanted to know is how much Joe Paterno knew, and when he knew it. Joe didn’t go to the authorities which he knew he should have done, but he was also very sick at the time. Joe died from cancer long before the trial. The school was still concerned about their reputation and who better to pin it on than a guy who was already dying. The school terminated him and tried to wipe his name out completely even tearing down any reference to the man. This was probably to satisfy the NCAA that they had dealt with the problem and Jerry was in jail and Joe Paterno had been slaughtered on the altar of shame. But the NCAA wasn’t done. They decided it was necessary to punish the school and the students as much as possible. This they did with a huge hammer, wiping out all of Joe Paterno’s wins and dropping him from the winning-est coach to third place. Is it a tragedy that the school lost good students, had their reputation destroyed in a way that they will never recover from, and creating a huge divide between those who want to remember the guy who did so much to put them on the map because of some guy that had a desire for boys? Did Joe do enough by going to the school authorities and expecting them to handle it, and not going to the authorities. I’m sure Joe would even admit that he was wrong. He passed the buck upstream and that was a cowardly thing to do, but who are the guys who sat on that and did nothing? I have no idea. They’re hiding behind the curtain and threw Joe out for the media wolves. Still when the film was done, I just felt sadness for everyone touched by this. It’s a shame they could not have put a stop to this years before. There are people who hated this story, but those I fear are mostly those who hate football, or who are just unable to get past the horrible crimes Jerry Sandusky committed. I can truly understand that. But it was a shame. I thought this was an excellent look at the whole situation and I found it extremely interesting. You may not, and we all have our own tastes. I am glad I watched it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Abbolita Productions, Gotham Group, Starstream Entertainment,

Jennifer Aniston, Mos Def, Isla Fisher, Will Forte, Mark Boone Junior, Tim Robbins, John Hawkes, Clea Lewis, Charlie Tahan, Kevin Corrigan

Frank Dawson (Tim Robins) is a developer who has earned a lot of money rather unscrupulously. He’s a bit of a bastard, and his long suffering wife, Mickey (Jennifer Aniston) does her best to put up with his crap. Frank is off on another business trip which is really a tryst with his girlfriend Melanie (Isla Fisher) and Franks divorce papers are in the mail so that Mickey will get it while he’s away and he won’t have to deal with it. But things don’t go as planned when Mickey is kidnapped by a few quirky common thieves who lock her away and demand a million dollars from Frank who doesn’t want to pay. Things get really screwy in this drama with a side of comedy.

Jennifer Aniston is amazing, isn’t she? It’s because of her performance that this movie even works. As it is, she was really good. This story seems very, very similar to “Ruthless People” with Bette Midler and Danny DeVito where she was kidnapped from a husband who didn’t want her. But this is quite different. “Ruthless People” was done as a slapstick comedy with laughs coming every minute. This film, though very funny in parts, is much more dramatic and a lot more serious. The crooks who kidnap her are about as incompetent as “The Apple Dumpling Gang” but somehow they are clever enough to pull it off without being silly. Tim Robbins was perfectly cast as the uncaring husband and he did a good job, but the gem in this film has to be Isla Fisher who is really perfect as the mistress who has an angle of her own. There are twists and turns throughout the movie, and it’s actually a very interesting story. I was impressed by this film as a streaming movie (I haven’t found a place to buy it yet, but it’s available for streaming) and it was a pleasant journey watching this movie. I recommend this as an unusual relationship story with a side of crime and treachery topped with a heaping helping of comedy. If you find this one, give it a shot. If just for Jennifer Aniston’s performance alone it will be worth it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Furthur Films,

Michael Douglas, Jeremy Irvine, Hanna Mangan Lawrence, Ronny Cox

Ben (Jeremy Irvine) is a nice young man. He’s recently graduated from High School and is wondering what to do with his life. He lives in a remote area of the Mojave Desert, and he makes a few extra bucks guiding big game hunters around the desert for their adventures. But Ben’s girlfriend is off for college and Ben is not sure how to deal with the separation. He has no money for school and no idea what will become of him other than a life of poverty like his childhood has been. When a very wealthy CEO, Madec (Michael Douglas) arrives and asks for Ben to guide him into the desert to find and kill a big horn sheep for his collection, Ben reluctantly agrees. But when Madec accidentally kills an old local prospector, his first thought is to offer Ben a solution to all his problems. But then, a change of hearts sets them out on a cat and mouse game across the desert that will be life or death for Ben. How good is he really at survival in the desert?

This film hit me as a real surprise. I had never heard anything about it, and yet it was a very interesting story. Michael Douglas was an excellent choice as the arrogant rich bastard who is so used to getting everything his way at any cost, you really learn to hate this guy. Jeremy Irvine, on the other hand, as Ben, is a really good guy, but you wish he wasn’t so wishy washy and easy to control. He doesn’t like conflict, and though he’s a good guy, he lets this rich guy walk all over him. This is basically a two person story. Of course the desert itself is a character of it’s own, and I can’t imagine being stuck out there with no supplies and no way to make it back. The intensity of this story is amazing, and the interaction between these two is very well shown. The points of view and the desert scenery is really fantastic. This is a survival film, first and foremost, and as such, it’s quite suspenseful. Hitchcock like in it’s plot, things pile up against Ben one after another until you can’t help but wonder if it’s possible for him to pull out of this. The story is quick paced, very exciting, and extremely well filmed. This is definitely a hidden gem of a movie that caught me very much off guard. I enjoyed it, and if you in the mood for a thriller, I would recommend you seek this one out.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog