Martin's Musings

If you haven’t heard or seen, Magic Mike hits theaters today.

Yes, that’s the Channing Tatum stripper movie.

I’ve seen it, and as expected, the movie features lots of voyeuristic pleasure for anyone who likes seeing shirtless, often pantless, men. (The things I’ll do for my blog readers.)

If you’re like me, and that’s not something you typically enjoy, then you might think you should stay far away from Magic Mike. But surprisingly, there is good reason to pay up and check out this flick.

Actually, here are five of them:

Continue reading →

There are two nice things about being an amateur film critic.

One is that I don’t have to see every movie that comes out. Only the ones I want to see.

The other is that when I see a movie that leaves little to no impression on me, I’m under no obligation to fake it through a thorough and intelligently written review.

That second thing is why this review of People Like Us won’t be my longest, best, or most thorough one.

In the film, Chris Pine (Star Trek, Just My Luck) plays Sam, a guy whose estranged father has passed, and who learns he has a sister, Frankie (Elizabeth Banks). Sam is short on cash, when his father leaves Frankie a bunch of it, Sam befriends her and her son, hoping he’ll be able to score at least some of it.

Also in the cast are Michelle Pfeiffer as Sam’s mother, who may or may not have known about Frankie, and the lovely Olivia Wilde, as Sam’s long-suffering law-student girlfriend. Continue reading →

What would you do if the end of the world was three weeks away?

We’re not talking some crazy Harold Camping theory that won’t come true.

We’re talking a 70-mile-long asteroid that’s three weeks away from hitting the earth, and not even Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck can save us.

This time, it’s really gonna happen.

That’s the scenario facing the characters in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

When the movie starts, Dodge (Steve Carrell) and his wife are hearing the news that the end is near — but don’t worry, there are still plenty of classic rock tunes left to play! (That’s the first of a few good laughs.) She promptly opens the door and leaves him.

Lost and distraught, Dodge keeps on keeping on. He continues to go to work selling insurance (apocalypse package not included), continues to work out, and just keeps operating like nothing’s wrong. After all, what else is he gonna do? Continue reading →

True story: In 1997, the editors of Backwoods Home Magazine were struggling to fill space in their classifieds section.

One of them came up with the idea to write a mock ad that began “WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me,” and it was printed in the magazine. (Intentionally, for all you quality- and/or process-minded folks out there.)

Years later, the ad gained attention thanks to internet pranksters, who spread it around, adding their own photos, videos, and interpretations.

And now, five years later, there’s a movie, Safety Not Guaranteed, that takes the premise of the ad and dramatizes it. Continue reading →

In space, no one can hear you scream.

But in a crowded movie theater, they can hear you say, “Wow.”

And if you go to see Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s unofficial prequel to his Alien series, you will no doubt say that quite a few times.

It’ll start with the gorgeous opening credits sequence, shot in Iceland, which is just amazing. See this film in 3D and you’ll instantly know you’re in the hands of a master filmmaker, one who not only understands the value of another dimension, but who knows how to use the technology effectively. (In that respect, it’s reminiscent of Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.)

We’re plopped down pretty quickly in Scotland, in the year 2089, where two archeologists, Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway (played by the Swedish Lisbeth Salander, Noomi Rapace, and Logan Marshall-Grant, previously best known for playing Trey Atwood on The O.C.), have stumbled upon a star map that they think will lead them to the secret of life. They interpret this as an invitation to go find the so-called Engineers, who “created” the human race.

And so, we’re whisked up, four years later, onto the scientific space vessel Prometheus, where Shaw and Holloway have joined with mission director Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) and her crew to travel to a distant moon to find the Engineers. “It’s a scientific mission,” they say. “No weapons necessary.”

Suffice it to say, things go wrong.

Horribly, horribly wrong. Continue reading →