Martin's Musings

In 1995, writer/director Richard Linklater made a small film called Before Sunrise, which told the story of Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy), an American man and French woman, who meet on a train, disembark in Vienna, and wander the city all night long, getting to know each other.

Nine years later, in Before Sunset, the action shifted to Paris, where the now married Jesse is promoting a book he’d written inspired by his one night with Celine. As the two wander the city all day and catch up, it’s clear the spark lit all those years earlier is still very much alive.

Fast forward another nine years, and the three have reunited once again to check in with Jesse and Celine. In Before Midnight, we find the pair — now living together and with twin daughters of their own — in Greece, where they’ve spent the summer. But unlike in the past, when love for these two was an ideal, a dream, a possibility, now it’s reality, and it’s not so dreamy. Before Midnight tackles that shift head-on.

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Gentlemen, start your engines.

Again.

Fast & Furious 6 — yes, there’s a SIXTH Fast & Furious movie — hits theaters this weekend, bringing with it a now-trademark mix of testosterone, hot women, cool cars, ridiculous action scenes, and far-fetched plot twists.

This time out, the gang, still ably led by Vin Diesel’s Dom and Paul Walker’s Brian, teams up with the Rock’s federal agent Hobbs to bring down a British terrorist whose own team includes the love of Dom’s life, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). Wait, didn’t she die two movies ago? Surprise!

So yeah, that’s the big difference between this film and the others: Our “heroes,” who usually fall on the wrong side of the law — including in the last movie, where they pulled off an Ocean’s Eleven/Italian Job–style heist in Rio — here are on the side of the good guys.

Like that really makes a difference.

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The marketing campaign for The Hangover Part III is largely centered around the idea that this movie marks the conclusion of the series.

Indeed, the film’s posters boast taglines including “The end” and “It ends,” and the movie itself includes lines of dialogue like “It all ends tonight.”

(It’s subtle, I know.)

But anyone who’s seen all three films, as I have, would agree: This is a series that should have ended after the first one. After all, the first sequel was nothing more than a carbon copy of the original Hangover, just set in a different city, with more raunch and a lot fewer laughs. Now we have a second sequel that’s not very funny and isn’t even about a hangover, but certainly feels like one.

It ends tonight? Damn. What took you so long? Continue reading →

The new film 42 is going to do a great public service for a new generation of baseball fans who may be familiar with the name Jackie Robinson, but who don’t know much about him.

It’s a rousing movie that casts Robinson in the role of noble baseball player — a man who earned admiration not just because he broke the sport’s color barrier, but because he was a terrific athlete on the field and, just as important, a class act off it.

Which is not to say it’s the best baseball movie ever. It’s not even one truly worthy of the man himself. Predictably, with its reverential tone, majestic music cues, and sometimes cheesy dialogue, 42 is a rather conventional biopic. It tells the story of this all-American hero, putting a fine point on his accomplishments, and hammering home the point that those who objected to the integration of baseball were on the wrong side of history.

For a more rigid critic, the manipulative sincerity of the film might be a turnoff. But not me. 42 isn’t a walk-off home run, but I still scored it a solid run-scoring double. Continue reading →

The White House and other Washington monuments get blow’d up real good in the new film Olympus Has Fallen — good news for anyone who wasn’t satisfied by that kind of sight in movies like Independence Day or The Day After Tomorrow.

The film, directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), is big and loud, with lots of macho action and plenty of ’splosions to please the mostly male audience that’ll likely seek this one out.

Gerard Butler stars as Mike Banning, a former Secret Service agent who finds himself in the right place at the right time when North Korean terrorists take the President (Aaron Eckhart) hostage in the White House’s underground bunker. Through it all, Banning stays in touch by phone with national security bigwigs played by Angela Bassett and Robert Forster, not to mention Morgan Freeman’s Speaker of the House character, who is asked to step in as acting President.

Of course, Banning and those remote experts don’t always see eye to eye, but the former agent’s resourcefulness comes through more than a few times to prove them wrong and save the day.

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Oh, spring break.

The week when college kids head to warmer places and let their inhibitions run wild.

This rite of passage sounds so idyllic to so many people that it’s become a cliché over the years — one that’s played out in movies such as Where the Boys Are, The Real Cancun, and From Justin to Kelly, to name just three.

But whereas those movies have shown a mostly chaste version of what goes on when you put thousands of college kids together under the hot sun, add alcohol, and mix it all together, Harmony Korine’s latest film, Spring Breakers, gives a much different, much darker version of events.

Oh boy, does it. Continue reading →