Martin's Musings

The next time you hear someone say, “They sure don’t make ’em like they used to,” tell that person to go see Super 8, a throwback movie so retro that you may think it was made 25 years ago (even the poster gives you that impression).

That’s intended as a compliment, of course, as is the fact that writer/director J.J. Abrams has made a movie reeking with old fashioned Spielberg-ian charm, in the best way.

After all, as the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Continue reading →

You know the classic Burt Bacharach song “Alfie?”

Well, after seeing Tree of Life, you may be asking, “What’s it all about, Terrence?”

The film, written and directed by Terrence Malick (Badlands, The Thin Red Line), is a meditation on fathers and sons, the meaning of life, what it means to be a man, and probably a whole lot of other stuff too. (You get that sense from the poster.)

Actually, instead of a movie, it’s more like a two hour and 15 minute tone poem: There’s little dialogue (no kidding, two characters never speak to each other for the entire first hour of the film), lots of atmospheric shots, little to no plot, short monologues (delivered in a whispery voice over as if they’re a prayer to God), and a whole lot of choral and swelling orchestral music on the soundtrack.

Throw in Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and some dinosaurs too (yes, really), and the whole thing feels like an exercise in filmmaker indulgence. (Or hubris, depending on your preference.) Continue reading →

I’ve always been a sucker for nostalgia — looking through old photos, rereading old journals, watching old home videos, remembering “good ole days” gone by.

And it’s this time of year when I get especially nostalgic, what with my birthday just days away, the anniversary of my college graduation just passed, and me taking stock of how my present compares to my past, and if I’m better off now than I was.

So you might say that it was more than appropriate timing for me when I saw Woody Allen’s very enjoyable new film, Midnight in Paris, a modern-day fable that celebrates nostalgia. Continue reading →

In the classic Murray Head song, there’s the lyric “One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble.”

That’s the basic plot of The Hangover Part II, in which the Wolfpack, in Thailand for Stu’s (Ed Helms) wedding, wake up in Bangkok and can’t remember anything that happened the night before.

If you’re thinking, “Isn’t that basically the same exact plot as the first Hangover movie? How could that happen again?” then you’re right. But if you like the characters and the movie’s funny, then the plot’s not exactly important.

So let’s move on, then, shall we? Continue reading →

You always hope it’s great when beloved characters return to the big screen after an absence.

Remember how good it felt to see Woody and Buzz again last summer in Toy Story 3?

Well, when Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow — excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow — reappears on screen at the start of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the first Pirates film in four years, you can’t help but smile.

His creation is so full of whimsy, style, and swagger, and while Depp’s performances in the series have always been fun, the movies themselves have been hit and miss, with none able to recapture the delight of the first, The Curse of the Black Pearl. Continue reading →