Warm Bodies

Well yeah, it's cheesy.

Zombie with an inner monologue meets cute girl, eats her boyfriend's brain to absorb his memories, and learns to love again.

But the inner monologue is pretty funny - at least for the target PG-13 crowd.  And it works.  Pretty well, even.

Warm Bodies
2013, 98 minutes, directed by Jonathan Levine

A Good Day to Die Hard

I heard bad things about this film.  Most of them were true.  Rehashed catchphrases fill 75% of the dialog.  The bad guys are stupid.  And no one that age would survive that much abuse and keep moving, ruining any suspension of disbelief.  And, worst of all, this McClane has no respect for civilians; this one would have blown the roof.  Disappointing.

A Good Day to Die Hard
2013, 98 minutes, directed by John Moore

Silver Linings Playbook

There are a lot better, more in-depth reviews of this Oscar-nominated film than I'm going to write.  Broken person meets broken person, both with past mistakes and loss, and they try to make it work.  Can they?  It's a fantastic performance by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, with a strong supporting cast.

Silver Linings Playbook
2012, 122 minutes, directed by David O. Russell

Django: Unchained

The Alamo's new assigned-seat process frustrates me.  They've chosen now to cater exclusively towards people who can plan to see a film 12 or more hours ahead, which is rarely possible for me, or towards people willing to sit on the front row, which I am not.  Sure, they can cater to whoever they wish, but I can still be frustrated about it.

The only film with a decent available seat today was Django: Unchained.  It's Quentin Tarantino, which means it's gross, vile, sick, base, revolting.  So, you must set this aside.  Push all of that below you, and rise up to the surface.  From there, enjoy the beauty of the waves.

Django: Unchained
2012, 165 minutes, directed by Quentin Tarantino

Red

Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is a retired CIA asset, just trying to figure out how he's going to fill the rest of his life.  He's particularly fond of Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a customer service representative at the agency responsible for sending him is pension checks, which "mysteriously disappear" forcing him to call.

Then, for some reason, a hired squad tries to kill him.  Unfazed, he heads to Sarah to pick her up, knowing those after him will get to her, too.  As the plot thickens, he enlists the help of his former associates, all retired, and all also on the same hit list.  Can the experience of age defeat the vigor of youth and get to the bottom of the conspiracy that goes to the top?

The film has a catchy feel - a modern action story without sacrificing dialog or character development.

Red
2010, 111 minutes, directed by Robert Schwentke

Skyfall

It's interesting to watch a reboot of the James Bond franchise without them actually replacing the main character.  I can picture a film 20 years from now, with this Moneypenny and Q interacting with a new Bond thrice removed.

Film-wise, the story does feel significantly less epic than the two prior installments.  The action comes closer to home as M is threatened, and Bond must go off the grid and off the rails to protect her.

Skyfall
2012, 143 minutes, directed by Sam Mendes

Looper

I skipped this during Fantastic Fest, preferring the world premiere of Bring Me the Head of Machine Gun Woman over what was billed as an action shooter.  For the rest of the week everyone was telling me how wrong I was (or rather, how misguided the advertisements were) because Looper was a true sci fi film.

So what makes a film sci fi instead of action or horror?  Just because there's a piece of undeveloped technology that enables the plot doesn't make something a science fiction film.  True sci fi has on-the-horizon or pie-in-the-sky technology, sure, but it's not used to enable a shoot-em-up or some sort of slasher film.  Instead, sci fi uses the technology to poke and prod at the human condition, to see how human interaction and feelings react to new stimuli.  It's all about the people.

In these ways, Looper truly is sci fi.  Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an executioner, killing those sent back from the future who need to disappear.  When it's time for him to "close his loop" - killing his future self (Bruce Willis) - he hesitates and things go awry.  Much of what follows is action chase, sure, as Joe tries to fix his mistake while his older self hunts the future mob boss who sent him back for his death.  That the boss is a young boy is troubling, sure, but is this fate fixed or is there another way?  In the end, Joe just can't be sure, and has to take what can only be a leap of faith.  It is right here that the film cements itself as the best of 2012 sci fi.

Looper
2012, 119 minutes, directed by Rian Johnson