I probably didn't have to go all the way out to Chestnut Hill to see Gemini Man in the closest we're going to get to Ang Lee's preferred format - Regal Fenway is almost certainly playing it in the same 4K/60fps/3D+ format on their RPX screen - but if it's not good enough to see twice, I wanted to be sure, and Showcase Cinemas was the only company that tweeted back in the affirmative when I asked if their 3D+ screenings were 4K. The bummer was Showplace Icon definitively saying no, since their Icon-X screen is terrific and I just genuinely assume that they're projecting in 4K. Is there some component in their system that freaks when you try to push five times as much data through it?
It sounds likely when you put it that way, I suppose, but it's the sort of thing I've pondered on occasion since theaters downgraded to digital - because film projectors are dead-simple mechanical devices in theory (though in practice they perform best with a knowledgeable, attentive projectionist paying attention and keeping them properly calibrated), upgrading the picture is often a matter of just threading higher-quality film through them, and various sound and 3D upgrades have been successfully bolted on over time. Dig through old Roger Ebert writings and you'll find talk of MaxiVision 48, a more significant upgrade to get a higher frame rate but one theaters could do without huge outlay. Film projectors have proven incredibly hackable. A digital system, though, is pretty much stuck. Maybe you can do a firmware upgrade to get new sound formats, HDR, and motion data, but going from 2K to 4K seems like it would mean replacing the most expensive part. And getting from a 2K/2D/24fps system to what Ang Lee was trying to show means multiple multiples - 4x the pixel data per frame, 2x to go from 2D to 3D, 5x to go from 24fps to 120fps. A full MAGI set-up would require 40 times as much data going through the system as is the case with most movies you see in most Boston-area theaters, and that's upgrading display elements, polarized lenses, hard drive space, and probably the very cables connecting components. I'm kind of not surprised that nobody in America did it for a just-okay Ang Lee movie that has been in development hell for a quarter-century, especially if they wouldn't do it for The Hobbit.
It will happen eventually, though - in two years, when James Cameron and Disney start twisting arms over who gets Avatar 2, some theaters will start upgrading the way they installed DTS sound in order to get first dibs on Jurassic Park. It will suck for smaller places who are running on thin margins, but I'm guessing it will look amazing.
Or at least I hope so. For all that Gemini Man is just okay, I found that I greatly enjoyed writing about visual effects and technology that genuinely felt new. One of the things that has made the new Star Wars movies a bit less exciting is that there's been no sense of the folks at Industrial Lights and Magic having to invent new techniques to create what the people making them imagined, which had always been part of what made them so special. The CGI in Jurassic Park didn't quite signal the beginning of the end of innovation in visual effects, it often feels like it's been a process of refining tools rather than creating new ones since then. Gemini Man looks weird - although I wonder how many HFR/3D+ movies per year would have to come out before audiences started to see it as just a stylistic choice the filmmaker can make, akin to scope/flat, 3D, black & white, color schemes, etc., as opposed to wrong.
Gemini Man
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 October 2019 in Showcase SuperLux Chestnut Hill #3 (first-run, RealD 3D+ at 4K and 60 frames per second)
It's a testament to the core idea of Gemini Man - both in terms of being something that would be fun for audiences to see on-screen and the foundation on which you can build a solid story - that work on it never really stopped over the past twenty-odd years, long enough to have originally been planned with Tony Scott directing Harrison Ford (or at least, those are the earliest names I can recall being attached) and the necessary visual effects technology just out of reach. The gestation period has been just long enough for its gimmick to go from revolutionary to almost commonplace, with the script probably being revised just enough times to sand a few too many rough edges off but still have the film remain interesting.
It opens with Defense Intelligence Agency sniper Henry Brogan (Will Smith) making a near-impossible kill shot, one he decides should be his last for how close it came to also killing an innocent child. He should, perhaps, have retired a week early, as an old colleague hints that the target was not a terrorist after all. That makes him a target, with DIA bigwig Janet Lassiter (Linda Emond) initially sending a conventional assault team - which Henry and Danny Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the unknowing agent surveilling him, are able to escape with the help of another old friend, Baron (Benedict Wong). That leads to Lassiter and defense contractor Clay Verris (Clive Owen) pulling out their secret weapon: Junior, an assassin who may be Henry's match because he is Henry's clone.
This film could probably have been made with two actors who bear some resemblance to each other; movies have been doing that as long as there have been movies, although they seldom ask the audience to buy into the pair acting against each other, something that's still asking for trouble with digital de-aging. Fortunately, the artists and technicians involved with creating Junior are able to rise to the challenge - he doesn't quite look exactly like the Will Smith of the early 1990s, but some of that is context; the "Fresh Prince"-era version of Smith that Junior is meant to evoke seldom did the sort of heavier material he's got to handle here. It's convincing enough, though; one's brain recognizes Junior as a younger version of Henry and doesn't reject him when they are on the same screen together. Relatively invisible details help to sell it, too: Smith and whoever the sound crew make his voice sound 23 rather than 51, and stand-in Victor Hugo seems to capture the right gait and body-language.
Full review at EFilmCritic
Showing posts with label SuperLux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SuperLux. Show all posts
Monday, October 14, 2019
Monday, June 08, 2015
San Andreas
The Showcase SuperLux in Chestnut Hill is kind of an exaggerated theater - highest prices, most upscale food menu, classiest decor - that it's probably easier to use it as a metaphor for the film you see than many other places. Take last evening's show, which I went to see there because I missed the cheapest 3D show by sleeping to a reasonable hour for Sunday morning and once you do that, you may as well go to the fancy place if you're going to have a snack with the movie. You know what I had? "Cap'n Chicken Strips", which is chicken in a Cap'n Crunch breading with buttermilk ranch. I've got to be honest, I really didn't get that much of a Cap'n Crunch flavor from it, but the basic concept couldn't get more "selling junk food and sophistication at the same time" if it tried.
It's not really putting on airs, though, and that's seeing San Andreas at a place like the SuperLux. It's pure Hollywood product executed in a very slick manner, not particularly refined, but pretty much what you expect. I kind of wish I was able to get past it's total commitment to "make it personal!", because it's almost a parody of such things, but by the same token I almost wish it went for deadpan acknowledgment. It's absurd that the movies create giant spectacles of the sort of thing that should be awe-inspiring on their own but feel the need to chip the story down to human size.
San Andreas
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 7 June 2015 in Showcase SuperLux #3 (first-run, DCP)
Movies like San Andreas cost a lot of money and the time of a lot of talented people, and yet they so often wind up as a battle between a dumb, pandering script and the basic competence of the cast and crew. The latter eke out a small victory here, I figure, because their work is still fairly easy to appreciate even when they're asked to execute something that doesn't make a lot of sense.
Take the opening sequence, for instance; it has a sense of fun in faking the audience out before setting up a tricky problem for Los Angeles Fire Department rescue pilot Ray Gaines (Dwayne Johnson) and his crew, accompanied by a TV reporter (Archie Panjabi), to solve. That done, he gets down to nearly-divorced dad stuff, but while he's arranging to take daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) to college, a Caltech seismologist (Paul Giamatti) I is having his theories on earthquake prediction proven correct in tragic fashion at Hoover Dam. His model predicts that there is more to come, placing both Blake and her mother Emma (Carla Gugino) in dangerous situations in San Francisco and L.A., respectively. Too bad Ray is helping to coordinate rescue efforts for the entire city.
Nah, just kidding - that team described as too close to break up after serving together in the Middle East back during the opening is soon nowhere to be seen, with two dropped off-screen and the other one apparently ditched by Ray quickly walking away after telling him his shoelace is untied. After that, one kind of loses track of how much public and private property Ray appropriates and destroys while zipping right past thousands to millions of other people in need of assistance unless it would directly involve helping his immediate family. Granted, they tend to call him directly instead of 911 and often wind up running against the crowds for their own private rescue plans. On top of that, San Andreas is also the sort of movie that will briefly expect the audience to kind of enjoy someone getting squashed like a bug for the character flaw of being a bit of a jerk but apparently not feel that nature was not settling some sort of score with the other few hundred people being wiped out in the same shot. Given half a minute's thought, this movie becomes a quite horrifying display of how spectacle is supposedly meaningless unless the the audience cares about the characters and their personal stakes.
Full review on EFC.
It's not really putting on airs, though, and that's seeing San Andreas at a place like the SuperLux. It's pure Hollywood product executed in a very slick manner, not particularly refined, but pretty much what you expect. I kind of wish I was able to get past it's total commitment to "make it personal!", because it's almost a parody of such things, but by the same token I almost wish it went for deadpan acknowledgment. It's absurd that the movies create giant spectacles of the sort of thing that should be awe-inspiring on their own but feel the need to chip the story down to human size.
San Andreas
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 7 June 2015 in Showcase SuperLux #3 (first-run, DCP)
Movies like San Andreas cost a lot of money and the time of a lot of talented people, and yet they so often wind up as a battle between a dumb, pandering script and the basic competence of the cast and crew. The latter eke out a small victory here, I figure, because their work is still fairly easy to appreciate even when they're asked to execute something that doesn't make a lot of sense.
Take the opening sequence, for instance; it has a sense of fun in faking the audience out before setting up a tricky problem for Los Angeles Fire Department rescue pilot Ray Gaines (Dwayne Johnson) and his crew, accompanied by a TV reporter (Archie Panjabi), to solve. That done, he gets down to nearly-divorced dad stuff, but while he's arranging to take daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) to college, a Caltech seismologist (Paul Giamatti) I is having his theories on earthquake prediction proven correct in tragic fashion at Hoover Dam. His model predicts that there is more to come, placing both Blake and her mother Emma (Carla Gugino) in dangerous situations in San Francisco and L.A., respectively. Too bad Ray is helping to coordinate rescue efforts for the entire city.
Nah, just kidding - that team described as too close to break up after serving together in the Middle East back during the opening is soon nowhere to be seen, with two dropped off-screen and the other one apparently ditched by Ray quickly walking away after telling him his shoelace is untied. After that, one kind of loses track of how much public and private property Ray appropriates and destroys while zipping right past thousands to millions of other people in need of assistance unless it would directly involve helping his immediate family. Granted, they tend to call him directly instead of 911 and often wind up running against the crowds for their own private rescue plans. On top of that, San Andreas is also the sort of movie that will briefly expect the audience to kind of enjoy someone getting squashed like a bug for the character flaw of being a bit of a jerk but apparently not feel that nature was not settling some sort of score with the other few hundred people being wiped out in the same shot. Given half a minute's thought, this movie becomes a quite horrifying display of how spectacle is supposedly meaningless unless the the audience cares about the characters and their personal stakes.
Full review on EFC.
Friday, January 03, 2014
Movie/Theater: What The Hobbit in HFR and the Showcase SuperLux Have in Common
When The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opened with a 48 frames-per-second presentation in some theaters last year (twice as many as the industry-standard 24), you found very little praise for the new format online; take the usual bellyaching about 3D and amplify it, and that's roughly what came out. I was sort of with them, although I had a very hard time deciding whether my unease was because the super-smooth movement (and a number of other effects which I don't know enough about cinematography or human vision to quantify) was objectively inferior or simply different enough to require time to get used to it which likely won't come.
(I do, idly, wonder how things might have gone had Roger Ebert still been with us. He spent years advocating for the Maxivision 48 system, and I have no idea if seeing 48fps in a feature film would have changed his mind, or if he would have blamed any shortcomings on 3D. A loud critical voice excited about high frame rates certainly might have reshaped the conversation!)
There were far fewer HFR screenings of the second part this fall, whether because audiences genuinely rejected it or because Warner Brothers just decided it didn't need to deal with this debate again on a yearly basis; they certainly put less emphasis on it in the promotions. As a result, by the time I could actually see it, the SuperLux was actually the most accessible location. At this rate, it will be a "you'd better see it opening night" situation next year.
The funny thing was, I actually liked it a bit more this time. I suspect Peter Jackson and company both learned from actually seeing the results last year and have had more time to refine their digital effects and coloring. There are still times when the movie has the look of a video game (games frequently run at a higher frame rate) or otherwise appears "wrong" to an eye used to 24fps film, but, given the chance, I think I could get used to this. I'm reasonably sure that every other 3D presentation I see over the next few months is going to look much worse, as both the higher frame rate and 4K projection really help sell the illusion of three dimensions quite a bit. (If you just want to know what I thought of the movie, jump to the end of the entry.)
Similarly, I think I could get used to seeing movies at the SuperLux, although there are things about it that initially strike me as "wrong", even though I'll generally argue that there's no wrong way to enjoy a movie with the general exception of when it interferes with someone else doing so, which is less "you're doing it wrong" than "you're doing it at the wrong place and time". It has its good enough points, though, even I don't think I'd want to see the majority of my movies there.
Exterior/Box Office
For a "premium" theater, it's unassuming enough from the outside, opting to understate its high-end contents at street level rather than come across as obviously luxurious and decadent. It's at the end of "The Street", a string of shopping plazas that merge into one through similar dimensions, style, and tone - you won't find thrift stores there, but you also won't find many places that come off as way out of a middle-class suburbanite's price range. Fun trivia - to get to this theater from the Chestnut Hill T station, you have to walk past the vacant space of old AMC Chestnut Hill, which still looks like the old 1970s-era cinder block it was.
Once inside, you're confronted by touch-screens and escalators, and the touch-screens are my biggest beef with the place - I often have dreadful luck with touch interfaces, and these ticket kiosks are occasionally difficult to use. For some reason, each movie is listed twice, once for the "LuxLite" seating and once for the "SuperLux" seating, but just looking at the screen won't necessarily tell you which is which if you don't already know those names, as they are distinguished by an alphanumeric code after the movie title. Once you've chosen your movie, and price level, it brings you to a screen that allows you to choose your seats, which is also not a great interface; the color coding is not immediately obvious, the individual seats are too small on the screen, and on my first visit I was actually unable to choose a seat and had to go to the concierge desk. It also appears that the first couple of rows are locked until the rest of the "LuxLite" seats fill up, something I'm of two minds about - they are fairly close to the screen, but I'd rather sit front-row center than at the end of the third row, and seeing them empty but not being able to select them frustrated me.
Note that less-than-ideal interface design on the kiosks isn't unique to this theater - I have my issues with the ones at AMC and Regal as well - but it is kind of frustrating because there is no traditional box office for those who prefer interacting with a human being even if they are not frustrated by not being able to get the machine to do what they want, especially since they're paying a relatively high price for service and the place can feel overstaffed in other areas. It's impersonal and could be much improved by either having a more intuitive interface on the touchscreens or a visible customer service representative (or, ideally, both).
Lobby
Once you've got your tickets, the next step is the lobby. It's a pretty terrible picture, but it gets across how tony the place is. The desk on the right is an island that serves as the "concierge desk" for customer service. When I had to use it to get into Gravity, the folks were nice, but things moved slowly, in part because a place like this thrives on the feeling of personal service, so making sure the person at the desk right now feels important can feel like more of a priority than getting to each one of the people in line who would like something resolved before their movie starts at a fixed time. It doesn't help that the software at the concierges' disposal appears to be just as user-friendly as the customer-facing stuff; it seemed to take forever to switch modes, open up seating, etc.
The thing that struck me most about this area, though, is how quiet it was compared to a typical cinema lobby. There are no video games or vending machines, no five stations of people ordering tickets or snacks, no lines, and not really a whole lot of people hanging around waiting for the last show in their theater to get out or for friends to show. Even the piped-in music is fairly sedate. It's not bad, per se - if you're like me, you'll just be walking straight through this area; if you're not, maybe you'll order a cocktail at the bar, have a meal at the attached Davio's Steakhouse, or gather with your friends around one of those little tables that puts your group close enough to each other but far enough from anyone else that you don't have to make your voice carry.
It's nice, but not what I'm used to - I take public transportation to multiplexes or neighborhood theaters with tight lobbies where you might have to stop at the box office, the concession stand, and a bar to get everything you need before awkwardly presenting your ticket with your hands full. There are days when I don't like the noise, but I've gotten used to it, and the lack of it seems like a demonstration of how part of the appeal of the SuperLux is keeping the riff-raff out, and some part of me wants to declare that movies are for everyone, that the fact that cinemas are one of the places where we rub elbows with people of different classes and backgrounds is a good thing, as opposed to this yuppie enclave. On the other hand... Yeah, it is nice to hear yourself think, relax, maybe loosen up with a beverage if that's your thing. It is, in fact, quite pleasant to know that the guy in front of you is working exclusively on getting things right for you rather than just wanting to keep the line moving. The traditional cinema lobby is communal, but it's full of people going a dozen different directions, and quiet order is a worthwhile alternative to the usual.
Whatever you think of this room, there's a ticket-ripper on the other end who will direct you to your theater. There, you may see what I mean about the place sometimes seeming a bit overstaffed, with four to six ushers waiting outside the room to show you to your seat. Again, it's a bit weird to me; even in places with assigned seating like ballparks or concert halls, I'm used to figuring out how the rows are numbered and just sitting down, and that effect seems amplified when you're a single moviegoer walking past a crowd of people who seem taken aback that you might seat yourself. Just remember, though, that despite the big screen at the front of the room and the neatly arranged rows of seats, this is in many ways a restaurant more than a theater, and there's nothing strange about being shown to your seat in a restaurant.
Theaters
Here's the thing - once you get into your seat, a lot of the things that may have seemed strange or off-putting before fade to the background, because what goes on in here is fairly excellent. Not perfect, at least to my way of thinking, but my priorities aren't necessarily those of the SuperLux's target audience. I want nothing between me and the movie; this place is built to offer, as the name says, super-luxurious service.
The basics, at least, are well-covered. All six screens are fair-sized, especially compared to the cozy 80-100 person capacity and dimensions of the room, and they all feature 4K Sony digital projection with 7.1-channel surround sound. I believe they are all 3D capable, and from what I've read, the captioning and amplification devices for those who need them are state of the art LCD glasses, as opposed to finicky listening devices or mirrors that must be positioned to capture a marquee above the projection booth. Now that I think about it, this may be the first theater in the Boston area that was built to be fully digital, rather than replacing or existing next to 35mm projectors, and the clarity suggests that this certainly doesn't hurt. No ads play on the screen before the movie's start time, and the movie itself is preceded only by theatrical trailers and a bumper for the theater. It's a bummer that this is worth mentioning, but it is.
The seating is comfortable as well, with wide, soft-but-firm seats that have a swinging desk surface on which one will find menus and, for 3D movies, glasses. It's pretty nice to have a flat, steady surface to place your concessions on. If you shelled out the extra $8 for the "Superlux" seating, there are buttons on the side of your chair that reveal it to be a motorized recliner. It beats out the RPX screen at Fenway for the best local movie theater seats at an establishment whose primary purpose is not selling furniture, and those extra little practicalities put it right up there with Jordan's.
Then there's the menus. If you sit in the front "LuxLite" section, you're given a lighted booklet with drinks on one side and food on the other, and the wait staff will try and serve you before the movie starts (no orders will be taken after the lights go down, but they may be brought to your seat); if you sit in the "SuperLux" section, the menu is a tablet computer - the website calls it an "IPad", but the dimensions are closer to my Android Nexus 7. I was initially confused, trying to figure out how to order directly from the tablet, double-tapping and flicking once the item I wanted was on screen; instead, you hit a call button on the armrest and a waiter will come to take your order, even during the movie.
The food is pretty good, although the selection is much broader in the SuperLux rows. When I sat in the LuxLite section for Thor: The Dark World, I had some chicken tenders and fries. Pretty good, though I might have liked a little more meat and a little less batter. When seeing The Hobbit from the SuperLux seats, I ordered the Korean sirloin steak with mashed potatoes followed by the key lime pie, and that was definitely satisfactory! It was also a sign of the level of service a premium seat includes that you could specify how long you wanted between the (hypothetical) appetizers, main course, and dessert being served. I'm not sure whether having a waiter bring you a steak during your movie or having him or her deliver a bag of Peanut M&Ms is more indulgent, but it makes the whole movie experience excellent. Popcorn is complimentary in the SuperLux section (not in LuxLite), and be aware that your $4.50 soft drink is restaurant-sized, not cinema-sized. Alcohol is served.
It has taken me three visits to get to know the place well enough from the inside that I can purchase my assigned seat with confidence. One thing you may notice from the photograph is that while the place features what is technically stadium seating, it's a much gentler slope than what is currently in vogue. And while there is more leg room in the LuxLite seats than at a typical theater, it's still a bit of a squeeze for the waiter to bring you your snacks, especially if the lights have already gone down. It's not quite as perfect a set-up as the Austin Alamo Drafthouse locations I saw some SXSW screenings at five years ago, where a steeper stadium slope and a walkway behind each row of seats allowed food to be delivered without stepping on toes or disturbing anyone's eyeline. I actually wound up glad to be in the second row of SuperLux seating for The Hobbit; ushers walking between the sections still had their heads poke into view there, but it would have been worse in the first row seats that I would have purchased if they weren't already claimed before I got there. I recommend arriving early to make sure you can claim seats in the centers of rows; there are a lot of people walking through the audience at various times, and sitting in the middle not only affords you the head-on view that I prefer in all screens, but as a practical matter it keeps more people out of view.
In summary...
Given that I am on the thrifty side and can see most movies for rather less money using MoviePass (and less hassle - it's a bit of a hike from the Chestnut Hill T stop, although suburban folks who drive everywhere won't mind as there's a fair amount of parking), I probably won't go to the SuperLux very often now that I've satisfied my curiosity. Thus far, the film selection hasn't been the sort of thing that necessitates a trip out of the city, and that's a bit of a surprise to me; I figured a place positioning itself as being for the demanding moviegoer might have some restored classics or critical darlings as opposed to Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa. It makes sense, though - Showcase is trying to capture the people who don't like the movie theater environment by offering personal service at prices just high enough to keep the folks who aren't picky about how they see a movie out, and the "I hate going to the movies" crowd isn't necessarily looking for better movies.
Still, I can see myself going there semi-regularly, and not just as a special treat. The prices may induce a little sticker shock - $20 for LuxLite and $28 for SuperLux - but they're actually not as bad as they sound. The official ticket prices, as far as the studios and box-office charts are concerned, are actually $15 and $23; the extra $5 can be applied against your food/drink bill. There's also no surcharge for 3D movies, and once that's taken into account, a LuxLite ticket paired with some candy and a soda that admittedly won't explode your bladder suddenly looks pretty competitive with the downtown multiplexes. SuperLux is an indulgence - I think my ticket, steak, soda, and pie cost me about $60 once tax and tip were figured in, and that's a pretty expensive night at the movies, albeit one that includes a better-than-decent meal.
In many ways, this place is the opposite of what I would open if I had the chance, but the audience Showcase is courting doesn't match the niche I would try to fill given the resources to open my own theater. It's a very comfortable way to see a movie, and there's something very appealing about a place that tries to serve one segment of the audience very well as opposed to trying to make a place that offers something to everyone the way a typical multiplex does.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
* * * (out of four)
Seen 23 December 2013 at Showcase SuperLux Chestnut Hill #3 (first-run, RealD HFR 3D)
... but when it comes right down to it, it's the movie that's important, and at the end of the night, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug did not ruin a perfectly good steak dinner. And while the pampering may certainly have contributed to me liking Smaug better than An Unexpected Journey, I think Peter Jackson has still made himself a pretty good movie here.
Admittedly, some of the problems that plague the first one are still present in the second. I hope that, when all is said and done, Jackson doesn't just present extended editions, but also gives us a look at how the original two-part adaptation would have been like. Splitting the story into three has left it feeling stretched out, especially since I half-suspect that these movies are as long as they are (two hours, forty minutes) because even a long but not crazy 2:20 would have made breaking them into three rather than two harder to justify. This time, instead of ending on an anticlimax, the movie ends on a cliffhanger, but one that seems like a fairly random stopping point.
Still, there is a great deal of pretty excellent material here. Martin Freeman's Bilbo, secretly carrying the One Ring, is starting to enjoy the fact that he's suddenly important and capable of doing great things, and Freeman does a fine job of showing how, as much as the Ring may be stoking this desire for personal glory that borders on recklessness, some of it comes from inside Bilbo himself. Gandalf's side of the story isn't quiet so interesting, but it's fun to watch Orland Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, and Aidan Turner play off each other. And Stephen Fry! Stephen Fry was an unexpected treat.
Plus, the action - some of it is amazing. The barrel escape from the elves' dungeons at the center of the film is incredible, somehow managing to bounce from whimsical to not messing around with amazing grace. The choreography of it is Spielbergian, light on its feet, in constant motion, but with each action leading to the next so smoothly that it feels like watching some sort of dance. I suspect in the original conception, that would have been the climax of the first movie, with the second being more Smaug-centric. I love Smaug, though - for all that much of the final action sequence is somewhat drawn out, the dragon may be Weta's finest creation, and even with Benedict Cumberbatch's voice distorted, he's a fabulously realized monster and antagonist.
I half-wonder how much of the change in the appearance of the film in HFR this time around is down to Jackson and company understanding what works for a feature better and how much is pushing the look closer to that of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There's a definite change in perspective here, somewhat less the bright, kid-friendly adventure of the first part as the darkness from the other set of movies starts to intrude, and the job Jackson does of forging that link makes me wonder what I'd remove to have a less-bloated Hobbit series. Making that short book this big has caused some problems, but also created some rewards.
(I do, idly, wonder how things might have gone had Roger Ebert still been with us. He spent years advocating for the Maxivision 48 system, and I have no idea if seeing 48fps in a feature film would have changed his mind, or if he would have blamed any shortcomings on 3D. A loud critical voice excited about high frame rates certainly might have reshaped the conversation!)
There were far fewer HFR screenings of the second part this fall, whether because audiences genuinely rejected it or because Warner Brothers just decided it didn't need to deal with this debate again on a yearly basis; they certainly put less emphasis on it in the promotions. As a result, by the time I could actually see it, the SuperLux was actually the most accessible location. At this rate, it will be a "you'd better see it opening night" situation next year.
The funny thing was, I actually liked it a bit more this time. I suspect Peter Jackson and company both learned from actually seeing the results last year and have had more time to refine their digital effects and coloring. There are still times when the movie has the look of a video game (games frequently run at a higher frame rate) or otherwise appears "wrong" to an eye used to 24fps film, but, given the chance, I think I could get used to this. I'm reasonably sure that every other 3D presentation I see over the next few months is going to look much worse, as both the higher frame rate and 4K projection really help sell the illusion of three dimensions quite a bit. (If you just want to know what I thought of the movie, jump to the end of the entry.)
Similarly, I think I could get used to seeing movies at the SuperLux, although there are things about it that initially strike me as "wrong", even though I'll generally argue that there's no wrong way to enjoy a movie with the general exception of when it interferes with someone else doing so, which is less "you're doing it wrong" than "you're doing it at the wrong place and time". It has its good enough points, though, even I don't think I'd want to see the majority of my movies there.
Exterior/Box Office
For a "premium" theater, it's unassuming enough from the outside, opting to understate its high-end contents at street level rather than come across as obviously luxurious and decadent. It's at the end of "The Street", a string of shopping plazas that merge into one through similar dimensions, style, and tone - you won't find thrift stores there, but you also won't find many places that come off as way out of a middle-class suburbanite's price range. Fun trivia - to get to this theater from the Chestnut Hill T station, you have to walk past the vacant space of old AMC Chestnut Hill, which still looks like the old 1970s-era cinder block it was.
Once inside, you're confronted by touch-screens and escalators, and the touch-screens are my biggest beef with the place - I often have dreadful luck with touch interfaces, and these ticket kiosks are occasionally difficult to use. For some reason, each movie is listed twice, once for the "LuxLite" seating and once for the "SuperLux" seating, but just looking at the screen won't necessarily tell you which is which if you don't already know those names, as they are distinguished by an alphanumeric code after the movie title. Once you've chosen your movie, and price level, it brings you to a screen that allows you to choose your seats, which is also not a great interface; the color coding is not immediately obvious, the individual seats are too small on the screen, and on my first visit I was actually unable to choose a seat and had to go to the concierge desk. It also appears that the first couple of rows are locked until the rest of the "LuxLite" seats fill up, something I'm of two minds about - they are fairly close to the screen, but I'd rather sit front-row center than at the end of the third row, and seeing them empty but not being able to select them frustrated me.
Note that less-than-ideal interface design on the kiosks isn't unique to this theater - I have my issues with the ones at AMC and Regal as well - but it is kind of frustrating because there is no traditional box office for those who prefer interacting with a human being even if they are not frustrated by not being able to get the machine to do what they want, especially since they're paying a relatively high price for service and the place can feel overstaffed in other areas. It's impersonal and could be much improved by either having a more intuitive interface on the touchscreens or a visible customer service representative (or, ideally, both).
Lobby
Once you've got your tickets, the next step is the lobby. It's a pretty terrible picture, but it gets across how tony the place is. The desk on the right is an island that serves as the "concierge desk" for customer service. When I had to use it to get into Gravity, the folks were nice, but things moved slowly, in part because a place like this thrives on the feeling of personal service, so making sure the person at the desk right now feels important can feel like more of a priority than getting to each one of the people in line who would like something resolved before their movie starts at a fixed time. It doesn't help that the software at the concierges' disposal appears to be just as user-friendly as the customer-facing stuff; it seemed to take forever to switch modes, open up seating, etc.
The thing that struck me most about this area, though, is how quiet it was compared to a typical cinema lobby. There are no video games or vending machines, no five stations of people ordering tickets or snacks, no lines, and not really a whole lot of people hanging around waiting for the last show in their theater to get out or for friends to show. Even the piped-in music is fairly sedate. It's not bad, per se - if you're like me, you'll just be walking straight through this area; if you're not, maybe you'll order a cocktail at the bar, have a meal at the attached Davio's Steakhouse, or gather with your friends around one of those little tables that puts your group close enough to each other but far enough from anyone else that you don't have to make your voice carry.
It's nice, but not what I'm used to - I take public transportation to multiplexes or neighborhood theaters with tight lobbies where you might have to stop at the box office, the concession stand, and a bar to get everything you need before awkwardly presenting your ticket with your hands full. There are days when I don't like the noise, but I've gotten used to it, and the lack of it seems like a demonstration of how part of the appeal of the SuperLux is keeping the riff-raff out, and some part of me wants to declare that movies are for everyone, that the fact that cinemas are one of the places where we rub elbows with people of different classes and backgrounds is a good thing, as opposed to this yuppie enclave. On the other hand... Yeah, it is nice to hear yourself think, relax, maybe loosen up with a beverage if that's your thing. It is, in fact, quite pleasant to know that the guy in front of you is working exclusively on getting things right for you rather than just wanting to keep the line moving. The traditional cinema lobby is communal, but it's full of people going a dozen different directions, and quiet order is a worthwhile alternative to the usual.
Whatever you think of this room, there's a ticket-ripper on the other end who will direct you to your theater. There, you may see what I mean about the place sometimes seeming a bit overstaffed, with four to six ushers waiting outside the room to show you to your seat. Again, it's a bit weird to me; even in places with assigned seating like ballparks or concert halls, I'm used to figuring out how the rows are numbered and just sitting down, and that effect seems amplified when you're a single moviegoer walking past a crowd of people who seem taken aback that you might seat yourself. Just remember, though, that despite the big screen at the front of the room and the neatly arranged rows of seats, this is in many ways a restaurant more than a theater, and there's nothing strange about being shown to your seat in a restaurant.
Theaters
Here's the thing - once you get into your seat, a lot of the things that may have seemed strange or off-putting before fade to the background, because what goes on in here is fairly excellent. Not perfect, at least to my way of thinking, but my priorities aren't necessarily those of the SuperLux's target audience. I want nothing between me and the movie; this place is built to offer, as the name says, super-luxurious service.
The basics, at least, are well-covered. All six screens are fair-sized, especially compared to the cozy 80-100 person capacity and dimensions of the room, and they all feature 4K Sony digital projection with 7.1-channel surround sound. I believe they are all 3D capable, and from what I've read, the captioning and amplification devices for those who need them are state of the art LCD glasses, as opposed to finicky listening devices or mirrors that must be positioned to capture a marquee above the projection booth. Now that I think about it, this may be the first theater in the Boston area that was built to be fully digital, rather than replacing or existing next to 35mm projectors, and the clarity suggests that this certainly doesn't hurt. No ads play on the screen before the movie's start time, and the movie itself is preceded only by theatrical trailers and a bumper for the theater. It's a bummer that this is worth mentioning, but it is.
The seating is comfortable as well, with wide, soft-but-firm seats that have a swinging desk surface on which one will find menus and, for 3D movies, glasses. It's pretty nice to have a flat, steady surface to place your concessions on. If you shelled out the extra $8 for the "Superlux" seating, there are buttons on the side of your chair that reveal it to be a motorized recliner. It beats out the RPX screen at Fenway for the best local movie theater seats at an establishment whose primary purpose is not selling furniture, and those extra little practicalities put it right up there with Jordan's.
Then there's the menus. If you sit in the front "LuxLite" section, you're given a lighted booklet with drinks on one side and food on the other, and the wait staff will try and serve you before the movie starts (no orders will be taken after the lights go down, but they may be brought to your seat); if you sit in the "SuperLux" section, the menu is a tablet computer - the website calls it an "IPad", but the dimensions are closer to my Android Nexus 7. I was initially confused, trying to figure out how to order directly from the tablet, double-tapping and flicking once the item I wanted was on screen; instead, you hit a call button on the armrest and a waiter will come to take your order, even during the movie.
The food is pretty good, although the selection is much broader in the SuperLux rows. When I sat in the LuxLite section for Thor: The Dark World, I had some chicken tenders and fries. Pretty good, though I might have liked a little more meat and a little less batter. When seeing The Hobbit from the SuperLux seats, I ordered the Korean sirloin steak with mashed potatoes followed by the key lime pie, and that was definitely satisfactory! It was also a sign of the level of service a premium seat includes that you could specify how long you wanted between the (hypothetical) appetizers, main course, and dessert being served. I'm not sure whether having a waiter bring you a steak during your movie or having him or her deliver a bag of Peanut M&Ms is more indulgent, but it makes the whole movie experience excellent. Popcorn is complimentary in the SuperLux section (not in LuxLite), and be aware that your $4.50 soft drink is restaurant-sized, not cinema-sized. Alcohol is served.
It has taken me three visits to get to know the place well enough from the inside that I can purchase my assigned seat with confidence. One thing you may notice from the photograph is that while the place features what is technically stadium seating, it's a much gentler slope than what is currently in vogue. And while there is more leg room in the LuxLite seats than at a typical theater, it's still a bit of a squeeze for the waiter to bring you your snacks, especially if the lights have already gone down. It's not quite as perfect a set-up as the Austin Alamo Drafthouse locations I saw some SXSW screenings at five years ago, where a steeper stadium slope and a walkway behind each row of seats allowed food to be delivered without stepping on toes or disturbing anyone's eyeline. I actually wound up glad to be in the second row of SuperLux seating for The Hobbit; ushers walking between the sections still had their heads poke into view there, but it would have been worse in the first row seats that I would have purchased if they weren't already claimed before I got there. I recommend arriving early to make sure you can claim seats in the centers of rows; there are a lot of people walking through the audience at various times, and sitting in the middle not only affords you the head-on view that I prefer in all screens, but as a practical matter it keeps more people out of view.
In summary...
Given that I am on the thrifty side and can see most movies for rather less money using MoviePass (and less hassle - it's a bit of a hike from the Chestnut Hill T stop, although suburban folks who drive everywhere won't mind as there's a fair amount of parking), I probably won't go to the SuperLux very often now that I've satisfied my curiosity. Thus far, the film selection hasn't been the sort of thing that necessitates a trip out of the city, and that's a bit of a surprise to me; I figured a place positioning itself as being for the demanding moviegoer might have some restored classics or critical darlings as opposed to Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa. It makes sense, though - Showcase is trying to capture the people who don't like the movie theater environment by offering personal service at prices just high enough to keep the folks who aren't picky about how they see a movie out, and the "I hate going to the movies" crowd isn't necessarily looking for better movies.
Still, I can see myself going there semi-regularly, and not just as a special treat. The prices may induce a little sticker shock - $20 for LuxLite and $28 for SuperLux - but they're actually not as bad as they sound. The official ticket prices, as far as the studios and box-office charts are concerned, are actually $15 and $23; the extra $5 can be applied against your food/drink bill. There's also no surcharge for 3D movies, and once that's taken into account, a LuxLite ticket paired with some candy and a soda that admittedly won't explode your bladder suddenly looks pretty competitive with the downtown multiplexes. SuperLux is an indulgence - I think my ticket, steak, soda, and pie cost me about $60 once tax and tip were figured in, and that's a pretty expensive night at the movies, albeit one that includes a better-than-decent meal.
In many ways, this place is the opposite of what I would open if I had the chance, but the audience Showcase is courting doesn't match the niche I would try to fill given the resources to open my own theater. It's a very comfortable way to see a movie, and there's something very appealing about a place that tries to serve one segment of the audience very well as opposed to trying to make a place that offers something to everyone the way a typical multiplex does.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
* * * (out of four)
Seen 23 December 2013 at Showcase SuperLux Chestnut Hill #3 (first-run, RealD HFR 3D)
... but when it comes right down to it, it's the movie that's important, and at the end of the night, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug did not ruin a perfectly good steak dinner. And while the pampering may certainly have contributed to me liking Smaug better than An Unexpected Journey, I think Peter Jackson has still made himself a pretty good movie here.
Admittedly, some of the problems that plague the first one are still present in the second. I hope that, when all is said and done, Jackson doesn't just present extended editions, but also gives us a look at how the original two-part adaptation would have been like. Splitting the story into three has left it feeling stretched out, especially since I half-suspect that these movies are as long as they are (two hours, forty minutes) because even a long but not crazy 2:20 would have made breaking them into three rather than two harder to justify. This time, instead of ending on an anticlimax, the movie ends on a cliffhanger, but one that seems like a fairly random stopping point.
Still, there is a great deal of pretty excellent material here. Martin Freeman's Bilbo, secretly carrying the One Ring, is starting to enjoy the fact that he's suddenly important and capable of doing great things, and Freeman does a fine job of showing how, as much as the Ring may be stoking this desire for personal glory that borders on recklessness, some of it comes from inside Bilbo himself. Gandalf's side of the story isn't quiet so interesting, but it's fun to watch Orland Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, and Aidan Turner play off each other. And Stephen Fry! Stephen Fry was an unexpected treat.
Plus, the action - some of it is amazing. The barrel escape from the elves' dungeons at the center of the film is incredible, somehow managing to bounce from whimsical to not messing around with amazing grace. The choreography of it is Spielbergian, light on its feet, in constant motion, but with each action leading to the next so smoothly that it feels like watching some sort of dance. I suspect in the original conception, that would have been the climax of the first movie, with the second being more Smaug-centric. I love Smaug, though - for all that much of the final action sequence is somewhat drawn out, the dragon may be Weta's finest creation, and even with Benedict Cumberbatch's voice distorted, he's a fabulously realized monster and antagonist.
I half-wonder how much of the change in the appearance of the film in HFR this time around is down to Jackson and company understanding what works for a feature better and how much is pushing the look closer to that of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There's a definite change in perspective here, somewhat less the bright, kid-friendly adventure of the first part as the darkness from the other set of movies starts to intrude, and the job Jackson does of forging that link makes me wonder what I'd remove to have a less-bloated Hobbit series. Making that short book this big has caused some problems, but also created some rewards.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
This Week In Tickets: 4 November 2013 - 10 November 2013
Can you tell baseball season's over and the fall TV slate is uninspiring by the sheer volume of tickets on this page?
Stubless: Inside Llewyn Davis, Brattle Theatre, 7 November 2013, 7:30pm
Kind of busy. and that's using Wednesday to hit the comic shop. But I do kind of like the whole seven different venues thing going on.
The first stop was the Brattle Theatre on Monday, where I caught the tail end of the Guillermo del Toro program in Pacific Rim. I don't know if I'll actually wind up writing full reviews for the whole program like I intended, but I'm glad I got to this one in particular - I came in late and had a front-corner seat when I saw it at the furniture store, so I was very happy to see it head on from the start and with a bit more awareness of the audience. It plays well to a crowd, and should be a lot of fun at the sci-fi marathon when it inevitably arrives there.
I opted for the Regent/Gathr JFK doc instead of the one at the Brattle on Tuesday, and I don't know if that was a great choice. JFK: A President Betrayed wasn't bad, but didn't really hold my attention. The Q&A wasn't bad, although JFK is certainly a subject that brings the audience members who want to hear themselves talk out of the woodwork. I get the feeling Dan Fenn has reached the point of having zero patience with conspiracy theories, though, and while it was interesting to hear him say that the movie didn't get everything right, he didn't give a lot of detail on where it went off-base.
Thursday's show at the Brattle was an IFFBoston preview of Inside Llewyn Davis, the new Coen Brothers movie that will be hitting Boston in about a month (I think the NYC/LA date is 6 December). It's quite good, and I'm looking forward both to everyone else getting to see it and the retrospective the Brattle will be having during mid-December. Star Oscar Isaac was on hand, to - here's IFFBoston director Brian Tamm introducing him:
Then the weekend got kind of nutty. I'm thinking of doing a "why MoviePass's new policy is frustrating" piece later in the week, because it did impact the way I chose to see things last weekend in a frustrating way that I don't think they really considered when they changed the policy. At any rate, it was a mix of good an blah stuff. 12 Years a Slave was pretty good Friday night, although flawed, while Thor: The Dark World was actually a lot better than I'd been expecting Saturday morning. I couldn't muster up a whole lot of enthusiasm after either The Motel Life Saturday night or Kill Your Darlings Sunday evening.
Sunday afternoon, I decided to finally check out the fancy Showcase SuperLux in Chestnut Hill by re-watching a known quantity - Gravity. I was going to give the place it's own post, and I may do so again in a week or two, but it would be incomplete because I wasn't able to order food, which is half the point of this theater. Of course, I wasn't able to order food because the self-service ticket booths didn't work properly, sending me to the "concierge desk", where the host was polite and helpful, but he had to deal with an embarrassingly slow computer system. And, of course, he was being polite and helpful to folks in front of me as well, and the farther you get from the mainstream multiplexes, the more relaxed a pace customer service runs at.
Pity; I was actually pretty hungry by the time I sat down for the movie and would have liked a snack, but they don't serve "LuxLite" seats after the previews start. Well, not unless you raise a stink like the people to my left who dragged a server over so that another had to step in front of me a couple times during the first act.
Pacific Rim
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2013 at the Brattle Theatre (Guillermo del Toro, DCP)
I'd hoped to see this in theaters multiple times over the summer, joking that it wasn't so bad that I missed the first few minutes at Jordan's because that gave me a built-in excuse to go see it again. Unfortunately, I didn't get another chance before Fantasia started, and then it under-performed, pretty much moving out of Boston-area screens by the time I got back. I was kind of sad I wouldn't get to see the opening on the big screen for a while.
But then the Brattle started playing previews for it even before the Guillermo del Toro series was announced, and it says something both about the movie and the guys who cut the trailers that they made me just as giddy to see the movie as I had been when they first started showing up in the spring. It tickles something in the back of my brain directly, even if the fact that the movie didn't become a big hit reminds me of how back in '04, the previews for del Toro's Hellboy didn't get half the audience reaction that the Van Helsing ones did. I just don't get America sometimes.
It was a lot of fun to see Pacific Rim as the latest part of a Guillermo del Toro career retrospective (with his Simpsons intro as a pre-movie short, at that!) as opposed to being "one more big summer movie". As much as the Hellboy movies had a darkness underneath their cheerful goofiness, this one brings smiles in the midst of disaster, letting the audience cheer folks dying heroically and just enjoy the heck out of giant mechs and giant monsters beating the crap out of each other. From a good vantage point, the action is even better than I'd remembered, and even if it's not particularly deep, I'm not sure how much depth needs to be bolted onto guys making a last bold stand for the fate of the world when the sensible people are trying to hide. It's great escapist action that likes its entire cast, and I hope like heck that del Toro gets to have more big, upbeat fun like this soon.
What I said in July still holds up.
JFK: A President Betrayed
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 5 November 2013 at the Regent Theatre (Gathr Previews Presents, digital)
History never was my best or favorite subject, for all that it's filled with fascinating stories and offers just as many practical lessons for the present as the old saw about how those who forget it are doomed to repeat it suggests. And among the history that never particularly captivated me, JFK is right up there, even if one can't help but acknowledge how he was the first example of how personal charisma became so central to the process of getting elected in the television era.
So, no, I wasn't hugely fascinated by this look at his "true" legacy - the quotation marks coming because this almost seems like a re-revision. Once upon a time, I remember, being told that his assassination made people conflate him with the 1960s peace movement, when he was in fact as hard-line a Cold Warrior as anybody. This movie makes the argument that he was more inclined to be conciliatory and compromising. It seems well-sourced enough, I guess, although it also occasionally seems like Boomers making a stretch to define history their way.
Who knows where the truth really falls? I'm more inclined to believe this side after seeing the movie, but it's not utterly persuasive, and it does suffer a bit from the dwindling number of direct witnesses to what the thinking was in the Oval Office fifty years ago. It's got pleasant Morgan Freeman translation, but it's also often so dry that it's not hard to zone out during the picture, at east for someone like me who isn't fascinated enough by the subject matter to get into the minutia.
12 Years a Slave
* * * (out of four)
Seen 8 November 2013 at Somerville Theatre #3 (first-run, 2K DCP)
There are a couple moments early on in 12 Years a Slave when I'm inclined to groan "enough already, I get it!" and just want director Steve McQueen and writer John Ridley to quit it with the wallowing and move on with the story, but what makes this a better movie than it might be is that there's always something, direct or indirect, that says that no, in all likelihood, you don't get it, and no movie can really communicate enough that you do. McQueen is looking to kindle an emotional disgust at the very idea of slavery, and he does that fairly well.
That's why the movie is able to do a good job of overcoming its biggest weakness, that it doesn't really feel like twelve years pass during it. One or two, tops. That's still horrifying, but it doesn't really give Chiwetel Ejiofor the opportunity to show how this long odyssey ground Solomon Northup down. He does a fine job of showing other things - how one can take relatively good fortune for granted, or how easily a person can accept and grow used to powerlessness, and those are worth demonstrating as well. As a result, Ejiofor's Northup has the story the audience will remember, but maybe not the performance.
Those come from Michael Fassbender, playing a plantation owner far crueler than Solomon's first master, and Lupita Nyong'o as a slave woman who has sacrificed every bit of dignity she has for a position that is in no way worth the price. The dynamics of the Epps household becomes kind of fascinating, even if it's not always the most well-staged subplot - it reflects how the likes of Edwin Epps use power and position in every facet of their life and consider themselves so important that a bunch of moths is not about nature but them. It's a fascinating dynamic, and I wish Northup's experiences had the same visceral power.
Thor: The Dark World
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 9 November 2013 at Regal Fenway #13 (first-run, 3D RPX DCP)
I liked Marvel's first Thor movie well enough, although it was kind of based on low expectations - how are they going to fit Thor into a Marvel Cinematic Universe that skews decidedly science-fictional? - and fondness for some of the people involved. It was a bit of a mess, with too much stuff to set up the Avengers at the expense of the title character's personal world. It also looked a bit cheap.
The sequel, at least, dispenses with the latter; Asgard looks cool and natural, rather than like a tilt-shifted 3D model. There are more creatures. And while some of the Thor-centric characters get pushed to the side - I think they had Tadanobu Asano for roughly a day - some others get used better; Renee Russo and Idris Elba actually have stuff to do this time around, even if Christopher Eccleston gets decidedly little to do as the villain. Marvel seems to emphasize one-movie villains less than the other studios, apparently feeling that a strong supporting cast (which is where Tom Hiddleston's Loki likely fits now) helps them more than highly variable antagonists.
The thing I liked most, though, was the level of anything-goes fun this movie has. Last time around, I was surprised that they went Kirby rather than a safer, more realistic Viking Mythology setting; this time, they push the Jack Kirby blending of sci-fi and mythology even further; just when the audience is getting used to Lord of the Rings, Star Wars will break out. And the Midgard-bound settings are enjoyable, too, with enjoyably quirky characters and a final battle that is surprisingly clear for the type of disjointed action it is and which has time for funny bits without undercutting the grandeur and threat.
I don't know that Thor is going to become a particular favorite franchise of mine (you won't see me adding it to my pull list at the Picnic), but I enjoyed The Dark World more than I expected, and may give it another view as a way to check out the fancy theater again.
Gravity
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 10 November 2013 at Showcase SuperLux #1 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)
I took in Gravity for a second time in part because if I'm going to spend $20 mainly to check out a theater as opposed to the movie, It might as well be one I know I love. And, yes, I still do love the heck out of Gravity; a second viewing wasn't quite the giddy "nobody makes this sort of movie no matter how much I love it and I need to know what's going to happen next' experience, but it was still a fine-tune, lean, efficient thriller that puts amazing things on-screen.
One thing I did notice with more people in a smaller room was just how well Alfonso Cuaron is able to really hit the right emotional beats when he needs to. One of the most enjoyably empathetic moments I've had at the movies lately was how, when Bullock's Ryan Stone gives the speech that has her going from pessimistic to ready to try everything to survive, the audience was feeling it, and when she hits the button so that the lander's rockets go off, that moment of thrust is a fantastic exclamation point on how from here on out, she's going to be kicking butt.
It works, and it's wonderfully cinematic, probably worth another viewing or two before it leaves cinemas.
What I said last month.
Stubless: Inside Llewyn Davis, Brattle Theatre, 7 November 2013, 7:30pm
Kind of busy. and that's using Wednesday to hit the comic shop. But I do kind of like the whole seven different venues thing going on.
The first stop was the Brattle Theatre on Monday, where I caught the tail end of the Guillermo del Toro program in Pacific Rim. I don't know if I'll actually wind up writing full reviews for the whole program like I intended, but I'm glad I got to this one in particular - I came in late and had a front-corner seat when I saw it at the furniture store, so I was very happy to see it head on from the start and with a bit more awareness of the audience. It plays well to a crowd, and should be a lot of fun at the sci-fi marathon when it inevitably arrives there.
I opted for the Regent/Gathr JFK doc instead of the one at the Brattle on Tuesday, and I don't know if that was a great choice. JFK: A President Betrayed wasn't bad, but didn't really hold my attention. The Q&A wasn't bad, although JFK is certainly a subject that brings the audience members who want to hear themselves talk out of the woodwork. I get the feeling Dan Fenn has reached the point of having zero patience with conspiracy theories, though, and while it was interesting to hear him say that the movie didn't get everything right, he didn't give a lot of detail on where it went off-base.
Thursday's show at the Brattle was an IFFBoston preview of Inside Llewyn Davis, the new Coen Brothers movie that will be hitting Boston in about a month (I think the NYC/LA date is 6 December). It's quite good, and I'm looking forward both to everyone else getting to see it and the retrospective the Brattle will be having during mid-December. Star Oscar Isaac was on hand, to - here's IFFBoston director Brian Tamm introducing him:
Then the weekend got kind of nutty. I'm thinking of doing a "why MoviePass's new policy is frustrating" piece later in the week, because it did impact the way I chose to see things last weekend in a frustrating way that I don't think they really considered when they changed the policy. At any rate, it was a mix of good an blah stuff. 12 Years a Slave was pretty good Friday night, although flawed, while Thor: The Dark World was actually a lot better than I'd been expecting Saturday morning. I couldn't muster up a whole lot of enthusiasm after either The Motel Life Saturday night or Kill Your Darlings Sunday evening.
Sunday afternoon, I decided to finally check out the fancy Showcase SuperLux in Chestnut Hill by re-watching a known quantity - Gravity. I was going to give the place it's own post, and I may do so again in a week or two, but it would be incomplete because I wasn't able to order food, which is half the point of this theater. Of course, I wasn't able to order food because the self-service ticket booths didn't work properly, sending me to the "concierge desk", where the host was polite and helpful, but he had to deal with an embarrassingly slow computer system. And, of course, he was being polite and helpful to folks in front of me as well, and the farther you get from the mainstream multiplexes, the more relaxed a pace customer service runs at.
Pity; I was actually pretty hungry by the time I sat down for the movie and would have liked a snack, but they don't serve "LuxLite" seats after the previews start. Well, not unless you raise a stink like the people to my left who dragged a server over so that another had to step in front of me a couple times during the first act.
Pacific Rim
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2013 at the Brattle Theatre (Guillermo del Toro, DCP)
I'd hoped to see this in theaters multiple times over the summer, joking that it wasn't so bad that I missed the first few minutes at Jordan's because that gave me a built-in excuse to go see it again. Unfortunately, I didn't get another chance before Fantasia started, and then it under-performed, pretty much moving out of Boston-area screens by the time I got back. I was kind of sad I wouldn't get to see the opening on the big screen for a while.
But then the Brattle started playing previews for it even before the Guillermo del Toro series was announced, and it says something both about the movie and the guys who cut the trailers that they made me just as giddy to see the movie as I had been when they first started showing up in the spring. It tickles something in the back of my brain directly, even if the fact that the movie didn't become a big hit reminds me of how back in '04, the previews for del Toro's Hellboy didn't get half the audience reaction that the Van Helsing ones did. I just don't get America sometimes.
It was a lot of fun to see Pacific Rim as the latest part of a Guillermo del Toro career retrospective (with his Simpsons intro as a pre-movie short, at that!) as opposed to being "one more big summer movie". As much as the Hellboy movies had a darkness underneath their cheerful goofiness, this one brings smiles in the midst of disaster, letting the audience cheer folks dying heroically and just enjoy the heck out of giant mechs and giant monsters beating the crap out of each other. From a good vantage point, the action is even better than I'd remembered, and even if it's not particularly deep, I'm not sure how much depth needs to be bolted onto guys making a last bold stand for the fate of the world when the sensible people are trying to hide. It's great escapist action that likes its entire cast, and I hope like heck that del Toro gets to have more big, upbeat fun like this soon.
What I said in July still holds up.
JFK: A President Betrayed
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 5 November 2013 at the Regent Theatre (Gathr Previews Presents, digital)
History never was my best or favorite subject, for all that it's filled with fascinating stories and offers just as many practical lessons for the present as the old saw about how those who forget it are doomed to repeat it suggests. And among the history that never particularly captivated me, JFK is right up there, even if one can't help but acknowledge how he was the first example of how personal charisma became so central to the process of getting elected in the television era.
So, no, I wasn't hugely fascinated by this look at his "true" legacy - the quotation marks coming because this almost seems like a re-revision. Once upon a time, I remember, being told that his assassination made people conflate him with the 1960s peace movement, when he was in fact as hard-line a Cold Warrior as anybody. This movie makes the argument that he was more inclined to be conciliatory and compromising. It seems well-sourced enough, I guess, although it also occasionally seems like Boomers making a stretch to define history their way.
Who knows where the truth really falls? I'm more inclined to believe this side after seeing the movie, but it's not utterly persuasive, and it does suffer a bit from the dwindling number of direct witnesses to what the thinking was in the Oval Office fifty years ago. It's got pleasant Morgan Freeman translation, but it's also often so dry that it's not hard to zone out during the picture, at east for someone like me who isn't fascinated enough by the subject matter to get into the minutia.
12 Years a Slave
* * * (out of four)
Seen 8 November 2013 at Somerville Theatre #3 (first-run, 2K DCP)
There are a couple moments early on in 12 Years a Slave when I'm inclined to groan "enough already, I get it!" and just want director Steve McQueen and writer John Ridley to quit it with the wallowing and move on with the story, but what makes this a better movie than it might be is that there's always something, direct or indirect, that says that no, in all likelihood, you don't get it, and no movie can really communicate enough that you do. McQueen is looking to kindle an emotional disgust at the very idea of slavery, and he does that fairly well.
That's why the movie is able to do a good job of overcoming its biggest weakness, that it doesn't really feel like twelve years pass during it. One or two, tops. That's still horrifying, but it doesn't really give Chiwetel Ejiofor the opportunity to show how this long odyssey ground Solomon Northup down. He does a fine job of showing other things - how one can take relatively good fortune for granted, or how easily a person can accept and grow used to powerlessness, and those are worth demonstrating as well. As a result, Ejiofor's Northup has the story the audience will remember, but maybe not the performance.
Those come from Michael Fassbender, playing a plantation owner far crueler than Solomon's first master, and Lupita Nyong'o as a slave woman who has sacrificed every bit of dignity she has for a position that is in no way worth the price. The dynamics of the Epps household becomes kind of fascinating, even if it's not always the most well-staged subplot - it reflects how the likes of Edwin Epps use power and position in every facet of their life and consider themselves so important that a bunch of moths is not about nature but them. It's a fascinating dynamic, and I wish Northup's experiences had the same visceral power.
Thor: The Dark World
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 9 November 2013 at Regal Fenway #13 (first-run, 3D RPX DCP)
I liked Marvel's first Thor movie well enough, although it was kind of based on low expectations - how are they going to fit Thor into a Marvel Cinematic Universe that skews decidedly science-fictional? - and fondness for some of the people involved. It was a bit of a mess, with too much stuff to set up the Avengers at the expense of the title character's personal world. It also looked a bit cheap.
The sequel, at least, dispenses with the latter; Asgard looks cool and natural, rather than like a tilt-shifted 3D model. There are more creatures. And while some of the Thor-centric characters get pushed to the side - I think they had Tadanobu Asano for roughly a day - some others get used better; Renee Russo and Idris Elba actually have stuff to do this time around, even if Christopher Eccleston gets decidedly little to do as the villain. Marvel seems to emphasize one-movie villains less than the other studios, apparently feeling that a strong supporting cast (which is where Tom Hiddleston's Loki likely fits now) helps them more than highly variable antagonists.
The thing I liked most, though, was the level of anything-goes fun this movie has. Last time around, I was surprised that they went Kirby rather than a safer, more realistic Viking Mythology setting; this time, they push the Jack Kirby blending of sci-fi and mythology even further; just when the audience is getting used to Lord of the Rings, Star Wars will break out. And the Midgard-bound settings are enjoyable, too, with enjoyably quirky characters and a final battle that is surprisingly clear for the type of disjointed action it is and which has time for funny bits without undercutting the grandeur and threat.
I don't know that Thor is going to become a particular favorite franchise of mine (you won't see me adding it to my pull list at the Picnic), but I enjoyed The Dark World more than I expected, and may give it another view as a way to check out the fancy theater again.
Gravity
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 10 November 2013 at Showcase SuperLux #1 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)
I took in Gravity for a second time in part because if I'm going to spend $20 mainly to check out a theater as opposed to the movie, It might as well be one I know I love. And, yes, I still do love the heck out of Gravity; a second viewing wasn't quite the giddy "nobody makes this sort of movie no matter how much I love it and I need to know what's going to happen next' experience, but it was still a fine-tune, lean, efficient thriller that puts amazing things on-screen.
One thing I did notice with more people in a smaller room was just how well Alfonso Cuaron is able to really hit the right emotional beats when he needs to. One of the most enjoyably empathetic moments I've had at the movies lately was how, when Bullock's Ryan Stone gives the speech that has her going from pessimistic to ready to try everything to survive, the audience was feeling it, and when she hits the button so that the lander's rockets go off, that moment of thrust is a fantastic exclamation point on how from here on out, she's going to be kicking butt.
It works, and it's wonderfully cinematic, probably worth another viewing or two before it leaves cinemas.
What I said last month.
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