ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT

EUROPA REPORT

2013

Directed by Sebastian Cordero

Written by Philip Gelatt

With Anamaria Marinca (Rosa Dasque), Amnamaria Marinca’s adorable pixie cut (itself), Michael Nyqvist (Andrei Blok), Karolina Wydra (Dr. Katya Petrovna), Sharlto Copley (James Corrigan), Daniel Wu (Dun “William” Xu), Christian Camargo (Dr. Daniel Luxembourg), and Embeth Davidtz (Dr. Samantha Unger)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Europa Report: a science fiction movie where not every technological surface is a touchscreen. If that’s not refreshing enough, how about Europa Report: a found footage horror movie with almost no shaky cam? Or Europa Report: a movie about space that isn’t scientifically retarded?

Two plots enter, no plot leaves

MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME

1985

Directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie

Written by George Miller and Terry Hayes

With Mel Gibson (Max Rockatansky), Tina Turner (Aunty Entity), Angelo Rossitto (Master), Paul Larsson (Blaster), Helen Buday (Savannah Nix), Bruce Spence (The Gyro Capt—what? he’s not the same character whose idea was it to cast the same actor who played the guy with the flying machine from Road Warrior in the role of a guy with a flying machine in Beyond Thunderdome but they’re different characters that’s INSANE Jedediah the Pilot)

I WILL REVIEW THIS

MAN OF STEEL


2013

Directed by Zack Snyder

Written by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan

With Henry Cavill (Clark Kent/Kal-El), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Michael Shannon (Dru-Zod), Antje Traue (Faora-Ul), Kevin Costner (Jonathan Kent), Diane Lane (Martha Kent), Russell Crowe (Jor-El)

Spoiler alert: severe

Delayed because I evidently cannot write about Superman without using many, many words, and thinking about it very hard. Apologies to any who stumble across this blog. This was not just a movie to me, to be discussed as any other, but an objective reality set against the hopes and dreams of years. I’m still going to pretend I can review it fairly.

They forgot to binge first

 The Mad Max retrospective continues soon, and as part of an effort to get reviews of newer movies out quickly, Man of Steel early tomorrow.

For now, catching up on last week's technical hit:

THE PURGE

 2013

Written and directed by James DeMonaco

With Ethan Hawke (James Sandin), Lena Headey (Mary Sandin), Lena Headey’s extremely lovely asymmetrical bob haircut (itself), Max Burkholder (Charlie Sandin), Adelaide Kane (Zoey Sandin), Rhys Wakefield (Polite Stranger), and a plot device with four lines (Plot Device With Four Lines)

Spoiler alert: mild

In the year 2022, control of the United States government has been seized by a group of radicals, whose philosophy combines elements of intense religiosity, fascism, and anarchism. At some point, they changed their name to the New Founding Fathers.

Why walk away, when you can ride in style?

THE ROAD WARRIOR

1981

Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, Terry Hayes, and Brian Hannant

With Mel Gibson (Max Rockatansky), Bruce Spence (The Gyro Captain), Kjell Nilsson (Lord Humungus), Vernon Wells (Wez), Emil Minty (The Feral Kid), and Harold Baigent (The Narrator)

Only two years out from the phenomenal domestic financial success and worldwide impress that was his (in retrospect) artistically disappointing first film, a new George Miller joint arrived in theaters, first in Australia, and four months afterward in America. For reasons that probably have more to do with history and geography than quality, Mad Max had spawned a sequel. And in the annals of film follow-ups, Mad Max 2, or The Road Warrior, or Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior—whatever you wish to call it—rules the wasteland.

Hey, fella! You're a turkey!

This is Kinemalogue, the cinema blog (it's Greek so that means I'm educated in all the wrong ways).  We will almost certainly discuss things other than movies, from time to time, because there's a lot of things I love and hate that aren't movies and which I will compulsively shout into this vast emptiness about.  But we'll grok that fullness when we come to it.  The primary mission for now is to share thoughts on new, old, and very old movies.

In commemoration of their combined release on Blu Ray, over this troika of virgin posts, I'm gonna tell you what I thought about one of film's most celebrated post-apocalypses, from its humble Ozsploitation beginnings in 1979, through its 1981 breakout into the mainstream and what Roger Ebert (pbuh) infamously declared one of the best movies of 1985, to my hopes for the Mad Maxes to come.

Oh, and: welcome home.  We love you.

MAD MAX

1979
Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, James McCausland, and Byron Kennedy

With Mel Gibson (Max Rockatansky), Joanne Samuel (Jessie Rockatansky), Steve Bisley (Jim Goose), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Toecutter)

Standing tall amongst the classic films of our childhoods—or adulthoods, or pre-existences, or post-existences, if you can still get Netflix service at the Omega Point—in any event classic films of the late 70s and early 80s—Mad Max has the distinction of being the movie I think I’d most like to see get remade; because despite its enormous importance to its own franchise, to the genre of badass 80s action cinema, and indeed to the culture as a whole (see how Mad Max taught us not to descend into biker barbarism?), it also has the distinction of being only marginally good.

Rest assured, gentle reader, I do not dislike this first outing in Max’ trilogy, and am not unsympathetic to the fact that it is director George Miller's debut effort.  However, to see Max for the first time in perhaps two decades, after dozens of viewings of Road Warrior and Thunderdome, is almost necessarily to be unimpressed by it.

"Can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?"