Change Your Image
grehfeldt17
Reviews
Interstellar (2014)
A Race Odyssey
When NASA goes into hiding because a world short on food can't be told that serious funds are still going to space exploration and the government has issued "corrected versions" of textbooks that the Apollo moon landing was just a PR effort to bankrupt the Soviets, the truth still lingers in a small portion of society. Coop confronts school bureaucrats with the need to look deeper into his son while explaining why his daughter got into a scuffle over the history of space exploration. Murph and Coop locate NASA by reading some dirt on the floor and Coop fulfills his destiny by venturing into space in pursuit of previous explorers dispatched to find habitable worlds.
Only problem is that Option B is the real only option because Michael Caine has already figured out that Option A, getting everyone off planet earth, doesn't work and has lied to Coop and apparently his daughter about it. A mind bending conclusion involving black holes, the 5th Dimension (not the 60s rock group) and travels back to a safer, more secure time and location leave questions unanswered. The physics makes it a little hard to follow, but allows the dreamers to have their go at the final meaning here. Visually spectacular with enough comic relief from TARS to be fun at points. Should be viewed all in one sitting the first time.
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
"Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt."
I watched this movie start to finish with no interruptions. I found it be poorly edited and paced and lacking any significant emotional buildup or catharsis. Yeah, Jerry is scum and taking advantage of the boys and probably Eazy E participated in it, but even the "big reveal," that Eazy E. has AIDS was sterile.
Sug Knight was poorly played and that actor had no idea how to menace someone just by his presence. Physically he was almost too small to play Sug, but his size could have been complemented by camera angles and keeping him in the foreground.
It also seems that the depiction of the relationships between the original NWA members was very sanitized. With Eazy E getting the majority of the money and the other members getting very little (they eating steak and lobster and we eating burgers), they must have been multiple disagreements that lead to the group's disintegration.
Lastly the ending left little closure, Eazy E dead, and perhaps Dre and Cube back together, but at what level? All in all a very unsatisfying film, but maybe that's was the real deal for this group.
The Flash: Flash vs. Arrow (2014)
Flash Show as a Whole
Being a Flash aficionado and collector of Flash comics, I miss some of the really central things to the Flash mythos from the Silver Age forward. As a starting principle, the Flash has the best Rogues Gallery of any superhero, hands down. There was no need for "meta-humans" and the introduction, character development and first appearance of all villains, save for Captain Cold, is being handled clumsily.
I fear the same is in store for the introduction of the Reverse Flash. Geoff Johns is one of the screenwriters and we are getting his ret-con version of the Flash's origin, working in the death of his mother. Other than the pilot where Grodd's sign is hanging on a cage, there is no hint of his appearance. Grodd, Reverse Flash and other villains are staples of the Flash stories. The key here is to develop new fans, without losing the old fans and Geoff Johns is nearing leaving real fans behind. Flash's costume sucks. One cool thing in the comics was his costume coming out of his ring. Here there is no explanation where his costume is, etc.
Johns also fails to recognize that the Flash is NOT a detective, even as Barry Allen he is a police scientist. The intro of Captain Boomerang is like a detective story. The Flash is a balls out confronter of bad guys; action is the essence of this superhero, not ruminating about who this bad guy is and why he is acting this. The Flash is not Jungian, he is Schwarzeneggerian. HE IS ACTION!!
We will see with Grodd and the Reverse Flash whether they can focus on titanic stuggles and leave the psychoanalysis to the professionals.