movies

Retro Reviews: Back to the Future (1985)

~ amyemsal23 ~ Leave a comment

I come from a family of Dodger fans, so going to a Dodger game is a time-honored tradition.
I bring this up because after the Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, they had a screening of Back to the Future at the stadium.

This is my review of Back to the Future!

Great Scott!
Great Scott!

Back to the Future tells the story of Marty McFly, an aspiring musician who is accidently sent back 30 years into the past.  When he becomes his mother’s romantic interest, he must get his future parents together to prevent altering his future.
Now according to my mother, this movie was a surprise hit.  Various studios rejected Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s script until Zemeckis’ film Romancing the Stone was a financial success.  This compelled Universal Studios to pick up the Back to the Future script and this turned out to be a great decision for Universal.
Well, I was born six years after the movie came out.  Last night was the first time I had ever seen it, so how does a film from 1985 hold up to a millennial living in 2015?

The answer: It holds up very, very well.  Back to the Future is a pretty freaking good movie!  It is such a fun and entertaining story with loads of heart.

The Hits
Time travel is a story formula that has never been done completely right, but this movie handles it with great skill.   Michael J. Fox was definitely a perfect choice to play the resourceful, dry-humored Marty.  I like that he’s not an all-out bad boy stereotype.  He’s a typical teenager with a bit of an attitude who truly cares for the people in his life.
The real standout is Christopher Lloyd as Doc.  Mad scientists characters are tough to portray without coming off as over-the-top, but Christopher Lloyd keeps his Doc intelligent and fast-thinking.  There’s a rhyme and reason to his eccentricities.  His moments of sincerity and genuine care for Marty is balanced with his quirks and bursts of ideas.
This movie has a surprising amount of subtly.  It will introduce things such as a clock tower or a neighborhood sign by having Marty pass by them without spelling out for us that those items will be important later.  This respects the audience’s intelligence without being too cryptic.
Finally the comedy is spot-on!  Every joke is well timed, the witty banter never wears out its welcome, and the heartwarming relationship between Marty and Doc never feels contrived or emotionally-manipulative.  The movie’s self-awareness keeps it from being campy, allowing it to be an entertaining adventure story.

The Only Setback
My only complaint is that I wish we learned how Marty met Doc.  Is Doc a family friend or a former science teacher or something?  The most that we learn is that Doc lets Marty use his garage so that he can practice his music.  I know this isn’t an origin story of Marty and Doc, which is totally fine, but I would have liked some context regarding how these two characters came to know each other.

Overall Back to the Future is my new favorite retro movie.   To quote my mother, “It’s as funny today as it was 30 years ago!”  I couldn’t agree more.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

CGB Review of Ex_Machina

~ amyemsal23 ~ Leave a comment

“To be human is to be ‘a’ human, a specific person with a life history and idiosyncrasy and point of view; artificial intelligence suggest that the line between intelligent machines and people blurs most when a puree is made of that identity.”
–Brian Christian, The Most Human Human

This is my review of Ex_Machina!

ex-machina

When a young coder named Caleb (Domhall Gleeson) wins at raffle because–potatoes!–at the Google-esque company where he works, he gets to spend one week with Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the eccentric CEO of the company.   Nathan reveals to Caleb his latest creation: A humanoid cyborg named Ava (Alicia Vikander).  Nathan assigns Caleb to conduct a series of interviews with Ava and apply the Turing Test; to put it simply, he has to measure Ava’s ability to persuade him that she is human even though she is actually AI (Artificial Intelligence).

So I watched this movie on my lunch break and was almost late getting back to work because this is an intelligent and engrossing film.

The Hits
Move over, Fantastic Chore–I mean Bore–I mean Four; THIS is the sci-fi film of the year!
I can’t wait to see Oscar Isaac in Star Wars: The Force Awakens because he is fantastic as Nathan.  He brings to life a secluded genius who feels a need to mentor and guide others as a way to overcompensate for the fact that he fails to connect with others on a daily basis.
Alicia Vikander gives one of the best performances as a robotic protagonist I’ve seen in a while.  Her voice is low-key and slightly monotone, hence reminding us that she is a cyborg, but her movements, facial expressions and careful changing of voice pitch makes her a convincing human.
Caleb starts out as a blank slate, but slowly evolves into a distrusting man who ends up questioning his own humanity in one particular scene where [SPOILER] he cuts himself with a razor to see if he is all wires or water and bone.  Self-injury is tough to do in cinema without looking exploitive, but this scene was well handled and served a purpose to his character development.
I want the soundtrack for this movie because the music matches the cool, low-lit atmosphere of Nathan’s research facility.   The eerie soundtrack has that “someone is watching you from a dark corner” kind of vibe that a clausterphobic sci-fi film needs.
A while ago, Father Robert Barron posted a video called “Planned Parenthood and the Loss of Human Dignity.”  In it, he mentioned how when the value of human life is not determined by God, but rather by who society says has the right to life, the loss of human dignity is sure to follow.
Anyway, I bring this up because there are quite a few times where I felt that some pro-life thinking worked its way into the script.
Here’s a quick example: One of my favorite scenes is when Caleb and Ava are conversing and then this happens:
AVA: “What will happen to me if I don’t pass?  What if I don’t function like I’m supposed to?”
CALEB: “Ava, I don’t know…”
AVA: “Do you have people who switch you off?”
CALEB: “No–”
AVA: “If you can’t be switched off, then why can I?”
Father Barron said that there is dangers to letting sentimentality (our feelings towards others) or productivity (someone’s usefulness in society) be a determining factor in who is deserving of human dignity and who is not.

The Misses
I didn’t feel that Nathan’s assignment to Caleb was explained very well.  By that, I mean Nathan explains it with too much techno-babble instead of keeping the explanation plain and simple.
There are a few times where the dialogue audio is drowned out by the musical score.  It’s not “God forbid a character turns their head from the camera” bad like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland; more like “God forbid a character mumbles” bad.  It’s not a constant problem, but I don’t like having to turn my volume up at 60 just to hear Nathan say, “I’m hung over.”
Any time you write a story that is essentially a think-piece, you run the risk of the ideas trying to be the story instead of the story having ideas.  Old Fashioned had this problem, and Ex_Machina faces this roadblock, as well.  Honestly I don’t think there’s a perfect solution for this issue in think-piece stories, but being aware of it would be helpful to aspiring filmmakers who want to make their audience ponder new ideas.

Overall Ex_Machina is a top-notch film from a first-time director.   An engaging script with thoughtful performances and great musical score make this worth all the praise and accolades it has received.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Christian Movie Reviews: Grace Unplugged

~ amyemsal23 ~ Leave a comment

Hey Christian filmmakers, if you want to save the genre, this is the movie you need to imitate.

This is my review of Grace Unplugged! Grace-Unplugged

Grace Unplugged is a family drama that centers around Grace Trey and her father Johnny Trey, a former rock star turned music minister.  The opening scene tells you (very subtly) that though they play in the church band together, there is tension between musical talent Johnny and the equally talented Grace.  When Johnny’s old manager Mostin tries to get him back into the secular music world, Johnny politely declines, but Grace goes behind her father’s back by sending Mostin a demo of her singing.  She enters the world of secular music and is given a new identity as Gracie Trey.  However her inability to write her own songs and the rift she has caused within her family hinders her path to stardom. Aj Michalka gives an impressive and sincere performance as Grace.  Though at times she tends to rely on the “deer-in-a-headlights” look in the second act, her facial expressions convey the protagonist’s inner turmoil.   Aj Michalka portrays a frustrated girl who expresses herself through music and just wants to be free to create.   James Denton plays Johnny Trey, and he gets the most transformation as a character.  I hated him in the first half because of how uptight and overbearing he was, but his journey into humility made him more sympathetic until I finally gave in and changed my mind about him.  This movie succeeds at having both Grace and her father learn a lesson; Grace learns not to throw herself into a world that she’s not ready for, and Johnny sees the error of his suffocating Grace’s talent. The film does a great job at not letting the message clash with the story.  The humanistic script allows the characters to be living, breathing people and not become Bible-belt stereotypes.  The God-dialogue sounds like it’s coming from the characters and not part of an agenda.  The filmmakers understand that our God is not a forceful God, so they avoid forcing His role in the story.  By allowing God to be in control without shoving Him into clumsy dialogue, the moral that God is in control is able to flourish in a natural progression. People, this is a freaking good Christian movie.  It’s a believable family drama, a well-thought character study of Grace and Johnny, and the music is pretty awesome.   I’m gonna go ahead and say it: Grace Unplugged and Soul Surfer are the movies that are going to save the Christian movie genre if filmmakers follow their example.   There is hope for this genre, and it’s movies like Grace Unplugged that are going to lead the way.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.