Faster Movie Trailer Official (HD)

TRON: LEGACY

On a 10-point meter comprised of visuals and story where ideally each would consume five points equally, "TRON: Legacy" tips the scale in the tech department with eight while only leaving two for humanity.

A wonderful, visual display of computer graphics and visual effects, “Tron Legacy,” is one of the most immersive films made in years with a plot that blows last year’s billion dollar baby [Avatar] out of the water. Thematically, this movie is about utopia versus an imperfect world, capitalism versus socialism, fathers and sons, and finding one’s self. Jeff Bridges has no problem rehashing Kevin Flynn, while Olivia Wilde is a doe-eyed surprise. Perhaps the one caveat in this digital world is the ambition to restore a young looking Bridges as Clu 2.0, while the hero of the film, Garrett Hedlund, was not as charismatic as he should have been. Daft Punk’s score sores with electronic sweetness with some slight help from Hans Zimmer’s composing genius. “Tron Legacy” is a movie for the users, not the programmed critics.

 

It’s no surprise that Tron Legacy is not a critic’s dream film. In fact, almost every review of the film out right now tries to expunge and discredit the film due to its poor screenplay while complementing its outstanding visuals. Seems familiar, as I would venture to guess that most of the people writing these reviews do not remember the original movie nor did they know that movie was a critical dud as well. The original Tron received a consensus that is perhaps not as strong dramatically as it is technologically, but it was an original and visually stunning piece of science fiction that represents a landmark work in the history of computer animation. Tron Legacy in my mind is no different, but where it stands out from its predecessor is that it musters up some unbelievable action, 3D immersion, tasty production design – all mixed within a story that answers some great questions of what Kevin Flynn would do after an experience he had in the first movie.

One thing I commend is they continued the world, made it evolutionary, while not shitting on the original film. They did this while simultaneously rebooting the world of Tron for a potential franchise. Unlike JJ Abrams’ Star Trek, which was a reboot, re-imagining of the world of Trek (creatively made it an alternate reality that does not kill 40 years of canon), Tron Legacy continues the world in the evolutionary way we thought it would.

Perhaps the only complaint I have about the movie is Garrett Hedlund is not the charismatic hero you thought he would be. Thus, Disney didn’t hit a homerun in his casting like a Chris Pine was in Star Trek. He reminded more of a Hayden Christensen in Star Wars.  The movie begins with classic exposition, explaining the Kevin Flynn story from the first film, wrapped within the Daft Punk score with hints of Hans Zimmer. The movie becomes immersive for any newcomer or fan waiting to see what will happen next. Just like the original, an Encom break-in series of scenes is shown, even homaging itself with a line like “that is a really big door.” We are then introduced to Sam Flynn, a rebel youth, who would rather sabotage his father’s company than work for it. A cool Ducati scene as he approaches Encom towers is very Dark Knight-esque and was impressive to see, especially with the awesome “Son of Flynn” Daft Punk track going on. In this little series of scenes we get a cameo of a future villain, given a successful box office turn of the movie. You will have to see the movie to know who I am talking about, but it’s a killer move by the screenwriters. Once Sam accomplishes his goal, he is reunited with his friend and mentor, Alan Bradley, who tells him he got a page from his father’s arcade the previous night and that Sam should go check it out.

This leads Sam on a mission to explore Flynn’s Arcade. Once he is there, we find more homages to the original film, such as the staple couch in his dad’s office, Flynn’s version of the portable game player, etc. Sam, not knowing what will happen next, is thrust into the digital world his father created before he went missing. There, the movie begins its 3D immersion and exploration of this new Grid, which Kevin Flynn describes in the beginning of the movie. “A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer, what they look like. Ships, motorcycles were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I would never see, and then one day I got in.” Flynn’s experience from the first film spurred him to take all the resources of Encom and change the world. What he didn’t count on was that this manifest destiny to bridge the digital and real world together would backfire. Enter the Tron Legacy storyline, which for most of the movie, is one large set-up.  A father/son story, this is also a story of utopia, a story of perfection versus being human. The characters play out a lot like they did in the 1982 movie. I saw critics complain that Bridges’ older Flynn was part Einstein, part The Dude. This is who Kevin Flynn was, and let’s not forget he was Flynn before he was the Dude. In the original movie, there is a great scene at the beginning where he breaks a record on the lightcycle video game and he does a” kung fu zen move” at his friends. Flynn has always been a hippy. Why was this such a weird thing to see in the movie? Clu 2.0 is a lot like Sark and Master Control combined into one, whereas Sam Flynn is much like his dad, thrust in a world he only dreamed of – except for Sam, it was a bedtime story told by his father. There are similar moments too, such as scared programs, the clamoring of an actual user on the grid by programs, the pomp of the disc games and lightcycle arenas all like the original movie, but with our modern CGI and technical flair to bring you more into this world than ever before. Joe Kosinski was brilliant in his production design. It’s like he and Kevin Flynn are the same guy.

Tron Legacy is not a perfect movie. The complaint of Hedlund is just one small reason why, but there are other little things about the movie that are droll as well. First off, it is a tad too long, not enough to bore you, but you feel it after the movie is over. Plus, the action could have been a little better, because after the visual shock of how cool it is, there are some mundane parts to it. Again, not enough to say it’s bad, though. Ultimately, I thought the movie was excellent because it felt like the original movie, a period piece. It was a true sequel that allows for so many directions the franchise could go forward. I also thought the themes in the movie were surprisingly deep and rich. Tron has never been about making a Dark Knight level story, which has flaws.  It has always been about pushing people’s imagination while giving them an entertaining thrill ride in a world that exists in the thoughts of every video game and computer nerd. I think if you are fan of the original, love films like Star Trek, Star Wars, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Last Starfighter, and The Matrix then this movie is perfect for you. If you want to look at this movie like an arthouse production, indie movie or even like Chris Nolan’s Inception, then you probably shouldn’t see it, because it is not the same kind of movie and perhaps that critical lens should not be used or you will be disappointed like a lot of these critics seem to have been. Like Tron, I always fight for the user, yeah!

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Tron Legacy - Official Trailer 3 [HD]

CAIRO TIME

Cairo Time is the title -- but Cairo time, as experienced by Juliette, a magazine editor who has arrived in the Egyptian capital to meet her husband for a vacation, is something new and seductive.

Cairo time seems languid and revealing, at least about oneself. It unfolds amid the Mediterranean heat and the environs of the ages. It transpires in the midst of a culture nearly as old as civilization and as modern as a cell phone. It reveals itself as something foreign, something exotic and something immensely appealing.

None of that is discussed, in Ruba Nadda's Cairo Time, a movie of many delights for the patient viewer. The chief delight, next to the travelogue beauty of the setting, is the performance of Patricia Clarkson as Juliette, the central character in this exceptionally romantic film.

Juliette arrives in Cairo, expecting to connect with her husband Mark, a diplomat. But she gets to her hotel to find a note from him, explaining that he's been called to the Gaza Strip to mediate a dispute and that he expects to be back in just a couple of days.

In his place, he has detailed a former employee and friend, Tareq (Alexander Siddig), to show her the city and help her deal with any problems she may have. But her only problem seems to be Mark's absence and the fact that, the longer she's by herself in Cairo, the less she seems to miss him.

Instead, she immerses herself in the culture, seeing it both as a tourist and as the guest of Tareq, a local. Is she lonely? Does she miss her husband? Maybe. But she also learns to enjoy her own company, to savor the experiences she is having by herself.

And, gradually, she finds herself drawn to Tareq, who is unmarried but hardly unattractive. She even tries to help him reconnect with an old lover -- and yet cannot deny the attraction she is feeling to him. Nor can he, though he considers her husband a good friend.

Nadda doesn't hurry her story -- or even make it particularly elaborate. If anything, Cairo Time is reminiscent of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, in its willingness to simply show people having feelings without talking about them. Yet, thanks to a marvelously nuanced performance by Clarkson, and a smoothly engaging one by Siddig, we feel both the heat of the Egyptian desert and the warmth that grows between these two people.

The film lives and breathes through Clarkson. With her butterscotch hair, her sleepy eyes and her quietly husky voice, she is a woman in full possession of herself -- but one who longs to let herself go, even if just a little. It's a stunning performance of many facets, in which Clarkson conveys as much in a look as many actresses struggle to reveal with overt histrionics.

The pyramids figure in the story as a symbol of Clarkson's marriage: She has promised her husband not to visit them until they can do it together. Yet they loom in the background, sometimes distant, sometimes tantalizingly close. They carry a weight, an imposing presence so strong that, even when you can't see them, you can feel them in all their various meanings.

Cairo Time seduces the viewer with its beauty, with its wealth of emotion that doesn't have to be discussed to be felt. It pulls you into another world so deeply that you are disappointed at having to leave it at the end.




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Cairo Time Trailer

UNSTOPPABLE

Unstoppable is fun, rollicking and harmless.

It's loud, it's clangy, it doesn't take itself terribly seriously, and it provides a good helping of arm squeezing “OMG!” moments.

“OMG!” moments: where something harrowing occurs on screen and the person next to you grabs your arm and exclaims “OMG!”. These moments occur in Speed, Silver Streak, Die Hard, Not without my daughter, and True Lies. And now, Unstoppable.

Unstoppable has it all. Last second escapes, speeding trains colliding. A guy dying in a fiery explosion just a few days from retirement.

In case it slipped by, “Unstoppable” follows a runaway locomotive containing dangerous chemicals, and the various attempts to stop a half mile long train before it hits a deadly turn that will surely derail and explode the train, chemicals, and surrounding town. But the plot is actually pretty unimportant. All you really need to know is that this is a movie about stopping a big heavy thing that doesn't want to stop.

Since Roland Emmerich started making disaster movies on a global scale with “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012”, the smaller, more intimate disaster movie has sort of gone the way of the dinosaur. In the 70s there was the “Airport” franchise, which was sort of like a retro “Saw” in that there was a new campy installment each year. Some were decent, others were bad, but the point wasn't to be good, it was to be entertaining on as many levels as possible.

“Unstoppable” entertains superbly. You can roll your eyes at some of the hokey shots and plot points, laugh at the ridiculous nature of a guy attempting to repel into the cockpit of a train moving 70 miles an hour, and maybe even get a little enthralled as it chugs along to its predictable, but still “OMG!” inducing climax.

One thing you will not roll your eyes at is the special effects. This movie brings the goods in terms of making us believe this story visually. I didn't notice one CGI train or explosion, and it was nice to see a movie using practical effects for a change. There was a curious shot where police try and derail an explosive train within feet of cop cars, and sometimes the train looks like it's not going as fast as it should, but these criticisms are minor considering the film nails the monstrosity that is the modern locomotive.

Tony Scott directs the movie like an episode of “24”. Shaky cams, quick zooms, Grainy footage, and we even get a CTU in the form of Train Control headquarters. This is all in stark contrast to the framing device of the film, which is in the form of a Fox News broadcast or maybe NTA news *lol.

The NTA news footage is curious in that it's blatantly phoney, and none of the shots featured in

this supposed news segments would be seen on TV. But even this observation involves over thinking the movie.

Acting is serviceable, there's a level of polish to these performances that was never really seen in the disaster films of the seventies and we never cringe too much at a line of dialog or an awkwardly phrased sentence, which is astounding considering big budget action adventure movie “STAR WARS EPISODE 3”couldn't figure it out. Rosario Dawson is a strong woman that doesn't make a point to say she's a strong woman, so obviously her performance will be ignored. Chris Pine is a guy going through a divorce, and Denzel Washington is a veteran of the rail yard who was just forced to turn in his papers. The fact that these characters even have back story is a bit baffling, but it's there for the same reason the back stories are in movies like 2012. You need it, even if you're not interested in it.

The movie I'm reminded of when watching this film in curiously, United 93. Not because of plots or themes or similar chaotic nature, but instead because that's the last real film that was like this. Stopping the thing you can't stop makes for wonderful movies, and the genre has died. Unstoppable brings it back. It's about time.

Some of the shots are repeated and very hokey, such as one that features the cam riding over the camera, as we look at the train pass over the camera and the track. This is repeated maybe four of five times in the film.

Scott smartly keeps the running time short and avoids spending too much time on the distracting, made-up back stories and character interaction. Unstoppable is about racing to cheat disaster and, for the most part, that's where the filmmakers keep the focus. The goal is to elevate the heart rate and produce a few nail marks on armrests. Because it achieves that, it's easy to forgive the occasional detour to the cinematic scrap pile of stock parts to plug certain narrative holes. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine are confident and relaxed in these roles, embodying all that's necessary for a working class hero. Name recognition is an important reason for their casting, but their presence aids in identification with the characters. Ultimately, in the face of the awesome power of a half-mile long train barreling along at 70 mph, the efforts of two men seems a paltry thing, and it's the combined sense of heroism and desperation with high stakes that offers Unstoppable at least a chance of fulfilling the promise of its name at the box office. You may as well need a companion to see this...

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Unstoppable Trailer (HD)