Picture Los Angeles as a slum. OK, more of a slum. In Elysium, it’s 2154, and the City of Angels is worn down, burned out, left to rot. A sprawling shantytown, LA’s once-proud skyscrapers are crumbling shadows in the far-off distance, while everything else—from a dull, lifeless sky to warm, hazy water—is a tired, dusty […]
Erik Henriksen
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Mutant Ronin
The Wolverine: Wolverine tries again!
In 2009, Fox tried to give Wolverine his own franchise. What resulted was a forgettable slog of baloney called X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Four years later, the stench of Origins has dissipated—so here's The Wolverine, Fox's latest attempt to make X-Men amounts of money while only having to hire one X-Man. But here's the thing: This […]
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Destroy All Monsters
Oh, Shit! It’s Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim!
“The audience needs to be invested in the difference between what you’re doing and something generic, and I would argue that most of the audience don’t know the difference between someone who I consider to be making ‘cinema’ and someone who’s not,” Steven Soderbergh recently told Empire, explaining his reasons for quitting directing. “That shit—that […]
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Zed’s Dead, Baby
The World War Z that could've been
Books and film are different mediums; what works in one rarely works in the other. Still, it’s hard to read "World War Z" by Max Brooks—Chronicler of the Undead, Son of Mel—and not see how a film version could’ve worked. Subtitled “An Oral History of the Zombie War,” Brooks’ post-apocalyptic survey profiles the war-weary survivors […]
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Stranger in a Strange Land
Superman saves world, enjoys eating at IHOP
“Superheroes are the copyrighted property of big corporations,” comics writer Alan Moore recently told the Believer. “They are purely commercial entities; they are purely about making a buck. That’s not to say that there haven’t been some wonderful creations in the course of the history of the superhero comic, but to compare them with gods […]
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Parents Just Don't Understand
After Earth: Parents Are the Same, No Matter Time or Place
M. Night Shyamalan: a dude who went from being crowned “The Next Spielberg” on the cover of Newsweek (circa Signs) to a guy who had his name laughed off the screen (circa The Last Airbender). Considering his last few f-ups, it's not surprising that After Earth—which he directed and co-wrote—doesn't feel at all like a […]
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Gran Toretto
The Power and the Glory of Fast & Furious 6
There are going to be jokes about Fast & Furious 6 that go like this: “But if I didn’t see Fast Five, will I be able to follow the plot?” Haha, good one! Also: No, you won’t, idiot. Because Furious 6 relishes in the kind of meticulous soap opera usually only seen on Mad Men […]
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Someone Else’s Problems
To the Wonder: Terrence Malick falls in wuv
Let’s start with math, because if there’s one thing everybody flipping loves, it is math! The amount of time that passed between the release of Terrence Malick’s Badlands and the release of Days of Heaven: five years. Between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line: 20 years. Then seven years until The New World, […]
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Armor Wars
Shane Black’s new movie is great! (and stars Iron Man)
Hollywood's bars are, no doubt, full of them: writers and actors and directors who had their time in the spotlight, only to be pushed aside when someone better, sexier, or more successful showed up. Los Angeles is a fickle town, and, the cliché goes, you’re only as good as your last picture. Which is why […]