22 Jump street

Sequels have a habit of not reaching the heights of it's predecessor, we have seen it a thousand times. The lost world, Taken 2, The walking dead season 2, Psycho II and of course Terminator 2.

No, just kidding, Terminator 2 is awesome. Speaking of awesome sequels (horrible transition), because there are actually a few out there, 22 Jump street.

I hopped on the 21 Jump street train pretty late. When the movie first came out I thought it would be one of those lame cash cow films trying to coast on an earlier success, but then it showed up on Netflix late last year. I had nothing better to do so I figured I should give it a shot. I was overwhelmed. It was a very funny, close to hilarious, and managed to break free of its predecessor and become its own thing.

Fast forward to 2014. The sequel emerges and from the get go it looks exactly like 21 Jump. The plot is the same and the jokes appear to be the same. It all feels like a cheap way to cash in on the success of the first movie. With some reluctance I decide to go se the movie. I sit down and the ominous feeling of dissapointment rears its ugly head. 15 minutes later I am laughing my ass off.

22 Jumo street manages to do something very few sequels do, it re-invents the wheel, improves it and at the same time creates something new and fairly original. There is no denying that the core plot of 22 is exactly the same as 21, but the directors and screenwriters doesn't try to hide it, instead they use it for some very effective meta comedy. By acknowledging the similarities between the two movies they are able to joke about the fact that the 22 Jump is basicly a more expensive version of 21 and that the actual assignment in the movie is just a more expensive assignment than the last.

This kind of comedy permeat the entire movie and is its biggest strength as well as its only weakness. Towards the end the meta becomes a little to much and I lost touch with the plot and characters.

22 Jump street still manages to be one of the funniest movies in recent years though, it builds perfectly on all the characters from the 21 Jump and expands them into more 3 dimensional characters, something that is becoming more apparent in modern comedies but really works the best here.

22 Jump street is a perfect example of a sequel outdoing the predecessor, it is also a perfect example on how to make a almost perfect comedy. Can't wait for 23 Jump street, 24, 25 and all the way up to 2121.

Tracks

Warning, there will be minor spoilers in this review. Nothing earth shattering, but you have been warned.




Do you see the poster above here? Do you see how empty and devoid of...anything it is? It used to say "TRACKS" and "Leave everything behind" and "Coming soon" but I painted over all that. I usually manipulate the Posters for the movies I review because I prefer a sleek and minimalist approach when it comes to art, and to some extent movies (Exception; all action movies. The more the merrier). When I first saw some clips and pictures from Tracks, I was awestruck. The solemn traveler in an endless sea of sand. The hollow beauty of the desert and the stripped down (Oh yeah) and honest portrayal of a alone human being.

For me this movie was the best movie I had ever seen, and that was before I had even seen it.


Fast forward to the 13:th of June (the Swedish premiere date). I am getting up and leaving the cinema and feeling so...empty, which would seem appropriate after watching this, but it is not a good empty. It is the "I spent two hours of my life and 17 $ (100 SEK) to watch... nothing" I felt like Bernard Black after watching Armapocalypse (somewhat obscure reference to Black Books, deal with it).

This was a movie devoid of everything. There was no plot, no suspense, almost no dialog and no nothing. All it were was Mia Wasikowska walking through the desert. You would guess that the annoying photographer following around the entire movie would add some excitement and spark some sort of character development, but instead he is used for sexual relief once and after that he turns himself in to a strung along man purse. THe only reason for him existing in the movie is to leave Water deposits along the route and then he serves no purpose. That may be fortunate though since Adam Driver is even more weird and annoying in this movie than in Girls.

traveling by foot across thousands of miles of sizzling hot, inhospitable and dry as fuck desert should be dangerous right? no, not according to Tracks. She doesn't run out of food until the last night, the man purse leaves water everywhere, there is one snake in the entire movie. Let me remind you that the movie takes place in Australia, the home of the most poisonous snake ever and the most amount of dangerous and poisonous animals ever (Don't quote me on that though) and she only runs in to one snake during a six month trip? Oh yeah, there is also this one Horny camel she has to scare away. They try to make it sound dangerous but all I saw was a horny camel frothing at the mouth.

The character Robyn Davidson never gets explored as well. You spend the majority of a two hour movie with one character and still you don't know jack shit about her at the end. So her mother died when she was eight and the first thing her father does is shoot her dog and send her of to live with her aunt. That was kind of sad, but we later learn that her relationship with her father is very good, so no damage done? Why does she feel alienated by everyone? Why does she hate being among people so much that she goes out into the Australian desert all alone without any real experience.

She starts out as a blank canvas, and at the end of the movie she is still pretty blank. Someone spilled some backstory onto her but not much.

Ultimately, Tracks is not a horrible picture. It's not particularly good, but it has some beautiful landscape scenes and Wasikowska does well with what she got. I wasn't even going to write this review at first, mainly because there is so little to say about it, but I felt I had to say what little there was to say...There is so little to say I am actually trying to fill the page with the word SAY.

All in all a pretty boring movie that could have been way better. Although, it teaches us one important lesson about film making. Just because the story was good in real life doesn't mean it will make a good film. Films, unlike real life needs more or less constant excitement. If that comes in the shape of explosions, dramatic speeches, gut wrenching horror or tear jerking fare wells, doesn't matter. as long as something happens on screen it is good. A movie where more than half the time is spent watching a woman walk slowly forward is not exciting. It is not good acting (I can walk on film, try me) and it is not a "gorgeously rendered adventure saga" (actual quote from Variety film critic Justin Chang).

The congress

It's kind of hard to review or even properly critizise that wich you don't fully understand.

Most of the time, I watch simple movies. Not stupid, but simple movies about people and their emotions and convictions portrayed in a somewhat graspable fashion. The, sometimes, I see a movie that goes beyond my intellect.
At first I thought that The congress was such a movie. In the middle I got so confused with this world that was being created on the screen that I actually lost touch for a while, but at the end I understood why I got so confused.

The congress is about an actress (Robin Wright as a somewhat fictional version of her self) that is at the end of her career. She doesn't make any movies and hasn't for a long time. All she cares about is taking care of her sick son. Miramount (Miramax/Paramount) offers her one last contract. She agrees to let computers create a digital clone of her that will continue to appear in movies, but never grow old and never say no. She will greatly compensated but she, the real Robin, can never act again.

This is where the movie goes bananas.

20 years later, Robin attends the futurist congress, wich is being held in the animated zone. A place in wich you must inhale a chemical that gives you the illusion of being animated (apparently it'll be all the rage in the future). She will be there as one of the first actors/actresses that ever did this and she will become the first ever actress that you can become. Weird, I know. The idea is that you will consume a chemical that gives you the impression of being Robin Wright.
At the same time, there is a revolution going on. A bunch of people are angry at Miramount, who has moved away from film and has become some sort of megacorp that deals in theese chemicals, for some reason. In the middle of this revolution Robin meets Dylan. He turns out to be the animator who has been animating Robin for the last 20 years. He is madly in love with her. At the same time the world keeps changing around her and these animated hallucinations takes over the real world. And in this crazy world, Robin is trying to find her son.

As you can see there is a lot going on 7n this movie.
At first, it all moves along at a sensible pace, but as soon as the animated world is introduced the movie rushes of and a lot of concepts are introduced without getting a proper explanation. This made me lose focus and ultimately interest. Sure the animations are amazing in a retro, hand drawn way, but the script gets lost and when it slows down my care for the characters and their struggles had diminished gravely.

In the end, The congress becomes to much of a effects driven spectacle. Wich proves that any director can screw up if given to much money.

The congress touched on a lot of heavy subjects such as free will or rather the illusion of it but never really makes a statement in the matter. It is more concerned with pretty pictures, a problem you rarely encounter in theese kind of "smaller films".

But I did say to you that I didn't fully understand this movie. Maybe I missed something vital. Maybe this is the movie of the century and I just didn't get it, it certainly aspires to be that, so it is up to you yo watch this movie and make up your own mind. Don't let me tell you what to think of this movie, make your own decision.

Use your free will...

Edge of tomorrow

Over the last years I've started suspecting that Tom Cruise is having some sort of age crisis. All his latest movies have been spectacles. Ghost protocol, Oblivion, Jack Reacher and now Edge of tomorrow. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm actually glad we get to see the energetic and very action savvy Tom Cruise again. Edge of tomorrow only proves that he is in his right element when doing action.


In Edge of tomorrow (I'm saying that alot here) the world has been invaded by parasitic aliens and humanity is quickly losing the war for earth. Major William Cage (Cruise) is the face of the American army. He is in charge of press and media relations, and has come to england to oversee the last ditch attempt to fight back against the invaders. Instead, he gets drafted and placed on the frontline of the war. Cage is not a real soldier though, he is just a posterboy, and within minutes of landing he is dead. Somehow he wakes up 24 hours before he died and has to relive his last day over and over again because everytime he dies he wakes up at that same time 24 hours before he first died.

Without any sugarcoating, I'm going to say that this is one of the best Sci-fi movies of the last 20 years. It has everything you want from a good Sci-fi. Great plot, well written characters, awesome effects and that elusive feeling of experiencing something out of this world.

The plot does a terrific job of telling you about the mechanics of it all, time travel and the awesome mechsuits, without going into too much detail. Most "good" Sci-fi gets bogged down in details and explanations and forgets to tell a compelling story. Edge of tomorrow finds the balance between world building, plot and characters like few other movies. It manages to convince the audience that the world is being taken over by aliens and that the only thing that can save us is a time manipulating Tom Cruise, weird right? Not really. To sell somerhing this crazy, you would need good actors and a good director, and this movie has both.

Tom Cruise carries the movie with the style and grace only he has but he is also backed up by the astounding Emily Blunt, bad ass warrior aptly nicknamed Full metal bitch. When you first see Cruise in action, he is playing against the typical Cruise action guy. He is a slimey, cowardly deserter who does not know the first thing about combat.
It felt good to see him try something so... un-Cruise. Then there is Emily Blunt as the angel of Verdun, Rita Vrataski. She rocks every scene she is in. She plays this hard assed, almost superhuman soldier who trains Cage and for every day he re-lives that day she manages to shape him into the classic hero.
Together the are probably the coolest action heroes since the 2010 A-team.

Doug Liman, whose previous efforts include The Bourne identity and Fair game, orchestrates the whole thing with a perfect sense of timing and humour. He manages to find the comedy in the most unexpected places but still manages to keep the over all tone grim enough so that the audience never find the whole thing silly.

Edge of tomorrow excels in all areas and rarely dissapoints. There are of course some flaws, but they are so minor that they barely even register.

If you're only going to the cinemas one time this summer, make sure you go and see Edge if tomorrow.

Peer pressure: why peoples sexual preference should not matter

WARNING!!! I will be spoiling some details about The last of us and the last of us: Left behind



I am not a feminist. Feminism has become so twisted and mutated that most people who call themselves feminists (or at least the ones that I have met, not judging beyond my own knowledge) don't know what it's all about, and I won't go into it because that's not what this is about.

I am all for equality. I have spent my life treating everybody with the same amount of respect, or at least the amount of respect they deserved, not making any difference between man or woman.
I like to believe that most people think like me and from my experience I have never really encountered sexism or racism in my day to day life. Sure you hear some inappropriate jokes from time to time, but when the chips are down and things are being taken more seriously I have never met a person who is outright hateful in any way shape or form.
I guess some would call me sheltered because of this and I probably am to some degree, but this has given me the opportunity to develop along the right paths. I never had to scream my beliefs in someone else's face and never had other peoples beliefs screamed in my, until a couple of years ago.

It may sound unbelievable, but it was only recently that being gay became widely accepted. At the turn of the millenia, people would still be lynched if they came out. It was weird and wrong to be gay and people would be upset when someone told them they were gay, but the something happened. All of a sudden it was ok, great, we can finally start accepting people for who they are and people could finally be themselves. There was, and still is, a lot of resistance to the whole thing but over all the world said "it's ok to be gay" but then something else happened. Gay rights movements, Feminists and anti-racism groups started taking to the streets. they figured that since it was ok to be gay, it was also ok to start raising you voice about it. This is of course a good thing, spread the message, but they became so passionate and almost fanatic about it that they started hating people who, wasn't necessarily against gay people and feminists only not as vocal or involved in the discussion as they were.

If you weren't at the front of the Pride parade you were a gay basher, this was their philosophy, and that sounds so wrong to me. Why did the fact that it became acceptable to be gay turn so many gay people into militant advocates for their cause? there is no need for anger anymore, shouldn't we rejoice in the fact that the anti-gay community have shrunk tremendously over the last few years?
The situation has spiraled so far out of what it once was that straight people are actually scared not to voice their opinion even if they are positive towards homosexuality, because if they don't say that they are pro-gay they think people will believe the opposite.

A perfect example (and the reason why I wrote this) is the DLC for The critically acclaimed video game The last of us. in the DLC we get to play Ellie (one of the main protagonists of The last of us) before she appears in The last of us. We get to meet her best friend and see how their friendship develops. At the end of the game they have to go their separate ways and at that moment they share a kiss.
For me, that ruined the game. Not because they were gay, but because the issue of homosexuality was addressed so incredibly blunt and not to mention the fact that love ruins friendships. Sure, this was the last time they were going to see each other so their friendship was kind of getting ruined anyway but why did the writer, Neill Druckman who also directed it, feel the need to address homosexuality so abruptly?

The funny thing is, In the main game, homosexuality had been introduced but in a much smoother and better way. The character named bill Was gay, he lived in a town with his partner and it never got shoved in your face. Instead we got a incredibly touching scene where Bill finds his partner dead. His homosexuality had never been mentioned before but the second you saw that scene you knew Bill had loved that man more than as a friend. it was a perfect depiction of how un-spectacular it is to be gay in the world of today. Homosexuality has become such a ordinary thing that there is no longer a need for people to make a big deal about it. Instead of looking like a person who's fighting the good fight, they come of as ignorant for shouting out what we already know.

Of course, homosexuality is still not accepted everywhere. There are still countries where it is punishable with death to be gay. That is where the fight needs to be. I recently read about the first ever Pride parade in in Nigeria. That was a truly brave act, but to hold a gay pride parade in Sweden (where I live) seem like a wasted opportunity to me, instead take the fight where it needs to be fought.
Stop shouting in my ear about gay rights, I know all about it and I am all for it.

After reading some interviews with Neill Druckman it becomes clear that he is a victim of peer pressure. Before the game was released, there were never any mentions about homosexuality and Feminism (both subjects are expertly handled in The last of us). He had simply written characters who had a purpose for the story, not adding a bunch of female characters to make the game more appealing to women or shoving in Gay relationships for the sake of them being gay. This was simply a game filled with different, and very human in all manner of ways, characters.
After the discussions about Ellies sexuality started popping up on the Internet, Neill started to change his opinion. All of a sudden Ellie had always been gay but there was not a chance to explore that properly in the game, why did'nt he just say she was gay from the beginning? Why did he choose to reveal that first after people started speculating? because he was afraid people would be mad at him if he had said that she wasn't.


The point I am getting to, and have already mentioned but I'll do it again for the sake of things, is this. There shouldn't be such a big deal that a Video game protagonist is gay. We live in a world where it is as normal to be gay as it is to be straight. We should not emphasize the fact that She/he is gay, instead we should focus on the things that these two persons love about each other.
Focus on the love and the attraction rather than the sexual preference.

Like Seth Rogen said in Paul

"It's all about the pleasure thing"