2014 Movie Preview: #4 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Release date: April 4

Plot summary: “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” will pick-up where “Marvel’s The Avengers” left off, as Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world and teams up with Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, to battle a powerful yet shadowy enemy in present-day Washington, D.C.

My take: Here's another example of a sequel of a film that I was not overly fond of. So what makes me so anticipated for this latest entry? Well the Avengers movie certainly helped improve the Captain America character in my eyes. I'm also familiar with the source material being used as the plot for this film and its a really good story. You then also have the luxury of adding great actors, like Robert Redford, to the cast. For those reasons I'm confident this won't be suffering from a sophomore slump.

Cop-ping an attitude

I just mentioned the reboot of Robocop that is set to come out early next year. Well they people behind the film have smartly devised an ad campaign that offers a good message for this time of year that also reminds people that this new film is coming out. Check it out:



And for fun, you can relive the awesomeness of this PSA from the 1980s which also features Robocop.

2014 Movie Preview: #24 - Robocop

Release date: February 12

Plot summary: In "RoboCop," the year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Their drones are winning American wars around the globe and now they want to bring this technology to the home front. Alex Murphy (Kinnaman) is a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit. After he is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp utilizes their remarkable science of robotics to save Alex's life. He returns to the streets of his beloved city with amazing new abilities, but with issues a regular man has never had to face before.

My take: The first trailer for this reboot left me believing that this would be a case of another remake tarnishing the good name of the original. The second trailer that was released, however, has given me pause. Given the decent supporting cast, I have belief that this still can work. At the very least it can't be any worse than the Total Recall trailer. Let's just hope they maintain the social commentary that made the original so memorable and not have this be a generic action flick with endless explosions.

O Christmas Fern

Get in the Christmas spirit with a special holiday edition of Between Two Ferns where Zach welcomes special guests Tobey Maguire, Samuel L. Jackson, and Arcade Fire.

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Happy Holidays Edition from Between Two Ferns

Winter is coming

As we count down the days until the Thor sequel hits theaters, the first trailer for a sequel to a different Avenger has hit the Internet. Here's your first look at Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Bounty fare

I'm a latecomer when it comes to the appreciation of the work by Quentin Tarantino. While most discovered and embraced his approach to filmmaking with movies like Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, it took me until 2009's Inglorious Basterds to see how talented he is. The way he is able to pay homage to film genres while also subverting them with anachronistic soundtracks can be quite entertaining. He also has the capability of writing dialogue that is equal parts hilarious and horrifying, while wholly captivating. In his latest effort, Django Unchained, Tarantino's style is once again quite apparent.

Paying tribute to spaghetti Westerns, Django is the story of a dentist-turned-bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (played by Christoph Waltz) who locates and frees a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx). Schultz needs Django's help in locating his latest bounty. Successful in their mission, the two form a bond and work together in trying to free Django's wife (Kerry Washington), who's currently the property of a Southern plantation owner by the name of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, in a delightfully against-type role for him).

Each of the film's primary cast members brings a great deal of energy to their roles. Waltz is terrific again here (and deserving of his recent Oscar win) as man who's hunting people for more noble reasons than he was in Basterds. It was also enjoyable seeing DiCaprio playing someone so slimy and evil. And I should also point out Samuel L. Jackson, who is perhaps even more diabolical than DiCaprio's Candie, playing a slave who sees through Schultz and Django's act of deception. There are also a handful of cameos, some more recognizable than others, from a host of actors who add just a little bit more to each of their scenes.

I must admit, however, that for as entertaining as everyone is here, I felt something lacking in a lot of the scenes of dialogue. When watching Basterds, there were several scenes of dialogue that left me as a viewer white-knuckled in fear sensing something terrible was going to occur. In this film, none of the scenes ever reached that same level of anxiety in me. This time, Tarantino seemed much more impatient at getting to the payoff instead of properly building to it.

With this being a Tarantino film and all, the payoff to those interactions is, of course, bloodshed. You could probably fill 100 bathtubs with the amount of blood that spills in this film. And it's not just the blood that is in excess. The last third of the film is pure action that grows tiresome, especially after intergral characters are killed off prior to the film's ultimate climax. Any enjoyment from these scenes does not stem from watching Django exact revenge, but rather from appreciating Tarantino's effort to write fanfiction about a dark time in our country's history.

Django Unchained is a Tarantino film through and through. In this case, that means having to take the good with the bad. For all the juicy characters and bloody action that he offers, you also have to deal with his inability to curb his impulses and recognizing that there can be too much of a good thing. Those who are fans of his will no doubt enjoy this latest entry, even if they see it as not being on par with some of his other efforts. For those who are unfamiliar with his style, this is probably not the best entry point. His depiction of violence can be a jolt to the system and it is not as successfully offset with engaging dialogue as it is in his past films. Django is a bloody good show, it's just too bad it could have been so much more than that. Grade: B

And Django was his name-o

Here's the latest trailer for Quentin Tarantino's new film, Django Unchained set to come out this Christmas.