Or “Gojira”, if your ear is tuned to the east. Yes, they are once more making a Godzilla movie for those of us who speak English. But however you pronounce it, a good time is had by all (at least, those of us not yet thrown over the bridge railing). This version of the film is being made by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures, and will be distributed by them everywhere but Japan, where Toho distributes all things Godzilla, since they created the franchise.
The most interesting film this week has to be Her, a story about a writer who installs a new artificially intelligent operating system designed to meet his every need, and discovers himself drawn into a relationship with it he never expected. Don’t expect explosions and chase scenes, Spike Jonez doesn’t usually do that kind of science fiction; this story is all about intelligence and the heart. We also get Walking with Dinosaurs 3D this time around, quality animation with a story about survival and triumph. This is from 20th Century Fox, with BBC Earth doing the UK airplay, and plays a lot like some of the better classic Disney stories. I think I will probably have to see them both, and I have to say it is nice to have a choice between two stories that have never been told before. It comes complete with a free Augmented Reality App that lets you take photos of your surroundings with dinosaurs in them and a lot more.
Live. Die. Repeat. Edge of Tomorrow looks quite tasty, with an excellent combat by time loop premise that is familiar to everyone who ever played any one of hundreds of MMO War Games. Although watching Tom Cruise do a series of science fiction movies is about as disconcerting as watching Keanu Reeves do a series of Asian Martial Arts films.
The Wachowski’s are at it again, and Jupiter Ascending has the potential to be as impressive as their first Matrix movie. Jupiter Jones cleans peoples houses for a living, but when a genetically engineered super soldier arrives on Earth to kill her and ends up saving her and taking her to her destiny, she begins to see her future is stranger than she had ever imagined. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this one is as good as this first glimpse would lead us to believe.
The obvious mention this time goes to J.R.R. Tolkien’s prequel The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, a single book dragged out into three complete films. I thought I should also mention Saving Mr. Banks, a movie about making the movie Mary Poppins, which almost never got made at all. It will be in limited release this week, and wide release next week.
Yep, Sony finally released it today, and it looks amazing, as befits a movie with the name The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I can’t wait for the new episode for the franchise, I like the reboot of the films a lot (although I still like the original trilogy, which had its own set of good points). I love all things Marvel, and still wish my mom hadn’t thrown out my comic book collection in the 70’s. It would be worth a fortune now, including as it did the first hundred or so episodes of Spider Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Thor, Avengers, and more, all of them bought new starting at issue #1.
Looking back, I realize I never collected Iron Man, Captain America, or Doctor Strange because I didn’t care for the artwork, but the same style of artwork was OK for Spider Man and a few others, because I related to the character so well. I guess you could say I loved styles like those Jim Steranko created over those like Steve Ditko made, as a general rule, and if you compare those two artists styles you can extrapolate the rest of my preferences easily enough. But the STORIES from all those universes were riveting, both for their sci-fi wonderfulness and their depth of character development with the accompanying interpersonal relationships. To this day, I want more excellent graphics with killer story lines and dramatic emotional development, and I suspect that combination is why the Marvel Movie universe has been such a delight for me. Yes, I will be in the theater for this one. Hopefully in I-MAX 3D for probably two showings in a row.