Mike Goes To Movies

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Kubrick's 2001 is a masterpiece that lives behind a locked door. To access it, one must open themselves up to the journey, the mystery, and the purpose of the challenging film. Especially by the nature of today's increasingly inattentive and unfocused, the incomparable potential of 2001 may be lost or missed by some viewers. However, for those that are willing to embrace Kubrick's unparalleled sci-fi vision, there is currently no other - and may never be another - like 2001: A Space Odyssey. The behind-the-scenes of 2001 is almost as interesting as the film itself - but I will not deep-dive into that here. What I will briefly mention is that Kubrick teamed up with sci-fi writer, Arthur C. Clarke, to help develop the story. Remarkably, while Kubrick was filming his movie, Clarke was simultaneously writing a novel that was also based on the story he and Kubrick came up with. The intersections and divergences between the two still remain a p...

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Fact: Mad Max: Fury Road is the zenith of the modern day action film.  For a while the prospect of a Mad Max sequel - a whopping thirty years after 1985's Thunderdome - did not sit well with fans. The famous role was going to be recast, and writer/director, George Miller,  really had not had a major success since the original Mad Max films (other than the Happy Feet movies... yes, he really did make those). All of these points lead to more than a little trepidation about rebooting the cult classic series. How wrong we all were... Unlike action of yesteryears, today's action is high-octane: filled with fast action and fast-cutting. While this style has often been criticized for it's lack of continuity, choreography and grace, when utilized well - as in the recent Mad Max - it becomes an exhilarating and unrelenting adrenaline rush. Secondly, Mad Max uses CGI in the best way possible, which is for enhancement. It is almost impossible t...

The Last Dance (2020) There is no denying that now is the perfect time for Netflix's magnum opus Michael Jordan docu-series, The Last Dance.  For many of us - especially, basketball fans - the series hits that sports craving that all of us have been succumbing to since the day that covid ended sports for the year. No longer can we sit back in the evening, relax, and throw on whatever great matchup is on tv. No longer can we wear our favourite team's jersey while we cheer and cry through our team's triumphs and tribulations. And no longer can we simply watch incredible humans perform incredible athletic feats. But, now, with The Last Dance, we are given not only a riveting in-depth look at one of the greatest athletes of all-time, but we can also revel in the awesome reels of footage and first-hand accounts of Michael Jordan's greatest performances. The Last Dance is simply almost everything a sports fan could ever ask for in a documentary series.  There p...

Fight Club (1999) Twenty years later and, man, does Fight Club still pack a punch. The film has often been rejected by the 'cinema' lovers out there; it has been and still is sometimes labelled as 'macho-porn' - being a testosterone fuelled ride of violence, sex and anarchy - and, perhaps, all of that is true. But beneath all of that - that chaos and destruction - there is an order. That order is a prescient message being told by original author, Chuck Palahniuk, director, David Fincher, and screenwriter, Jim Uhls. The message deals with a perpetual character of human nature: discontentment. Discontentment with society. Discontentment with one's own life, and the limited control that one has over it. Discontentment with one's place within the world. And then the motivation to push back. Against everything. There is a lot more going on above and below the surface of the film's plot - foremost, involving the titular fight club, and, of course, th...

Onward (2020) While not its all-time best, Onward is, predictably, yet another great and highly enjoyable Pixar feature. The film is a prime example of the animation studio's unparalleled understanding of story structure and its unique ability to take a compelling premise/set up and tell a relatable story within it. In the case of Onward, it is a story of family - specifically, the bonding of brothers while each tries to come to terms with the premature loss of their father. What makes this story a Pixar story is that the film is set in a richly-detailed fantasy world that has since moved past its magical trappings to the point that it closely resembles our own world where people rely fully on technology and gadgets, albeit it is still filled with fantasy creatures like elves, dragons, cyclops, and so on.  Despite taking place in this fantasy setting, the story of the brothers, Ian and Barley (Tom Holland and Chris Pratt), actually plays out like a fairly conventional road ...

Thunder Road (2018) Thunder Road is an interesting film in many respects. The road leading to its making is arguably as well-known as the film itself. Coming largely from the singular mind of Jim Cummings, the film first began as a one-shot proof-of-concept short film in 2016 that took festivals by storm, winning the Short Film Grand Jury Prize award at Sundance. Cummings then went on to make a feature version of the film, which similarly did remarkably well, winning the Grand Jury Award at SXSW 2018 and generally received steadfast critical-acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Cummings has earned personal acclaim for his auteurship and for his economic success with the film. Astonishingly, the feature film was made on a micro-budget of $200,000. Cummings himself wrote, directed, composed, co-edited, managed VFX, and starred in the film - thus, making Thunder Road his film in every way imaginable. The film itself is about Jim Arnaud (Cummings), a struggling small-town sin...

Come to Daddy (2020) Like the dynamics of the father-son relationship at the heart of its story, Come to Daddy has layers waiting to be peeled back and revealed; each one rife with surprises and secrets, drama, and more than a few oddities. Nothing is ever as it seems in Come to Daddy, something that the deft filmmakers here fully understand and play with, turning and twisting the plot on its head and ratcheting up the suspense and action in ways that are equally absurd and surprisingly relatable. As far as unique indie films go, Come to Daddy hits all of its marks. The setup for the film is quite uncomplicated, allowing the creeping tension to begin building right from the get-go. Norval Greenwood (Elijah Wood) receives a letter from his estranged-father who he hasn't seen for over thirty years to come out to visit him at his secluded beach-side house. Immediately upon arriving, Norval takes note of the less-than enthusiastic welcome he receives from his dad (Stephen McHatti...