Bite-sized review catch-up! Tron Legacy, The Misfits, Drive, State of Play, Dune

Someone's been slacking on review writing lately, and that someone is me.  So here is a mini-review of each thing I've taken in recently, things which I may or may not expand upon in a full review later (let's be honest, probably not).

Tron: Legacy
Film, 2010, dir. Joseph Kosinski

This is a pretty awesome-looking movie that has few other redeeming qualities.  You don't really need to know what it was about beyond seeing the preview.  It probably was sweet in IMAX.  See it for the nifty new motorbike-thingies, see it for the Matrix-y fight scenes, see it for the aging technology on Jeff Bridges.  See it if it's free on your Netflix and you feel like a no-thinking kind of night.  Otherwise, don't bother.  The story doesn't make any sense and the dialogue is stupid.  Oh, I should mention I never saw the original Tron, so maybe that makes a difference in how much you appreciate the story, but I kind of doubt it.

The Misfits
Novel, James Howe, 2003

A good YA (that's young adult, my friends) book, one that I would have recommended to some of my former students.  It's about a group of outcast friends in middle school who decide to try to shake things up by running for student government on the platform of stopping the name-calling all around them.  It's got a very heavy "everyone is special and you can change the world" theme going, a theme that became too obstructive of some interesting character potential for this adult reader.  (For example, the main character is an overweight boy who works in a department store with a cold, lonely boss so that he can bring home a few extra dollars for his reformed drunk widower father.  So much potential that gets sidetracked for the quick resolution!)  But it's quickly digestible and lots of fun, so if you run across it, recommend it to your young teenage relatives.

Drive
Film, 2011, dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

Here's another rare gem for this blog--something you can still see in the theaters!  But honestly, don't.  Well, maybe do.  But not before you read this warning: it's gross.  Horribly gory violently gross.  The thing is, it was a totally normal movie for the first half an hour or so, and I was thinking, hey, I'm glad Jamie wanted to see this even though I didn't know anything about it.  Then someone's (I won't spoil whose) head gets blown off by a point-blank shotgun.  And there's more where that came from.  Ok, warning over.  Horrifying violence aside, this was a really interesting piece of art, which is I think why reviewers seem to love it.  Ryan Gosling plays "The Driver," who gets mixed up in driving a getaway car for the wrong crowd.  It's a unique story and avoids cliche at every turn.  Gosling pulls off his character surprisingly well, and there are some nice performances by the supporting cast as well--Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, and Albert Brooks, to name a few.

State of Play
Film, 2009, dir. Kevin Macdonald

This movie won't be one of my all-time favorites, but I liked it, and I'd see it again.  Ben Affleck plays a politician whose staffer died in suspicious circumstances on the Metro tracks here in DC.  Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams are the journalists digging around in it, and Robin Wright Penn is Affleck's pretty if mostly plot-irrelevant wife.  Oh and Helen Mirren's in there too, also in a non-interesting role.  That cast list is mostly why I Netflixed this one, and because I like movies about politics.  The mystery was interesting if not totally groundbreaking and the script and acting were good.  The thing I enjoyed most, though, was identifying each scene as "I've been there, that's totally DC!" or, "NO WAY that is totally NOT DC!"  Side note for those who also live here: You see the soon-to-become-a-metro-delay staffer walking through Adams Morgan before she gets to the Metro, but all of a sudden she's on the platform in...Rosslyn!  Amazing!  (Non-DCers, that's a jump all the way across town--in fact, into Virginia.)

Last but certainly not least...
Dune
Novel, Frank Herbert, 1965

I'm running out of steam here, and out of the five mini-reviews here, this one is most likely to make it into a longer review later, so to keep it extra short: A science fiction classic that didn't disappoint.  I found the writing to be a little opaque at times, but the story was exciting and complex, and I was left wanting to read the sequels even though I already decided I wouldn't since I've heard they're not worth it.





And that's it for now!  I'll try not to be a slacker in the future (that's what I always say...), and I promise to consider giving Dune the attention it's worth.