Big Hero 6: Review

A children's film about a boy and his robot. What's not to like, right? Those were the thoughts going through my head pre-credits, and they slowly drifted away during the first 10 minutes of the movie. Those 10 minutes are heavy handed, poorly acted, and exposition crammed. I've seen worse, as I'm sure most movie goers have, but it was a disappointing start, especially for a movie that had received such rave reviews from the critics, and  and from Matt Jones, Kansas Universities finest paleontologist master student, and a fellow Walking Critic . The guy loves comic book movies, and Big Hero Six is a Marvel property, so you can see why I was starting to question his opinion. 

I was afraid I was going to have to write my first negative review since Patch Adams. It was looking bleak. But then, something happened. A character died in an unexpected explosion (cue super hero beginning story line here), and from there the movie went up. This change in the films course can all be credited to the appearance of Baymax,  the walking, talking marshmallow robot, who's only goal is to insure the physical and mental health of his human patients. This of course provides much of the comedy of the film, and not surprisingly, this is also where all of the genuine moments of the film are found. Baymax is the heart of Big Hero 6, not the human characters. They're mostly stiff, and uninteresting, and those that aren't are too cartoony to be believable. We can believe Baymax is what he is, a Health Care Companion bot who only want's to help others, but not at the expense of the greater good of humanity. He's the perfect hero for the story, despite his owner's name arguing to the contrary (The robot's owner's name is Hiro: pronounced, "Hero").

Though the film is a children's movie, one with no inappropriate, or intelligent insulting jokes, it is one that can be enjoyed by all ages, especially if you're a robot lover at heart.  

Birdman: Review

Like most people I know, my interest in Birdman came from the obvious parallels between Michael Keaton's real career and that of the character he is playing. In Birdman Keaton plays Riggan Thomson. A Hollywood actor who's last great role was in the 1990's when he stared as the title character in Birdman 3. Keaton of course will always be most well known for playing Batman in the first two (serious) Batman films. But that's where the comparisons between Keaton and Riggan Thomson stop. Keaton's real life persona, and Riggan Thomson's couldn't be any further from each other, and the plot of the film is definitely nothing like what you would see in a summer superhero block buster. All of which is good news for the audience.

The film is mostly about the fate of a play Riggan has adapted, is directing, and starring in—this of course rubs some Broadway diehards the wrong way, such as Edward Norton's character, a beloved Broadway actor named Mike Shiner, and a New York Times critic played by Lindsay Duncan—but it's also about the insatiable attention artists crave, and what lengths they're willing to go to get it; to stay relevant in today's lightning speed culture. The film hits all the right beats, but it delivers them in that strange way that only an independent film can dare to do. Now don't let that last statement turn you off, this isn't a head scratching movie (well, except for maybe the ending), it is grounded in a realism that's sorely missing from the majority of todays films, and is a welcome addition to Keaton's filmography. 

Interstellar: Review

I have to say, I had pretty heightened hopes going into seeing this film. Those hopes were there for many reasons. Here are a few:

• It's the first big sci-fi film to hit theaters since Elysium, and that was several years ago.
• It's a Christopher Nolan film.
• It's the next film in the Matthew McConaughey McConaissance, following Mud, Dallas Buyers Club, True Detective and The Wolf of Wall Street. All of which were great, and you should check them out if you haven't had a chance to yet.
• The cast in general. Not only do you have McConaughey, but there's also Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, and the creepy guy from American Beauty (the boyfriend who video taped the plastic bag blowing in the wind).

So, as you can see, I had pretty high expectations going in. This film was going to change sci-fi cinema for me. Well, the question you're probably asking yourself right now is: "Did it?" And the answer to that is: "Well, yeah. I think it did."

Now before you go saying that I said Interstellar is the best movie ever, let me go a little more into detail in what I mean when I say "I think it kinda changed sci-fi cinema," what I'm really saying is, "it might change sci-fi cinema." Or more accurately, it might renew an appreciation for a long lost genre. Because when viewed by anyone who's seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Sphere, or Sunshine, or The Thirteenth Floor or Dark City, it becomes clear that this film is following the classic conventions of sci-fi, and it's doing a great job. There's scientist on a mission to save a dying planet, there's robots with personalities, there's dangerous foreign environments, there's science talk of black holes and relativity--which Neil deGrasse Tyson has said the film "Let's you experience [it] like no film has before." (in the movie relativity works as a  sort of unwanted time travel, people on Earth age faster than the people on the ship when they embark on certain planets in another galaxy). So all the things we want in an epic sci-fi film are here, and the best part is, Nolan makes it feel believable. He grounds the film in the father-daughter relationship, it's what becomes the heart of this movie.

My hope is that Interstellar will inspire other writers and directors to tackle the sci-fi genre with more vigor than just another post apocalyptic film starring 20 somethings as 17 somethings. After all, the working world is populated by adults, we deserve some adult movies, and this my friends, I am happy to report, is an adult movie. It's a must see. Get out there and get your ticket. But stay home if you hate robots and space ships. You'll find Katniss next door.

Fury: Review

When I first heard there would be another World War II film starring Brad Pitt coming to theaters, it was hard not to make an Inglorious Bastards connection, and from there wonder if we needed another WWII film starring Brad Pitt (or for that matter, another WWII film), but those thoughts drifted from me rather quickly, and I'm glad they did, because Fury is one of the best WWII films I've seen, and it's by far one of the best films to come out all year.

Fury puts a new spin on the perspective of the WWII movie, this one is told from the eyes of the men living beneath the metal walls of an American tank on the ground in Germany in 1945, right at the edge of the war's end. The film doesn't pull punches when it comes to violence. We're greeted to severed faces, bodies crushed, and it's all done in a way that feels normal in the world created here—a world that was real to men like this just 69 years ago.

Of course, as in any war film, the key to the audience caring about the violence and the deaths on screen is getting them to care about the characters this violence is happening to, which the film succeeds at almost from the start. The cast, headlined by the good as ever Brad Pitt, does a phenomenal job of portraying both the inner torture that war brings to men, as well as the outward insanity this torture can manifest itself as. 

Fury is a welcome entry to the WWII film pantheon, and will likely find its way on the ballot in the coming Oscar season. My money's on Brad Pitt for a best actor nod and a Shia Labeouff for a best supporting actor nod, both of whom bring heart to the dread and doom that is the world of Fury.

John Wick: Review

It's interesting how this film was marketed. When you watch the trailer it takes only a moment for you to realize this is going to be one of those movies that's goofy but knows it's goofy. It's going to spoof the action hero genre, probably a bit lazily, and it's going to know it's doing it, so that will hopefully make up for the laziness. This is the impression the trailer gives, as evident by Keanu Reeve's dialogue, "I lost everything. That dog was a gift from my dying wife." None of this is really that odd, we've seen it before with films like Drive Angry or Grindhouse, but what is odd, is that this film was much better than the trailer let on, often reaching for, admittedly small, layers of depth, but in a film titled "John Wick" (a character who is neither a super hero nor a previously existing franchise of any kind) any amount of depth is quite surprising.

Now, the depth I'm talking about is not necessarily "deep" or meaningful moments, though there are a few of those, especially early on in the film (which was the strongest act of the movie). What I'm referring to when I say "depth" here is the level of believability this world creates before the onslaught of violence takes place (which is done pretty well by the way). We find out John Wick is a guy who lives in a big house, owns a nice car, and can afford to pay the guards at a local airport to let him drive his mustang down the run way at top speed. There's little dialogue through out the film, but here, in these early scenes, this adds to the mood the film is creating, and helps paint the story of this man's life and his loss.

There's also some bits of humor sprinkled here and there in the movie, which is closer to what the trailer had us expecting, but this too is done much better than the trailer let on. The line, "That dog was a gift from my dying wife" is never said, instead the humor usually comes from smart (and short) lines that point out the absurdity of a given situation, while also showing that the characters have no idea that the situation is absurd, which just adds to the comedy.

Overall I was impressed with John Wick. My only complaint was the weakness of the third act. Here the film has lost most of its humor and originality, it chooses instead to rest on the tired conventions it's been reinvigorating throughout the rest of the movie.

Join The Masses Go E

I'm trying not to break. I've been avoiding ebooks since their popularity exploded several years ago, but the price point is just getting harder and harder to ignore. I mean, who wants to pay $11 when they can pay $0.99? Hopefully not many people, but I know some of you are out there, I used to be one of you.

So this journey I'm going on, this movement towards the E, it started today. Or maybe, if I'm honest, I'll admit it started the moment I read a paper copy of Write.Publish.Repeat, a how to guide on self publishing. In the book the author, Johnny B. Truant, refers to these crazy projects he wrote over and over again, The Beam, Fat Vampire, and Unicorn Western. He says the names of his products so many times that I just can't not go out and buy one. I buy Fat Vampire for 5 bucks in paperback, the ebook is free, my bitterness begins. I read the book, I love the book, it's the first of a series, and it's less than two hundred pages, I don't buy the next one, as I'm contemplating how I'm going to afford this new habit of reading paperback serials. And then came today, when I wanted to purchase Hugh Howey's sci-fi novel, WOOL, I looked for it on amazon, and found the paper back priced at 11 bucks, the ebook is 99 cents. How do I justify that purchase? The short answer is, I can't. Especially since I know that independent authors who publish through amazon (and it's paper publisher createspace) only receive a 40% royalty for their paperback sales, while they receive a 70% royalty for their ebook sales. Now those royalties don't mean much on an item priced at 99 cents (and the royalty is not 70% for ebooks priced under $2.99), but WOOL is now Hugh Howey's intro product, so it sells cheap, the sequel to WOOL is priced at $5.99 for the ebook and $16.25 for the paperback, now the royalty percentage starts to matter, and the price hurts even more when I look at that double digit number for a paperbook that I'm going to be finished with in a week.

I just can't convince myself to drop the cash on paper books anymore. Not if I'm going to read at the level I'd like to, which is a book a week. That leaves me with no choice but to give the kindle a shot. I have friends who've done it (Michael Rubi), they say it's great. Books are cheap and the kindle isn't that different from reading a real book. As a consumer, I'm sold on the price. I can get over the loss of the paper in my fingers, if it means I get more paper in my wallet.

Patch Adams Video Film Review

My latest Robin Williams film review, Patch Adams. 

Welcome!

Hey guys, welcome to Kennethbuff.com. We're still under construction as you can see, but they'll be lots of cool stuff coming in the near future. This website is primarily the home for my author career—you'll notice the tabs to my coming soon projects under "books"—but it's also the home of my everyday musings over films and books that I've watched and read. Speaking of which, have any of you seen Gone Girl yet? Amazing movie, I'll post a full on review on that later.

But for now guys, just know that more content is on the way  and that you'll soon have lots of new things to watch and read. (I'm Currently editing a video review for my Robin Williams film review series, and my first novel, Bad Dreams is out for edits and should be coming back soon.)