Mean Dreams, Starring Bill Paxton

A crooked cop and abusive father like Wayne Caraway needs someone like Dale “Hurricane” Dixon from One False Move to put a stopper in his bottle. Unfortunately, instead of a showdown between Bill Paxton characters, we will watch Paxton’s Caraway completely dominate a gawky teenager who just can’t compete. Still, it is fun to watch another vintage performance from the late, great Paxton in Nathan Morlando’s Mean Dreams (trailer here), which opens tonight in New York.

Sensitive loner Jonas Ford sure takes notice when Casey Caraway moves to town with her father, the new sheriff’s deputy. For some reason, she also takes a liking to him, even though his bipolar Church Lady mother does her best to scare her off. Of course, it’s nothing compared to what Caraway will do. Not only does he raise his hand to Casey, he also appears to have an unhealthy need to control her. 

Determined to save his new girlfriend and avoid another beating of his own, Ford happens to be skulking about when Caraway turns drug deal into a multiple murder. He rashly decides Wayne’s stash of drug cash will be their nest egg, so he grabs the girl, the money, and her loyal dog Blaise and heads off into the Badlands. Naturally, Caraway will follow hot on their trail, like the devil himself.

Sophie Nélisse and Josh Wiggins are both duller than dishwater as the teens on the run. That causes a fundamental imbalance within the film, because Paxton goes for broke as the flamboyantly evil Caraway and Colm Feore adds further villainous zest as his partner in crime, the crooked Sheriff. Frankly, the bad guys have the straight folks thoroughly outclassed. The only exception is Joe Cobden, who quietly devastates in a handful of pivotal scenes as Ford’s meek and self-loathing father Elbert.

Mean Dreams is not a bad film, but it really just reminds us how awesome Paxton was playing the country boy with a dark twist in films like One False Move, Pass the Ammo, Traveller, Near Dark, and of course Private “Game Over” Hudson in Aliens. It is not essential, but it has its (Paxton and Feore) moments. For Paxton fans, Mean Dreams opens tonight (3/17) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Edge of Tomorrow: A.K.A. All You Need is Kill

You have to feel for the publishers of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s light novel and manga, All You Need is Kill. They had a recognizable property with one of the coolest titles ever, but the studio changed the title of their live action adaptation to something sounding like a soap opera or an Edgar Cayce tract—and then they wonder why their tracking is soft. It is a shame, because the eternally recurring battle against alien invaders is rather snappily executed in Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow (trailer here), which opens today nationwide.

The so-called “Mimics” (because they are so blasted adaptable in battle) have overrun continental Europe, but somehow mankind held them off at Verdun. Victory was partly attributed to the development of their Iron Man-like exo-war “jackets” and partly to the leadership of warrior-extraordinaire Rita Vrataski, the “Angel of Verdun” (or “Full Metal Bitch” in the source novel). Embolden by humanity’s first battlefield success, General Brigham is poised to launch a D-Day-like counter-invasion of France. It will not go well, as soon to be ex-Major William Cage (formerly green recruit Keiji Kiriya) experiences over and over again.

Deservedly busted down to private for his incredibly stupid comments to Gen. Brigham, the military PR officer is now amongst the first wave of ground troops set to hit the beaches. Unfortunately, the Mimics know they are coming. Cage is indeed killed in rather short order, as are most of his new comrades, but not before he takes out an unusually large “Alpha” Mimic. Eventually, he learns he has been contaminated by their time altering power through its blood. Each time he dies, his incredibly un-fun day starts afresh. It has to be a clean death though. A transfusion will wash out his Mimic connection, whereas incapacitation would be the worst possible scenario.

Even though it is easy to recognize plenty of familiar military science fiction elements, Liman cobbles them together quite sure-handedly, adding the Groundhog Day twist. The action sequences are intense and brutally honest to the realities of any war. Frankly, there are a handful of moments of 3D shock and awe, but it is mostly unnecessary (as you probably already guessed). The battery of screenwriters also convey as decent sense of the soldier’s perspective and attitude. Yet, the film is relatively circumspect drawing D-Day parallels, notwithstanding the June 6^th release date.

Younger readers might be interested to know Tom Cruise was once one of the biggest box office stars in the world, before he started handing out flowers at the airport, or whatever. This is the sort of role that used to be his bread-and-butter in the 1980s: the callow hotshot forced to mature thanks to the help of a more experienced woman. It might be a familiar arc for him, but he does not slack on the energy level. Yet, it is Emily Blunt who really delivers the grit and action cred as Vrataski. Science fiction fan with also enjoy watching Bill Paxton play with and against his Aliens persona as the hard-charging Master Sergeant Farrell Bartolome.

There are a handful of moments in Edge that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Unfortunately, the ending feels like a tacked on exercise in Hollywood gooeyness, almost undoing the in-your-face integrity of everything that came before. Nevertheless, there is more than enough amped-up genre action and time paradox-tripping to satisfy high concept, big budget science fiction fans. Recommended accordingly, Edge of Tomorrow opens today (6/6) across the country, including the AMC Empire in New York.

The Colony: The Future on Ice

The future will be nasty, brutish, and snowy.  To combat global warming huge weather controlling machines were invented, but tragically they got stuck on snow—or something like that. On the positive side, summers in New York have become almost bearable.  Cash out your 401K’s now, because if that all weren’t bad enough, cannibalism starts to spike in Jeff Renfroe’s The Colony (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

So, its pretty cold out there.  Only scattershot handfuls of humanity survive in underground colonies, hoping to somehow outlast the big freeze.  Given their cramped living conditions, Flu has become a matter of life and death.  Basically, if you cough, you are sent out to die.  The overzealous Mason is the one in charge of “quarantine,” a fact that does not sit well with Sam, the sensitive handyman.  He takes the issue up with Briggs, Colony 7’s commander, who inconveniently has more pressing concerns.

Their sister colony sent a distress signal, ominously followed by radio silence, so Briggs takes Sam and an easily winded teenager out to investigate.  After making the arduous journey past a series of surprisingly cool looking matte paintings, the expeditionary party discovers their allied colony was over-run by a pack of cannibals. Despite descending into savagery, they prove to be dashed difficult to kill.

It is rather ironic this tale is climate catastrophe is Canadian-made, because the weather will look rather temperate to half the country.  Yet, the Northern location shoots, filmed at an old mouth-balled Canadian NORAD facility, are what work best for Colony.  Likewise, the hulking frost-encrusted weather machines are quite striking looking.  Unfortunately, the script (credited to Renfroe and three others) feels like it was cobbled together from Roland Emmerich’s slush pile.

For a derivative film, Laurence Fishburne’s performance as Briggs is largely derived from his work in the superior Event Horizon, but frankly, that is not entirely bad.  Similarly, Bill Paxton recycles his “game over, man” persona for Mason, but with less successful results.  Kevin Zegers and Charlotte Sullivan are pretty bland as Sam and his potential love interest, Kai the seed archivist and computer specialist, but at least her character listens to Ellington, so you have to tip your hat to that.  Considering Dru Viergever’s character is only credited as “Feral Leader,” it is probably safe to assume not much of an awards campaign is being planned on his behalf.  Nevertheless, he certainly looks the part.

To call The Colony a meathead movie would over-praise it.  Visually, it accomplishes much with its limited resources, but never rises above mediocrity in any other criteria.  Just kind of whatever (at best), it is hard to imagine anyone will pay Manhattan ticket prices to see it when The Colony opens tomorrow (9/20) in New York at the AMC Empire.

AAIFF ’12: Shanghai Calling

Go-getting corporate attorney Sam Chao is used to doing things his way.  So is China.  China’s bigger.  Temporarily posted to the go-go city on the East China Sea, Chao is in for a steady diet of culture clashes in director-screenwriter Daniel Hsia’s Shanghai Calling (trailer here), the 2012 Asian American International Film Festival’s opening night film, produced by this year’s Asian American Media Award recipient, Janet Yang.

Chao is not thrilled with his new assignment, but it is clear the partnership he covets depends on his performance opening the Shanghai office.  His firm has come to China because that is where their most important client, eccentric industrialist Marcus Groff, has relocated.  Never really in touch with his Chinese heritage, Chao does his level best to offend all his new colleagues as quickly as possible, particularly his assistant Fang Fang and his expat relocation specialist, Amanda Wilson.  Unfortunately, Chao is going to need their help when makes a hash of Groff’s latest deal.

For reasons that remain elusive, Fang Fang has eyes for the boss, whereas Chao finds himself attracted to Wilson.  That would also seem to be an odd choice on his part, but it fits with Chao’s cultural identity.  He is the whitest guy in the room, especially compared to Wilson and expat business community leader Donald Cafferty, the “Mayor of Americatown.”

Hsia’s screenplay is quite astute observing the dynamics of the American business community in Shanghai, contrasting the old school old guard, represented by Cafferty, with the yuppie upstarts.  It definitely feels like Calling reflects an insider’s perspective.  However, the vibe of the romantic subplots are a bit too Gary Marshall (even the poster looks a bit reminiscent of New Year’s Eve).  At least, Hsia keeps the cast of characters manageable.

Daniel Henney (geek-famous as Agent Zero in X-Men Origins: Wolverine) maintains an easy likability, even when he is cruising for his ego bruising.  Likewise, Eliza Coupe is like a cross between vintage Meg Ryan and Bonnie Hunt as Wilson, the harried single mother.  However, some of the brightest lights are found in the supporting cast.  In what could have easily been a shticky caricature, Bill Paxton brings out the wit and humanity of “Mayor” Cafferty.  Not just window dressing, Zhu Zhu (of the Chinese remake of What Women Want) plays Fang Fang with real spirit and sensitivity, while Geng Le has a nice understated nerd charisma as Awesome Wang, a journalist-fixer often hired by the expats.

Clearly, Calling is not interested in muckraking.  When Chao crashes the factory bootlegging Groff’s revolutionary cell-phone, it looks nothing like the Foxconn NPR describes.  Nor does it have anything to say about China’s internet freedoms, or lack thereof.  That might limit its documentary value, but it is rather pleasant as an East-meets-West courtship (of both the personal and professional varieties).  Though becoming more common, such American-Chinese co-productions still must present challenges (indeed, such is the basic premise of the film), so 2012 honoree Yang’s contributions as producer are surely considerable.  Recommended for those who enjoy light cross-cultural rom-coms, Shanghai Calling screens tonight (7/25) as part of the 2012 AAIFF’s opening gala and also on Saturday (7/28), but both showings are sold out, so good luck queuing stand-by.