Monday Movies ~ Present and Future

We saw the movie Lucy last week. I didn't go in feeling much optimism about the movie, but we'd decided to spend the baking hot afternoon in our local cinema's air conditioning (it's akin to a butcher's cold room) rather than switching on our own a/c. Lucy turned out to be a strange movie but engaging enough, I'm glad we got to see it. It's part science fiction, part fantasy, part echoing several previous movies of the same, and other, genres. The ending of Lucy reminded me, at once, of the beginning of Prometheus (my post on that film is HERE.)

A nutshell synopsis, trying not to give away too much: young woman is forced into becoming a "drug mule" carrying a bag of a new kind of hormone-based drug, surgically inserted into her stomach. She is attacked and in the process the bag leaks into her system, causing her brain power to expand exponentially.

There's some rather too obvious would-be artiness going on at times, with interposed animal shots equating to human instincts from the plot-line. These brought on knowing chuckles; and naturally, there's a lot of amazing CGI. Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman head the cast.

The "coming soon" previews before the movie began gave us hope of a few decent films in coming weeks and months, better than the spate of recent dreadful smash-bang, slash-bang offerings, or movies mainly for children. Once the kids are back in school the adults might have a chance of getting a look in!

For instance, we shall look forward to seeing:

The Hundred Foot Journey sounds interesting. Dame Helen Mirren playing a snooty restaurateur in France, who suddenly finds herself in opposition to a new Indian restuarant. Film is is based on the similarly titled novel by Richard C. Morais.




The Congress
A movie actress past her best agrees to sell the movie rights to her digital image to a movie studio for a huge sum and a pledge to never act again. After her body is digitally scanned, the studio will be able to make films starring her using only computer-generated characters. When she changes her mind it seems the plot kicks into high gear. She is frozen to preserve her sanity (or something), then revived and needs to find her son...
Sounds complicated, with suspension of disbelief needed by the bucketful, but something a wee bit different.
The film was released in 2013, an Israel-French co-productioned English language movie. I think it hasn't had much screening in the USA as yet.

I'm interested in this film for two reasons: Paul Giamatti is in it; but also because husband has been rattling on for years on about how, at some future point in time film producers will find a way to revive old movie stars such as Bogart, Mitchum, Bette Davis, etc via some digital magic and, if they can elicit permission from the stars' relatives, make new movies using old stars. Sounds preposterous but....For a new-old/old-new Steve McQueen, I'd whistle and stomp! For stars such as Bogart, Mitchum, Davis - not so much.

The Judge - Stars Robert Downey Jnr, and the law - so what's not to like? A tale of a slick city lawyer who finds himself having to defend his estranged father, a judge in Indiana, for murder.

And, finally Snowpiercer - a movie currently doing the rounds in big city cinemas, unlikely to reach our corner of the nation until DVD time. A true dystopian tale, with a new twist. (From the Wiki link): In 2014, an experiment to counteract global warming causes an ice age that kills nearly all life on Earth. The only survivors are the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a massive train, powered by a perpetual-motion engine, that travels on a globe-spanning track. A class system is installed, with the elites inhabiting the front of the train and poor inhabiting the tail. In 2031, the tail inhabitants prepare for the latest in a series of rebellions....