Category: Movie Reviews

Feast You Eyes on “The Dream”, A Culinary Movie Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

af-el-somni-poster-cat1Plays Sunday, May 31
Oak Bay Beach Hotel
Victoria, BC

Brunch: 11 AM
Film: 12:15 PM

El Somni (The Dream) is one of those films that is more of a visual exposition than a by-the-book style documentary about brothers Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca. After taking home the first place award in the 50 Best Restaurants in the World ceremony of 2013, just what can they do next is explored in this film. These siblings desire to create a new artistic culinary movement to engage the five senses — if not six to create a spiritual awakening — of a dinner can make or break their established careers. They’re reknowned chefs from El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain.

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Where is Tomorrow in Tomorrowland? A Movie Review

Tomorrowland_poster

E: I’m fairly sure I’ve heard a certain orchestral riff before in Tomorrowland’s soundtrack. It’s inspiring enough to make me want to soar to new heights, to explore the imagination, to dream of brighter tomorrows and well, quite simply, not to give up hope. Director Brad Bird has a good idea to work from, and I appreciate where he wants to go with this somewhat chaotic film, but is it enough to get that darned musical mosaic out of my head?

J: While Ed is haunted by music I am more haunted at how long it took to get this movie started. Too much time was spent on the origin of our two protagonists, Frank Walker (George Clooney) and Casey Newton (Britt Robertson). That slowed parts of the film down, when they really should have focused more on chase scenes involving the robots who were after them.

E: A lot of time is spent on Newt (that’s my nickname for her) and her obsession with finding Tomorrowland.  That place is almost like Jurassic Park in ruins when she finally makes it there and no, that’s not where the song is from. Instead of being faced with terror (well, there are those robots), they need to find answers as to why the future is doomed.

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How to Scare Up a Poltergeist, a Movie Review

Poltergeist2By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Even poltergeists have trouble vying for attention these days. We’re not talking about how the ‘remake’ compares to the original Steven Speilberg produced and Tobe Hooper directed film but instead, the Enfield haunting (the basis for the next The Conjuring film) suggests that targeting paranormal enthusiasts to earn box office coin is a good way to manifest dollars. Next year’s ghostly themed product has the potential to do far better than this rehash of a familiar tale.

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Oren Peli’s Area 51 Lacks Videogame Style Punch

Area51By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Okay, I admit it. As a paranormal investigator (not a ghost hunter), I was intrigued with the movie that Oren Peli made with his breakout hit Paranormal Activity. He got a few concepts right in terms of what goes on during a haunting and he also got other things wrong — namely in the fact that Dr. Fredrichs, the supposed investigator, ran with his tail between his legs. The way the cameras are set up and the editing created some good suspense. The back story that was told, spread between the first movie and the latest, provides a great reason to stay tuned. In wondering what this writer/director can do with Area 51, which took years in the making, suggests that this producer has lost his touch. Where’s the suspense? Where’s the drama?

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Danger! Danger! Ex Machina, A Movie Review

Ex Machina PosterSpoiler Alert

Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics need not necessarily apply in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina. This writer of 28 Days Later and debut director crafts an intellectual challenge for Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) and audiences to think through. That is, just what constitutes true artificial intelligence? Why do we fear it? The challenges of crafting the perfect AI is tough. Not only is the computer language that we know of today is not up to the challenge, but also there’s no heuristic theory that can successfully challenge the Turing Test — a method of finding out of a machine’s behaviour can indeed be indistinguishable from that of a human. To explore what it takes to achieve sentience is not the only focus here with this film, but rather what is required to meet cognition — in the sense of developing survival instincts — is.

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The Problems Defining the Age of Ultron, A Movie Review

Avengers-Age-Of-Ultron-Poster-2By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

* Spoiler Alert

The Avengers are back together for one final mission and what they’re looking for is Loki‘s sceptre. It contains a stone with a ‘mind’ of its own and since Winter Soldier, this film’s immediate predecessor, the country of Sokovia has become a place of interest for Earth’s mightiest heroes (and villains too) in Age of Ultron.

This film begins in the middle of the action director/writer Joss Whedon wastes no time in getting fans salivating at magnificent special effects and combat choreography. Between these set pieces are moments of exposition to tell a story about how Ultron (sweetly voiced by James Spader) gets created and what his goals are. He’s supposed to be part of a special global defence program that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) want to fully develop. What is born is the ultimate artificial intelligence that deems mankind is flawed.

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