Theatrical Releases: The Avengers: Age Of Ultron

May 1, 2015 / Leave a Comment

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON || May 1st, 2015

	AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON \|\| James Spader steps in as the voice for the genocidal artificial intelligence Ultron, whose reach proves even further than even most of the Avengers can muster the strength for. Introduces newbies like Paul Bettany as The Vision (previously voicing Jarvis) and Elizabeth Olsen as The Scarlet Witch. Marvel has yet to steer wrong any of their films but I get the feeling audiences are being to tire of their template.
	FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD \|\| Carey Mulligan is the object of everyone’s affection in “Far From The Madding Crowd,” based on the classic Thomas Hardy novel where three men fall in love with one woman and she must choose. The men in the film are played by Matthias Schoenaerts (“The Drop”), Tom Sturridge (“On The Road”), and Michael Sheen (“Masters Of Sex”).	THEATER

	THE HUNDRED YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT OF THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED\|\| Awkward humor can only get you so far but watch the trailer for a joke where, on a high rise construction site, a man asks for his hammer and the old man throws it to him… only for it to miss its target and fall, as you hear a man below letting them know they dropped their hammer. Otherwise, it looks like the films moves at a pace not far off from that of the title geriatric character.	PASS
	ANY DAY \|\| Sean Bean, and even Eva Longoria, deserve better. Let’s get one thing straight, if someone ever questions your sobriety, telling them how many years you’ve been sober is not an acceptable retort for validating your situation. Yes, you may have been sober now for twelve years, but addiction is a lifelong struggle and you telling me how many years it’s been does not make me think that if you were approached with alcohol, that you would not partake. Just saying. Everything that’s good about Sean Bean is stripped away in this trailer.	PASS
	CAS & DYLAN \|\| Why did Jason Priestley (“90210”) direct this film? Often when actors step behind the camera, it’s for a passion project. Angelina Jolie directing “Unbroken” is not weird to me. But Priestley directing a road trip movie starring Richard Dreyfuss and Tatiana Maslany is very peculiar.	PASS
	FAR FROM MEN \|\| First Viggo Mortensen takes on “Jauja,” a fellow period piece in the desert, and now this. Viggo plays a French teacher who is ordered to deliver a man he meets during the Algerian War across the desert to the authorities. Reda Kateb plays his counterpart in the film and you’ll recognize him from “Zero Dark Thirty”. I play a man that is going to pretend that Viggo wasn’t the same guy that played Aragorn in “The Lord Of The Rings”.	PASS
	GERONTOPHILIA \|\| The root word “philia” means affection. “Geronto” means old age. So the title of the film “Gerontophilia” means affection for old people, which is not something I needed to know anything about. All the same, director Bruce La Bruce delivers a character that is in a heterosexual relationship but finds himself falling for older men and thus begins working at an adult home to surround himself with them and even starts relationships with older men.	PASS
	HYENA \|\| Not only was the trailer for “Hyena” so unmemorable that I couldn’t tell you the first thing that it’s about, just reading the synopsis again made me never want to see this film. With a description like: “A corrupt London cop (Peter Ferdinando) tries to shut down an Albanian crime ring before his own illegal activities are discovered,” it sounds like one of the most generic and uninspired films of the year.	PASS
	IN COUNTRY \|\| Once a year for a week, a group of veterans from several different eras come together in Oregon to reenact the Vietnam War. The documentary not only to shows the reenactments but delivers a better understanding of these men and why they get involved with this event. What baffles me is how these grown men can be so on board with playing pretend, to the point where men are being fake shot and fake carried to a gurney.	PASS
	IRIS \|\| Another week, another fashion designing documentary. And to top it off, it’s about a particular fashionista that’s been around forever, claiming to be one of the first women to ever wear pants. Iris Apfel is her name but her schtick is being to run thin with women like Elaine Stritch, who are living just as long and remaining just as entertaining. Let’s all pause as we wait for the documentary to be made about Albert Maysles, the director of this film, best known for his work on “Grey Gardens” and “Gimme Shelter”.	PASS
	THE JOURNEY OF L.A. MASS \|\| Apparently Donald Taylor has changed gospel music forever. How, I couldn’t tell you how or why, because part of this trailer is footage off of a theater screen much like a bootleg copy of something, and that’s the portion of the trailer that decided to describe why I should care about this man and his L.A. choir. So for that I’ll just keep on not caring. “A documentary from Carl Jackson about Donald Taylor.”	PASS
	MAYA THE BEE MOVIE \|\| Maya left the hive to seek a world of adventure, just like I’d prefer to never see this film and seek different worlds for different, more interesting adventures. Not that animated films can get very low budget, but when they do, they often turn out like this. But without low quality animated films like this, I suppose we cannot appreciate the quality work that Dreamworks and Disney/Pixar put out every year.	PASS
	PRIVATE NUMBER \|\| That’s two trailers this week where sobriety is questioned and the retort is to respond with how long they’ve been sober. I couldn’t make this stuff up. If you can figure out what this thriller is about, please let me know, because I have very little idea. A weird phone call leads a man to start having strange visions of people’s faces falling off and houses burning. Also, Tom Sizemore shows up (last week it was “Laugh Killer Laugh”), proving that he must be hard up for work as well.	PASS
	REALITE \|\| Director Quentin Dupieux is at it again (“Rubber”, “Wrong”, “Wrong Cops”), this time with a foreign language film about a man wanting to make his first horror film about killer TVs. The only catch: his producer is giving him two days to record the best groan of all-time. As with most of Dupieux’s strange titles, there are multiple storylines, including ones with Eric Wareheim and Jon Heder. The only reason I want to see it is because I’ve seen “Rubber” and want to see his other two films. That could easily change.	25% MAYBE
	RIDE \|\| Apparently this isn’t the first time Helen Hunt has written and directed herself in a move. In 2007 she wrote and directed “Then She Found Me”. The good news is, Helen looks better than ever, especially sporting a wet suit. The bad news, not only is the trailer slightly a mess (the levels are all over the place and half the time the music is so loud you cannot even hear the dialogue), but even what looks like above average performances from Luke Wilson and Brenton Thwaites cannot save this film.	PASS
	SOUL BOYS OF THE WESTERN WORLD \|\| Please tell me I’m not alone in not knowing the band Spandau Ballet. My guess is since they were a London band, that perhaps their influence didn’t quite reach America like some of the other influential British rock bands. But it’s still getting to the point where if you’ve seen one rock band documentary, you’ve seen them all, especially when you have no idea who the band is.	PASS
	WELCOME TO ME \|\| If Kristen Wiig is starring and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are producing, chances are, I’m in. Wiig is on a roll of dark, independent comedies with “Girl Most Likely”, “Hateship Loveship”, and “The Skeleton Twins”. Now, her latest sees her with Borderline Personality Disorder, winning the lottery, and buying her own Oprah Winfrey inspired talk show. If that’s not enough, her co-stars include Wes Bentley, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.	25% MAYBE