Look! Up in the air! It’s a benignly entertaining ballooning movie!
Aeronauts James (Eddie Redmayne) and Amelia (Felicity Jones) try to break the world’s height record for a gas-powered balloon.
As far as family-friendly holiday movies go, you could do worse than British writer/director Tom Harper’s The Aeronauts. An old-fashioned Victorian costume drama, it’s thrilling without being scary, has no sex, swearing, or violence, and extolls the virtues of science, adventure, and reaching for the stars, as it were. And sure, you may forget about it as soon as you walk out of the theater, but you’ll have a pleasant enough time watching its story unfold.
Star Wars goes rogue and leaves strong character development behind.
When Felicity Jones goes rogue, we all go rogue.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the fifth best Star Wars film! Now that I’ve gotten my controversial statement out of the way, let’s continue. We can have the ranking argument later. For now, let’s just concentrate on what’s good and what’s not so good about the first ‘standalone’ Star Wars film, aka the first one to focus a story outside of the Skywalker saga. Except, it’s not exactly a standalone film, nor is it completely focused outside the aforementioned Skywalker saga. In fact, its central storyline comes from the iconic opening crawl that begins the original 1977 Star Wars film, Episode IV: A New Hope. Thus, the odds were always stacked against Rogue One. After all, its story is one in which we, more or less, know the fate of the central characters. So how can a film make us care for characters when we already know how their fates will be sealed? Well, in the hands of director Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla), Rogue One is full of impressive visuals and gripping action and just enough interesting characters to get by. There are easter eggs and callbacks aplenty in Rogue One to fully satisfy traditionalist and hardcore Star Wars fans, and enough stylistic changes to fulfill Disney’s initial attempt to launch a series of films meant to explore the expanded Star Wars universe in a way that is new but familiar. Rogue One is far from perfect, but it’s a fantastic movie-watching experience thanks to its exhilarating war movie feel and robust scope.
Film critics Carrie and Chad on who will – and who should – win the 87th Academy Awards
The 87th Academy Awards air this Sunday, February 22nd on ABC at 5:00pm PST (red carpet coverage begins at 4:00, if you want to dish on fashion highs and lows). There are some tight races this year – Best Picture and Best Actor are especially hard to call. Here are Carrie and Chad’s predictions – and hopes – for the major categories: Continue reading “Film Feature: Carrie and Chad Pick the Oscars”
Few films have nailed the invincible excitement of young love with the giddy, wrenching precision of Like Crazy. The third feature film in as many years from director Drake Doremus, the film stars Anton Yelchin (The Beaver) and Felicity Jones (The Tempest) as Jacob and Anna, a young couple that meet while attending college together in southern California. When they discover their mutual attraction, they immediately understand the obstacle in their path – Anna is British and only in the U.S. on a student visa – but as they fall deeper and deeper into the first throes of romance, Anna decides to throw caution to the wind and stay with Jacob a few months past the expiration of her visa. Despite the instant gratification this choice provides, it will lead to lasting, disastrous consequences. The film works as a romantic drama as well as a terrifying cautionary tale about the dangers of abusing a student visa.
