This weekend brings us the latest installment in the two-hour-commercial genre, a bunch of people popping out progeny, an exploration of men and their grooming habits throughout the years, and Sam Jackson kicking ass — this time without the aid of a raging green monster or an iron-clad playboy / philanthropist.

Battleship: I understand the logic of making the Transformers toys into nine-hour commercial / trilogy. The action figures are accurate to their cinematic counterparts, and the rogue wave of adolescents seeking to purchase these toys will most likely start by recreating scenes from the films. At the same time, the older viewers might be relishing in nostalgia, remembering when they had tiny Optimus Primes of their own. However, I’m boggled by Battleship. Liam Neeson equals film revenue and, most often, kickassness, so I’m not worried about the explosions, actions scenes, or expository dialog. But, If Hasbro, who is directly linked to the production of the movie, is looking to market their Battleship game, they are doing it rather misleadingly. As a child, I owned Battleship (both the standard and electronic version), and while it was fun, there were no alien figurines, no extraterrestrial, chain whipping villains. There was only the kid across from me trying to peek at my boats or not-so-subtly moving his when I got a direct hit. What I’m saying here is that calling this movie Battleship and marketing it as a representation of the game is a bit wonky. One could just call this movie: Ocean Adventure with Explosions, That Guy From Friday Night Lights’ Last Movie, Rhianna’s Attempt at Acting, or Liam Looking Angry.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting: a crappy movie. This adaptation covers the lives of five couples who are all expecting a child. At various times their lives interchange, and I’m sure there are moments in which “hilarity ensues, etc.” One thing to note here is that three of the five women in the film are over the age of forty, so unless this film is about fertility treatments, the reality of the film is already waning.

Mansome: From Morgan Spurlock, Mansome, looks at the state of male attractiveness and the history that has led up to it. I think this film might be about ten years too late – Queer Eye for the Straight Guy pretty much broke ground in the metrosexual exposure genre – but it could be interesting if this film delves deeply into the history of masculinity and grooming, particularly if parts of the film focus on the girth of a man and the size of his beard.

The Samaritan: Samuel L. Jackson is back, again; this time as Foley, a former grafter ready to set his life straight. But, as happens in these films, Foley is thrown into a circumstance that makes him revert to his old practices. I suppose the intrigue here is whether or not he can dip his toes in mischief and then walk away forever – a la Unforgiven – or if an epiphany will forever convince him that some people are just meant to walk outside of the law? Not sure if either one will make this film a “must see,” but I’m sure the audience can probably poach a classic SLJ line or two.

Upon the most recent viewing of The Incredibles, I’ve come to the conclusion that the film directed and written by Brad Bird is not about superheroes or equality. It’s about rampant use of frivolous lawsuits. In America, there are over one millions lawyers per capita, more than any other nation. On average, 15 million civil lawsuits are filed each year, and trial lawyers earn an estimated $40billion, cumulatively, per year.

A film like X-Men would have you believe that racism and prejudice impede the exposure of superheroes. According to The Incredibles, it’s people’s greed, or, more appropriately, the fear of being sued. That said, the lives of superheroes are kept underground because their lifeblood could be siphoned through kind acts mistakenly interpreted as violating human rights. Granted, much of the film centers on family values, conflict, and the threat of stagnation, but these three tropes are challenged all because of a callow man and his nasally lawyer.

The impetus itself is merely glazed over in the film after the opening interview when Mr. Incredible saves Mr. Sansweet, a man whose attempt to commit suicide by plummeting from the roof an office building is foiled as Mr. Incredible snatches him out of the air while crashing through a window on his way to subdue super villain Bomb Voyage.

As Mr. Sansweet – whose name bespeaks bitterness and pessimism – and Mr. Incredible crash through the glass, a low, “I think you broke my back can be heard” before Incredible runs off to save the rest of the city. There’s a nefarious legal conspiracy established here. We soon find that Mr. Sansweet’s back is not broken, and his only injury appears to be concealed by the wickedly stigmatized neck brace that often portends the handiwork of an ambulance chasing lawyer. The validity of Sansweet’s injury is doubly questioned when – during his interview announcing his intention to sue Mr. Incredible – the defendant barges in, claiming, “I saved your life!” to which Sansweet rejoins, “You ruined my death!” Two things are telling here. First, the plaintiff animatedly yells this line, all the while jabbing his head toward Mr. Incredible like a rooster in a cockfight. Clearly, the injury, nor the brace have impaired mobility.

Secondly, the procedure of the suit itself suggests that Sansweet no longer wants to die – at least, not immediately. Logically, it seems that additional money will be what elides his desire to die. And the source of this money – the lawsuit – also speaks to individual greed.

What’s most disturbing about this theme in The Incredibles is that it also looks at society through a lens tinted with endemic exhibitionism and individualism. As the cohort of superheroes is broken down to its individual members, a survival instinct kicks in; for the most part, they no longer associate each other. In part because they have been distributed around the country in various protection programs, but also because of the fear of incrimination and other lawsuits.

In turn, this creates fear. For the superheroes, the fear is that they will be exposed, sued, and need to move again. For the rest, the fear is of each other. Each interaction and relationship is precarious. Each one is constructed within a bureaucracy of appropriateness and assigned roles.

Last weekend was ruled by The Avengers, and it’s probably a good bet that most production companies assumed this would be the case. I’m sure that Dark Shadows will draw a decent crowd, but it would be safe to bet on Marvel’s superhero cavalcade to continue conquering the box office.

Dark Shadows: The love affair between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton continues. Based on the television series that ran for about twenty five years, Dark Shadows explores the world of Barnabas Collins, a man of the undead throw into the world of his dysfunctional descendants, in 1972. While I think it’s interesting that this film plunges its anachronistic character into a decade often skipped in time-travel cinema, it also frightens me that most of the jokes will be centered on Barnabas learning how to use a record player or adjust to the various couch-cushion-upholstery-looking clothing. The other thing that worries me is that this film is touted as “from the producers of Alice in Wonderland.” I enjoy most everything Tim Burton has done – except the recently noted. All I have is one word: Fudderwhacking. I fear that I will be charmed by Dark Shadows (much like I initially was by Alice) only to find that someone on set said: “Don’t forget to Disneyfy this film with something ridiculously unnecessary.

The Road: A horror film that comes out in May might just be good, and I think this one will be just that. It’s not simply about a group of people travelling on a road, but about a group of people stumbling upon a recurring past that is always present but often overlooked. In a sense, this is much like a road itself. As we travel the road, it is new to us, but it has a history, one that goes unchanged despite the scenery or our unfamiliarity with it.

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview: Since Steve Jobs’ death last year, there have been a number of “lost interviews.” Each one of them making their way to the late and offering an opinion about whether or not Jobs was a genius or an opportunist; a revolutionary or a marketer; a narcissist or a leader. And, for the most part, each documentary, special, expose, etc. decides that he is a little bit of each. In my book, he made technology aesthetically pleasing and appealing. Whether or not I would want to work for the man would probably be contingent on my stock options.

[Image via Awards Daily]

We hear it all the time:

“The book was so much better than the movie.”

It’s usually true. Filmmakers have so many storytelling devices at their disposal: beautifully composed moving images, the gift of sound, dynamic actors and clever editing, to name a few. Yet, the sum of those parts struggles to compete with the one great tool the author has: the reader’s imagination.

Documentaries don’t traditionally suffer from the book versus movie affliction. Docs are frequently used as addenda to texts. What educator doesn’t welcome an hour when classroom management is made easy by virtue of dimmed lights and a flickering video lesson? And what student doesn’t appreciate a movie day? In that sense, a doc is like a teacher’s best friend.

Outside the classroom, a doc is a convenient stand-in for a book. Busy viewers can acquire knowledge in 60 minutes (or even 30) that may otherwise require several morning commutes or a few bedtime readings to learn. There’s not much antagonism with documentaries. We have no real need to compare the book about subject X to the movie about subject X. Imagination doesn’t loom so large.

There are, however, certain subjects that don’t come alive via the page as vibrantly as they do on the screen. For example: Bob Marley.

[Image via The Selvedge Yard]

Marley, a new doc from Kevin MacDonald, is currently making the rounds. I saw it recently at the E Street Cinema in Washington, DC. If the bootleg dude on your corner doesn’t have it, you can probably find it somewhere online. Although you should buy it legally via iTunes or Amazon or something. A loving Jah would like that. (And so would Bob Marley’s estate.)

I don’t need to tell you what the film is about, do I? Bob Marley is an icon we can all take for granted because we all know everything there is to know about him already. Right? Who can’t mouth the words to at least one Bob Marley song? Who hasn’t enjoyed even the briefest reggae phase at some point in their life? And who hasn’t owned a poster or t-shirt or other tchotchke with Marley’s likeness staring out from it?

But that’s the thing. Becoming an icon is actually a reduction, not an elevation. While the icon stands for something greater than the person, the amplified bits of that life drown out its richness. The icon is much closer to a caricature than a fully realized character. The Bob Marley we think we know is not necessarily the Robert Nesta Marley who actually existed.

[Image via Listen Recovery]

The life of Marley consisted of these facts (among others):

• He had no relationship with the man who fathered him, a Syrian Jew who migrated to England and then to Jamaica where the elder Marley served as a captain with the Royal Marines.
• He did have a relationship with Miss World 1976. It was a long-running affair.
• When a civil war raged in Jamaica, an assassin tried and failed to kill him. Eventually, he would deliver a performance that kinda sorta initiated the peace process. He may not have ended the war, but it would not have ended without his participation.
• He loved playing soccer, and he refused to seek conventional treatment for an injury he was told would end his recreational career.
• During his performance celebrating Zimbabwe’s independence, tear gas scattered the crowd near–and on–the stage. He kept performing as if in an ecstatic state.
• He lived his final days in Germany during winter where he received world-class, unconventional cancer treatment.

If you’re a serious Marley-phile, you already knew those things. If you’re not–and most of us really aren’t–maybe those facts are news to you. And maybe other anecdotes featured in the MacDonald film would be, too.

I lived in Pittsburgh for a number of years. The people of that place share an uncanny memory for every noteworthy person or event that is connected to Pittsburgh. In all my years living there and interacting with people from there, I’ve never once heard anyone mention that Bob Marley performed his very last concert in the Steel City. But that is a fact. One of many, perhaps, that Marley’s legend obscures.

[Image via BobMarley.com]

MacDonald’s film is a good contribution to the Bob Marley canon. It includes books from his wife and one of his daughters as well as an American Masters film from Jeremy Marre. I can’t tell you what distinguishes the latest telling of the Marley story from any of the others. Except to say the MacDonald piece revealed one particular truth to me: no great Marley book could possibly match a good Marley movie.

MacDonald and his film crew fly over the Jamaican countryside and track through the stacks of shacks in Trenchtown to show us what it looks like where the man existed in anticipation of the icon. There’s something intentional about both places. The hills of Jamaica don’t look like any glacier carved them out. They look more like grass-covered bunkers, and they form a treacherous terrain. Trenchtown, in its close-up, emits a desperate, hopeless vibration. The dirt roads that cut between the ramshackle homes make for a primitive cliche. These were the places where the people who were brought to that plot of land were deposited. And these were the circumstances that molded the man.

While we see what Bob Marley’s home country looked and sounded like, we also get testimony from the man himself. MacDonald features interview footage from a few different points in Marley’s life. We know this because his ageless face is betrayed by the different lengths of his hair. And when we see photos of him taken while he was battling cancer, his hair is gone revealing a face–and a man–who was much smaller than the icon his hair helped make of him.

But the hair is not the only thing that swelled his stature. Nor is his famed propensity for smoking ganja/weed/herb/etc. It’s not even as simple as blaming (crediting) the music. If it was one thing, it was his energy. You can see it oozing out of him in the interview footage. And you can feel it pulsing through the screen during the performance footage MacDonald has chosen to excerpt. It was hopeful, naive, cunning, powerful, modest and magnetic. It was everything a person would need to be in order to transcend the confines of a single life.

It’d be silly of me to try and describe any more of MacDonald’s film to you. The only thing I can do here is to tell you to watch it. There was a man beneath that icon. And no writer could tell his story as movingly as a movie featuring the man’s own testimony. The book couldn’t possibly be better.

The amus bouche of summer superhero spectaculars enters theaters this weekend. While it’s not The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers will certainly draw droves of fans. All in all, the story should be decent. I’m just hoping for minimal advertisements within the film for the return of Tony Stark, the blonde-headed viking, and the inevitable fourth incarnation of Bruce Banner. If you’re looking to skip the crowds, check out LOL or A Little Bit of Heaven. It’s a safe bet you’ll be able to sneak in after the previews and still find a prime place to sit — thought for those movies, the closer to the door, the better.

The Avengers: As I watched Captain America, Iron Man 2, and Thor, I was often reminded of the twofold purpose of those installments: to create sequels whose quality dwindles with progression and to advertise the subsequent release of The Avengers, an conglomerate of seemingly disparate superheroes. One has a cool exoskeleton, another is a god, there’s an arrow-shooting fellow, the lady in the group wears very tight black pants, and, one of them, you wouldn’t like when he’s angry. Initially, I was rather disinterested in this band of misfits cobbled together to create a rather confusing Venn diagram of superhero sequels and mashups. However, my interest was piqued when I learned that Joss Whedon was contracted as the writer. Admittedly, I was never a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it wasn’t because of the writing. If nothing else, Whedon can deconstruct a genre rather well. For evidence, please see the short-lived but fan-loved Firefly, or the recent The Cabin in the Woods. For this reason, I’m looking forward to the first installment in the inevitable Avengers franchise. Let’s just hope they keep Bret Ratner away from the sequels.

Death of a Superhero: Along with The Avengers, this film weaves a bit of superhero mythology with real life. An angry young, typical teenager, Donald battles writhing emotions in a turbulent world. When he’s diagnosed with a life-threatening illness (signified by his shaved head), he battles to find himself and uses his extraordinary artistic talent and vivid imagination to navigate through his various trials and tribulations. Certainly, there’s a love interest, one who’s equally as eager to move through adolescence. And, there’s Andy Serkis – as himself, or rather, not an ape or mythical creature.

LOL: Our addiction to ubiquitous social networks fascinating. Our “friends” are often more akin to points in a video game as we rack them up with terse requests to voyeur them with permission. Our language has become truncated, constricted to 140 characters. Our emotions are becoming indiscernible, lest they are accompanied by an animated yellow face, sometimes with white-gloved hands and googly eyes. Our self is often absent from the body as it flits about on various networks, bruising thumbs and creating the illusion of successful multitasking. So, the premise for this film works and could be interesting, but the inclusion of Miley Cyrus, whose opening narration tells us “we go with the flow,” makes me mourn the two minutes and twenty two seconds that were sucked out of my life via the trailer.

A Little Bit of Heaven: Kate Hudson is dying…in this movie that feels like a confused cesspool of previously released movies. Marley (Hudson, not the dog) is the “youngest Vice President in the history of” some firm. This makes her workaholic and self-interested. Then, she finds out she has cancer. This makes everyone around her scared. This means that she hides her insecurities. Then, a love affair blooms – or re-blooms – between her and her doctor. They hang glide. There are some little-people-having-sex-based jokes. Kate Hudson dies…in the movie.

Directed and adapted by Gary Ross, The Hunger Games deviates from its literary counterpart penned by Suzanne Collins. The difference is not so much in the events of the story. Those stay, for the most part, the same. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) sacrifices herself to save her sister, Prue, whose name is unluckily called as the girl tribute from Section 12 during the reaping. Katniss is an excellent archer and savvy, but she gives Section 12 a chance at winning for the first time in a generation.

The most apparent difference in these versions is the focus. Collins often focused on the violence that transitions from visceral and painful in the arena during the games to the mundane when viewed on television screen throughout the land “once known as North America.” Here, her commentary on violence also met a commentary on the pervasiveness of reality television, and how, perhaps, it leads to desensitization, or an endemic subculture of exhibitionism.

Ross, on the other hand, shies away from the focus on violence – the book is more violent in its gritty descriptions of impaling and amputation – and shines a brighter light on propaganda and illusion. To be fair, Collins establishes the conflict of duplicity within her text, particularly in the conversations between Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch, but these are often overdone and seem to be a method to capture the young audience’s fancy for love. However, Ross goes a bit further with his examination of illusion and facades, emphasizing the agenda of Seneca Crane, the Games’ producer and the lengths to which everyone goes to really sell the idea that the odds are “ever in your favor.”

Throughout, this tag line is contradicted. The contestants are dressed and posed like dolls by their stylists and dystopian-day image consultants. Each is monitored closely and heroes and villains are created – both for the theatrical audience and the audience watching the Games from their districts. These labels are created through voting and measuring as if they were part of the Vegas line. Katniss, an 11, is a threat before she begins and thus a target for the others. She’s also crafted into a favorite character for the audience, one that might include a potential love story.

What’s most interesting about this film is the Nazi aesthetic that Ross seems to employ. As the young men and woman gather in District 12 to await the drawing, the scene is eerily reminiscent of one from Schindler’s List, or any other concentration-camp-centric film. Each person is queued and dressed in gray rags. They wait to have their identities confirmed – and in this case, their fingers pricked, using their blood as an identifier. The suggestion here is that all of the blood is on file and those in each District have already been singled out and divided according to their race, status, or creed.

The stage where the drawing takes place signifies a veritable, public execution as if it were a future form of the guillotine. Denizens are brought to the town center to breathe a sigh of relief for their own reprieve while they watch the essential death walk of those who are chosen. Eleven of the twelve living to climb the steps of the podium will end up dead, a symbol that each person not chosen has been given a pass, and those who are chosen are subject to the whims of the Capitol.

Furthermore, the guards who escort the tributes through the Capitol and to and from the Games arena wear red badges on their arms that eerily echo those that bear the Nazi Swastika. The emblem is different, but the visual signifier is uncanny – literally and in the Freudian sense of the word. Here, we recognize something familiar and grim, but its location is misplaced and unfamiliar. It’s set in the future but recalls the past. It’s set in North America, but echoes black and white footage of 1940’s Germany. Something else that can’t be ignored is the Capitol’s crest, which doesn’t appear in any of Collins’ novels: a black eagle, one that is an amalgam of a silhouetted American Bald Eagle, our symbol that holds arrows and portends freedom, and the Nazi eagle that bore the aforementioned swastika. This combination is disturbing in that it juxtaposes the familiar and the infamous, but more so because it speaks to violence and propaganda.

The show and the politics within The Hunger Games are built on clever semantics and rhetoric. The tributes are walking dead. The judging is arbitrary, and the Games are rigged. Creatures are created, contestants are guided to and from areas through producer-controlled cannons that shoot fireballs, or trees that topple from the push of a button.

Both versions of this tale are intriguing and poignant in their own right. What’s also refreshing is that Ross directed this film for those who haven’t read the book. Throughout, I was curious as to how he was going to exposit things that were so easily divulged to the reader through Katniss’ inner monologue. In the film, this is done rather flawlessly through Caeser Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), the Games’  Master of Ceremonies. As if we were watching ESPN 9, Hunger Games Channel, Flickerman pops in and out like a commentator, filling us in on minutia and allowing the narrative to progress.

The one thing I could have gone without is the hand-held conceit. I understand the film is partially a commentary on reality television and what we might perceive as “real,” but hand-held cameras have never and do not currently showcase “reality.” When we walk or run, our vision does not shake, tremble, and whirl about us. There are moments when this is appropriate: a drug trip, a bout with dehydration, an asthma attack, being thrown down a hill. Aside from that, this nauseating method of photography should be used sparsely.

This week brings us Cusack as Poe and a number of literary references. It also portends the dangers of long term engagements in the presence of sickly relatives. On the lighter side, there are claymated pirates looking to pillory foes and wreak gentle havoc on the high seas.

Payback: Just in case you weren’t aware how much debt you are in, check out this new documentary based on a Margaret Atwood novel. It’s surprising to know how much leverage we hold over others and how much others have over us. Within each of our disjoined environments – work, school, relationships – someone is the debtor, and someone is the creditor. This is certainly a depressing look at the economy of friendship and interaction, but it could also be eye-opening.

The Raven: Love Poe. Tolerate Cusack. The premise here is a bit out of Into the Mouth of Madness, or something more akin to Stephen King than Poe, but it could be intriguing if we only look at surface level interpretations of his classics like “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” I’m sure I’ll like the homages, but Poe was too much of a lush to be considered capable of seeking out serial killers. In fact, his rumored bouts with rabies, syphilis and gonorrhea would probably have kept him rather occupied. If this movie is half as good as the Shakespeare docudrama Anonymous, we can only pray that the producers will jointly quoth, “nevermore!”

The Pirates: Band of Misfits: Ever since the California Raisins introduced me to Christmas, I’ve dug Claymation. Ironically, I’ve never been a huge Wallace and Grommit fan, though it seems I’m the only one. There are sure to be clever moments here, but I’m not sure this won’t better fit my television screen when it’s released on Netflix.

The Five-Year Engagement: “From the producers of Bridesmaids” doesn’t carry much weight with me; in fact, it might keep me away from the movie. I didn’t hate the attempt at female raunch, but thought it was more silly and tangential than good. Either way, Jason Segal is often a sure bet that something will be moderately funny, so perhaps this is one to see on that special date night. But punch lines about prolonged engagements intertwining with dying grandmothers seems a bit forced. As does Emily Blunt’s leg getting impaled by an arrow.

Question 1: One trope that is recurs rather often — and sometimes justifies the perpetuation of a franchise — is the car chase. Overall, what is the mass appeal of the car chase?

Tim Adkins: I’ll borrow a line from the late great Fresh Prince of Bel Air: “Drive fast. Speed turns me on.” It’s just that simple.

Bill Coffin: Car chases are an extension of the American love affair with automobiles in general. And given how much cinema is either from Hollywood or bears its watermark, I think what you get with car chases is something that is guaranteed to resound with American audiences.

Steve Barker: Car chases don’t especially appeal to me, but I think the simplest answer to the mass appeal is they’re cool. People like seeing stuff they want to do, but never could. There’s also something really satisfying about seeing someone evade the cops.

Jared Wade: Serious question? Cause it’s awesome. And it’s something that everyone thinks could happen to them on any given day but never does. Every dude thinks he is great behind the wheel and respects these other world-class drivers.

Dustin Freeley: Car chases might be visually masturbatory, but the car itself is an identity. In a way, I think the car-chase film runs closely to our love of superhero films as well in that both offer the opportunity to don another persona. While I probably won’t ever run across an alien orb looking to hand out telekinetic powers, an extraterrestrial handing out green rings, or a radioactive spider, there a chance – albeit slim – that I can steal a Mustang, get involved in a heist, and then outrun two assassins, all while maintaining complete composure, control, and travelling at 85 miles per hour. In a sense, surviving the high speed car chase makes the character invincible.

Question 2: Aside from the action aspect, what, if anything, does the car chase add to a film, thematically?

Tim Adkins: Apart from the adrenaline-boosting value, a cleverly used car chase can also add a layer of metaphor: the pursuit of a mysterious goal or fleeing from a hard-charging enemy. Off the top of my head, it seems as if the Bourne movies provide good examples of both applications.

Bill Coffin: Car chases strike me as something that writers and directors like to keep up their sleeves as a scene they can use to introduce peril to characters that isn’t a fight. Car chases are contests, and combat of a sort, but they are a good way to diversify the kind of action in a movie. Thematically, I think they inform the audience that in the story, not all conflicts can be resolved through direct confrontation; some must be fled.

Steve Barker: I’m not sure if it does. Information isn’t usually revealed and the characters don’t usually change much from the time it starts until the chase is over. They’re entertaining and they sell tickets. Sometimes they’re the best part of an otherwise poorly written movie. I don’t remember a thing about Ronin except it had cool car chases.

Jared Wade: Rarely anything. Just cool. Occasionally it can elevate the plot but it usually just makes it seem more improbable.

Dustin Freeley: Much of the time, the car chase is visual filler to elicit oohs and ahhhs. However, I think the car chase also introduces conflict and can define characters. The chase itself is a competition. Good versus evil. Hunter versus Hunted. Therefore, while filled with explosions, etc., the car chase can also define our characters as cool, frantic, powerful, weak, or psychotic.

Question 3: Best car chase, and go:

Tim Adkins: With apologies to The French Connection and the entire Fast & Furious franchise, my pick is The Blues Brothers. There’s Jake and Elwood, of course. The Chicago PD. Illinois State Troopers. Nazis. A random honky tonk band. A Pinto falling out of the sky. Also, they wrecked 100+ cars during filming, which was (and may still be) a world record. If you measure a great car chase by its volume of destruction, that’s pretty tough to beat. Almost forgot…the whole thing is set off by an all-timer of a movie quote: “It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

Bill Coffin:  Best car chase is the one from Ronin where Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno tear through Paris in hot pursuit of the bad guys and that silver case everyone is after. This one had it all: going against traffic, gunplay, handbrake turns, tight roadways, relatively normal cars, and not a drop of CGI. An instant classic.

Steve Barker: I rarely watch movies with car chases. I haven’t seen any of the Hella Fastest and Super Furiouser movies. However, I really like the one in Pineapple Express. It has the rare combination of excitement and humor.

Jared Wade: Quality-wise, it’s probably still Ronin. (Although I haven’t seen Drive or 5 Fast 5 Furious yet.) But I’m going to go with The Rock as my favorite. Sean Connery steals a Hummer and Nic Cage commandeers a yellow Lamborghini Murcielago. They race through the streets of San Francisco narrowly avoiding devastation, finally arriving at a park for a touching moment between Connery and his daughter that is furthered by Cage’s compassion. It’s arguably the finest moment in cinematic history.

Dustin Freeley: Bonnie and Clyde. This chase doesn’t have the explosions or the intense actions sequences of other films like Matrix Reloaded, Ronin, Heat, etc., but Arthur Penn shoots the car chase geniusly, exposing the divergent personalities of the Barrow gang: frantic, insouciant, stoic, excited, greedy. These moments are also juxtaposed with the media retelling and the reality of events, posing the Barrows as both Robin-Hood-like philanthropists and deranged criminals. There’s also a bit at the end where the officers in pursuit cross into Oklahoma only to slam on the brakes, citing a jurisdictional tether, which is a nice little comment on severity of a crime being defined by territory and perpetuated by media.

On April 15, 1912, The Titanic sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. In those fateful hours, and amidst the fifteen-hundred casualties, the ship sparked a century’s worth of intrigue and became one of the most versatile metaphors in history. In and of itself, the ship was a small island, containing twenty-two hundred people, all separated by class in a hierarchical pyramid that holds the fewer at the top (A Deck) as the less affluent and dirt poor occupy the descending classes (B through E). This is what the Titanic is most notoriously known for: sacrificing the poor and the underclass in steerage for the fraction of wealthy on the Promenade deck. Sound bites from history still perforate our interpretation of this event: the band played on until the end, marked in James Cameron’s film by a sarcastically quipped “Music do die to; now I know I’m in first class”; Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line of steamships, cowardly abandoned his own ship as it sank while three-quarters of its passengers awaited death; men swaddled in women’s shawls disguised themselves as the fairer sex to seek safety on the raft; some used abandoned children to do the same.

As a British ship built primarily by Irish workers, the Titanic is also a grand symbol of colonialism and the inaccuracy of the term, “post-colonialism.” The dynamic between workers and owners and affluent and poor defy the prefix “post” and suggest that the wait for equality will span at least a few more generations. In the same vein, it’s a symbol of men’s social control over women. The tale of woman as fungible furniture has been told hundreds of times, and it’s a part of history that we cannot – and should not – elide. There is a two-fold connection here that is not merely coincidental. In a social context, the ship, like the woman, served as a mooring to different existences. The ship is a literal vehicle to transport passengers to and from countries, offering the premise of new lives and new fates. Through the beginning of the twentieth century, the woman was a figurative vehicle of social mobility, mooring her less affluent family to a wealthier one – which is precisely the function of Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet)’s engagement to Cal Hockley (Billy Zane). Upon her unseen father’s death, Rose and her mother, Ruth (Frances Fisher), are left with nothing and are about to lose their “fine things” and “memories.”

At the same time, the ship is also symbolizes the results of this oppression. Just as Rose – and other women – are being forced into uncomfortable marriages of familial convenience in order to obtain prestige and wealth, the RMS Titanic was – reportedly – pushed beyond a comfortable speed and forced to slalom through various icebergs all for the sake of “grabbing headlines” by “arriving on Tuesday evening” as opposed to Wednesday. The result of both is an eventual fracture, figuratively of the self, and literally of the ship. The connection here is evident in history and present in socio-linguistics, most notably the common practice of referring to ships, boats, and other vessels of transport as “she.” Such gendering is notably present with Cameron’s film when the captain decides to “take her to sea” and “stretch her legs out.” Cameron’s convergent narrative here should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his other films that fashion strong female characters. Notice the shift in Ripley from Scott’s Alien to Cameron’s Aliens, or Sarah Connor in the first two Terminator installments. The female protagonists – like Rose in Titanic – are manifestations of oppression who defy the patriarchal order of survival.

As the hundred-year anniversary of the Titanic came around, so did a re-release of Cameron’s film, now shot in 3D. I’d like to castigate this move as a pure money grab and perhaps a subconscious competition with George Lucas, but it’s hard to knock what Cameron does visually with a film. The 3D is used well and certainly adds to the peril carried by the anthropomorphic surges of water as the ship goes down.

And, as I sat through the film, I realized why is disliked it so much fifteen years ago, but also why it won eleven Oscars, including Best Picture. First, the screenplay is absolutely silly. Much like Avatar, it feels as if Cameron invested more in the visuals than the story. To his credit, the social and historical connections are there, but they are forced and obvious: “we’re women,” Ruth DeWitt Bukater laments while she fastens Rose’s corset as tight as she can – just in case you didn’t see Rose get slapped, threatened, and virtually sold off to the richest bidder. The script also foreshadows the obviously impending. The girth of the ship itself is sign of abject pride and hubris. So is the name: Titanic, taken from Titan, those folk who were ultimately defeated by the Gods. If that in and of itself doesn’t foreshadow an end, I’m not sure what will. It hardly seems necessary to frequently pepper the dialog with incarnations of “They say she’s unsinkable,” or “God himself couldn’t sink this ship.” Clearly he did, and clearly he will, and clearly we know this. Pride is evoked by visuals, we don’t need updates.

As the writer, Cameron also forgets his narrator. Within the first fifteen minutes of the film – which hastily establish a forgotten argument over the difference between piracy and discovery – the centenarian Rose Dawson is introduced, and she becomes the first-person narrator of the film, relaying the events of April 15 to the audience that stand agape about her and the audience who watches dryly from the theater. However, the first-person narration often slips to third-person omniscient narration, recalling moments between Bruce Ismay and Captain Edward James Smith (Bernard Hill), which she would have never been privy to. She also recalls moments from steerage as the ship sinks and conversations in the life boats that drift a few hundred yards away. Cameron’s assumptions here about indifference, sympathy, and mortality might be accurate, but they’re established by an absent narrator.

Compounding the sloppy script is the rather poor acting – with the exception of Kate Winslet, who happens to turn every role into something special, even ones in mediocre movies. No offense is meant here to the hyper-villainous Billy Zane, whose character is more a cartoon than anything out of real life, or the young Leonardo DiCaprio, but neither of their performances is very good. Now, DiCaprio has galvanized himself as a fine actor; in 1997, he was still fresh and needed to be groomed. Plus, there’s Bill Paxton and the rest of the uber-melodramatic, emoting cast (perhaps with the second exception of Kathy Bates, whose turn as Molly Brown is quite believable).

On the other hand, the most memorable part of this film is the best: the ship wreck. It’s not just about spectacle. Cameron captures panic, fright, fear, compassion, sympathy, honor, and devotion. This is where the most touching moments of the film reside: the older couple curling up on their cot in steerage as the water crashes around them. The mother reading a story to her two children. Both have succumbed to their fate as human luggage and sacrificial offerings, but their possessions are the safety of their loved ones, not the various fur coats and handbags trying to be smuggled onto the already-cramped life boats. For the last hour and a half of Titanic, Cameron weaves a Romantic tale, not one of love, but one of human versus nature, with nature coming out on top. It is both fascinating and humbling how our egos, narcissism, and bank accounts can’t hold up to the all-encompassing, all enveloping power of water. That which comprises most of our human body can also snuff our lives in a few minutes if we’re Olympians, and a few seconds if we breathe deep. It’s a villain that acts, not of malice, but because it is. As the boat sinks, the water remains calm. It merely occupies its space, and surrounds whoever happens to be in it.

Most of this is done without dialog.

If nothing else, the genius part of Titanic is Cameron’s illumination and mockery of our sense of Schadenfraude. For one-hundred years, we have been intrigued by this tragedy and all of its symbolism. We watch movies; we read books; we follow National Geographic. Through computer animation, we know how the ship goes down, but we can’t empathize. Our fascination might even trump our sympathy and chalk the whole event up to “hubris,” something illustrated as the older Rose Dawson boards the modern-day ship to tell her story. As Paxton’s crewmate relays the steps of the ship sinking, using animation on a monitor, the event looks scientific, simple, almost videogamish. He marks each hull that is breached, and the computerized ship submerges. His entire narration is told with excitement, up to and including the splitting of the ship, when the back ends “bobs up and down for a while” like a tennis ball thrown out too far on a pond or the hook on a child’s fishing rod being pecked at by a hungry guppy. The event is meaningless and we’re fascinated by its descent. The alacrity and efficiency with which he tells his tale is sharply contrasted by the prolonged hour and a half that Cameron uses at the end to illustrate the deaths of fifteen hundred passengers. Here, Titanic questions our fascination and turns the accusations of pride and class on their head, forcing the audience to wonder where they would reside. Who we they be most like? What room would they be in, and to what lengths would they go to survive? There’s no pleasure in this tragedy. The explosions are not immediately extinguished. Those who fall from heights ricochet like pinballs before plummeting into the freezing water. In the end, silence is not calm; silence is death. To scream and clatter like hundreds of hungry locusts is to give hope; to be tacit is to perish.

And if there are people who dismiss the notion of Shadenfreude, then explain why so many millions of people would sit for three and a half hours through a movie of which they know the ending: the boat sinks.

If Titanic is re-released in 3D under the guise of marking its 100-year anniversary, why should movies like Refer Madness, Dazed and Confused, or Cheech and Chong be re-released each April 20th? Perhaps a movie could be alternated every year. Just something to think about Hollywood. Either way, this week, you can watch Steve Harvey self-promote, a tale of a stalker dressed up like a war hero, Oscar discover a new family, or a movie guaranteed to cause deja vu.

Think Like a Man: I’ve seen this preview a dozen times, and I taste bile each time. The idea of female empowerment is a solid one, particularly in a perpetual-adolescent-based film. At the same time, this movie if ripe with testosterone-driven tirades that veer more to cliché and predictability than poignancy. Granted, perhaps one shouldn’t expect poignancy from a film that headlines Chris Brown and features his character stealing his one-night-stand’s morning coffee. This ensemble of generic characters leaves little to root for, and even less to the imagination when the plot – or rather, marketing strategy — is revealed: women are sick of their men, so they use Steve Harvey’s advice from his latest book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man; the men then decide to turn the tables on their woman. The premise is silly and more appropriate for a twenty minute sitcom episode, but I’m more bothered that this movie is merely a one-hundred-and-twenty-three minute advertisement for Harvey’s real-life 2011 book. Product placement is ubiquitous and quotidian nowadays, but Think Like a Man avoids any attempt at subtlety and transitions a product from furniture to purpose. I can’t wait until Ron Popeil pens Like a Grape in the Desert Sun, a rousing tale of his food dehydrator.

Chimpanzee: Narrated by Tim Allen, Chimpanzee is a documentary about Oscar, a three-year-old chimpanzee separated from his troop and then adopted by a fully grown male. Any fan of National Geographic or Wild Kingdom will certainly dig this film. Anyone who isn’t a fan of animal docs should look a bit deeper and recognize the humanity within the animal kingdom. Numerous times we’ve noted what separates us from the animals (cognition, love, opposable thumbs, etc.) but the separation often comes from a fear of equivalence. Superiority is endemic is all species, and perhaps the most in homosapiens, so a constructed hierarchy is inevitable. However, Chimpanzee might just bring us a bit closer to understanding that the many species on this planet are closer in mentality than we want to acknowledge. Or, it could just be cute.

The Lucky One: For those of you wondering what happened to Zac Efron after the last High School Musical installment: he donned a beard – a literal, not figurative one, though I’m thinking Vanessa Hudgens serves as the latter, but I digress. Either way, he’s back in The Lucky One, a film about a Marine returning from three tours in Iraq to look for the woman he believes is his good luck charm. This film will be a sure hit with the under-eighteen crowd and those who clamor for Nicholas Sparks novels – more appropriately referred to as: proof that the same story can be regurgitated dozens of times with different titles. The war / wounded hero element here will also create sentiment given our global denouement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem I have here is not with the saccharine pretense, but with the narrative itself. Logan (Efron) believes that Beth (Taylor Schilling) served as his good luck charm. However, this “charm” comes from a photo he found after another soldier – Beth’s boyfriend (probably fiancé) – was killed in action. I know we all need to cling to something in times or crises and stress, but Logan covets a dead man’s wife and then seeks her out. Is this a bit creepy to anyone else?

Jesus Henry Christ: Initially, I was intrigued by the premise: the young Henry (Jason Speyvack) is both a ten-year-old genius and the product of the mixture in a petri dish. Here, we have a potential debate about humans tampering with natural biology. Eventually he finds his father, so then we have a conversation about the semantics and value of the word “father” and whether or not its personification is equal to its expectations. However, the trailer itself then spirals into cliché with lines like “I think being a freak is kind of cool” and “you can’t change the past, but you can change the future.” A film that started with the promise of contemporary conversations regresses to heart felt tropes guaranteed to draw a tear. “Freaks” are no longer abnormal. Freaks and Geeks debunked this as does The Big Bang Theory. The bit about the past and the future is a bit we’re reminded of each year in the many incarnations of Ebenezer Scrooge. In bold letters, the trailer suggests I “Meet Henry,” but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him dozens of times before.