BOOK REVIEW: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

The synopsis of Dark Matter is:

From the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.

I found this description quite accurate because the book really is about "the paths not taken" and it really is a thought-provoking, action-packed sci-fi thriller.

The premise of Dark Matter is preposterous: somehow a guy named Jason Dessen has created a device which allows access to the multiverse, i.e. the collection of all possible realities which are spawned by the various choices made and alternate events that occur every second.

The Jason Dessen we (the reader) meet is a physics professor at a small-time college in Chicago who lives with his loving wife Daniela and their 14-year-old son Charlie. At one point Jason had researched the possibility of building a device that could access the multiverse but when budding artist Dani announced she was pregnant they got married, Charlie was born and Jason abandoned his project to access the multiverse.

It's that point in time 15 years ago which two competing universes are generated by the two choices that Jason made that is the key moment which animates Dark Matter. 

Jason2 (the one who invented the multiverse device) regrets his decision so he goes back and kidnaps Jason1 (Charlie's dad) and swaps places with him.

It takes an annoyingly long time for Jason1 to realize that he's in an alternate universe. (It's never a good sign when the reader/audience understands more about the character's predicament than the character does.)

However the book is quite engaging despite the bizarre nature of the situation. It poses key questions: what makes a person unique? How should one deal with regret and decisions made that changed the trajectory of one's life? And (this is very central) if you lost access to the life you knew how far would you go to get that life back?

It's clear that Dark Matter will be a modern motion picture soon (I could see Chris Pratt or Matt Damon as Jason, or hey why not switch it up and try Michael Pena, Riz Ahmed or Steven Yeun for colorblind casting?!) but I honestly don't have high hopes for a film adaptation. The book is compelling but also not without its flaws and it would be a rare movie indeed that exceeds its source material.

Title: Dark Matter.
Author: Blake Crouch.
Paperback: 354 pages.
Publisher: Crown.
Date Published: July 26, 2016.
Date Read: January 17, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

FILM REVIEW: Jurassic World

I'm a big fan of the original Jurassic Park film, which amazingly, was released way back in 1993. And, after last year's Guardians of the Galaxy I'm also a fan of Chris Pratt so when I started seeing the ads for Jurassic World I added the film to the shortlist of movies I wanted to see this summer. (Other movies on this very short list include Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Of course these all pale in importance to my anticipation of the release of the new Star Wars movie The Force Awakens on  December 18.)

Jurassic World acts like it is a direct sequel to the original Jurassic Park, basically ignoring the two intervening films The Lost World and Jurassic Park III. In fact, Jurassic World is practically a reboot of the original, with many of the themes from the original: strong lead female role, extensive depictions of corporate greed, many situations endangering children, multiple examples of employee betrayal, a prideful, egotistical scientist, several fiendishly clever dinosaurs and lots of terrifying chase sequences.

There are two notable aspects of Jurassic World which are different from the original. The first is the idea that because there has been an operating dinosaur park for years two things have happened: 1) the park has become geographically huge, with multiple attractions (hence the upgrade from Park to World); 2) The attending public has grown so accustomed to seeing dinosaurs that they have grown inured to the novelty of interacting with gigantic animals that went extinct tens of millions of years ago.

Because of the situation reflected by (2) the corporate owners (represented by Irrfan Khan's multi-billionaire Simon Masrani) have invested tens of millions of dollars in literally constructing a new dinosaur hybrid, which they have named (after extensive focus group testing) Indominus Rex. The head of the park is Claire Dearing, played by Bryce Dallas Howard (as a particular example of a successful corporate woman) whose nephews are visiting their very busy aunt. Pratt plays Owen Grady, the primary "dinosaur-whisperer" on staff who has been trying to train velociraptors (the hyper intelligent dinosaurs from Jurassic Park) to follow voice commands.

Of course Indominus Rex escapes and goes on a rampage across the island, putting Claire's nephews in mortal danger, and of course demonstrating the hubris of humans thinking that they can mess with Mother Nature with impunity.

Overall, Jurassic World is a fun, entertaining trifle, with a script with holes big enough for a Tyrannosaurus Rex to run through. (Why do the kids talk about the impending divorce of their parents but then the subject is never mentioned again? Are we really to believe they not have continuous video coverage of Indominus Rex's cage so that they can figure out where it is at all times? Why can't they use the tracking device to confirm it's location?) Regardless, it is still enjoyable and worth seeing in the theaters. (There's a reason why it is absolutely demolishing box-office records and has a healthy 82% rating from the audience on rottentomatoes.com)

Title: Jurassic World.
Director: Colin Trevorrow.
Running Time: 124 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril.
Release Date: June 12, 2015.
Viewing Date: June 28, 2015.

Writing: C+.
Acting: B.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B+.

Overall Grade: B/B+ (3.08/4.0).

My Top 10 Films (Released In 2014)

This post contains the list of the Top 10 films that I saw in 2014. The year before my favorite film was  12 Years A Slave. This year it was very hard to decide between the very best film of the year, with three contenders essentially tied with each other but each had a very powerful impact on me in their own way.

Anyway, here is my Top 10 list of the films released in 2014 that I saw last year. This year I saw roughly 17 films in the movie theaters and then another half dozen or so through other channels (at home on television via premium cable or iTunes) and on planes.

10. Blackbird. This is the latest film by Black gay wunderkind Patrik-Ian Polk (Punks, Noah's Arc). It stars Mo'Nique in her first film role after winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Precious and is a film adaptation of the classic book by the same name about a young Black boy coming of age in the South. Unfortunately, Blackbird still has not found a distributor but I was able to see the film twice in 2014, once at the Pan African Film Festival, and then several weeks later at Outfest Fusion. The main strength of this film is its authentic portrayal of a gay teenager's life and love, and even though the actual twists of the story are melodramatic, it felt good to see representations of Black gay men like myself on screen. If you get a chance to see Blackbird, grab it!

9. Snowpiercer. I had heard of Snowpiercer but it just looked like another bat-sh*t crazy Tilda Swinton movie. My interest was piqued when I discovered that the always fun to watch Chris Evans (Captain America) was also in it. Sadly, Evans has an extensive beard and shows almost no skin in the film but delivers an effective performance that grounds the film, even though, by any measure, Snowpiercer is a pretty wild ride of a film. It is reminiscent of other wild, visually arresting classics like Brazil, The Fifth Element and The Matrix. Just like those movies, the story doesn't make much sense but somehow you can not stop watching it. Definitely a movie I will remember years from now, probably more so than some of the higher ranked films on this list.

8. Big Hero 6. This was the best animated film that I saw in the theaters this year. (The LEGO Movie I saw on AppleTV soon after it left the theaters and despite what the Oscar voters say, it is better than Big Hero 6.) Like Edge of Tomorrow, Big Hero 6 is based on content from another source, this time a popular Marvel comic of the same name. The best thing about Big Hero 6 is the inflatable robot named Baymax, although the main character of Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter) is a close second. I guess one of the main reasons why I liked Big Hero 6 is that it reminds me somewhat of one of my favorite movies, The Incredibles.

7. Edge of Tomorrow. If you had told me when I wrote last year's Top 10 list that a Tom Cruise science fiction flick would be one of my favorite movies of the year I would not have believed you. But Edge of Tomorrow also stars Emily Blunt in a big screen adaptation of a Japanese graphic novel with a fiendishly clever script, directed by a well-respected action director (Doug Liman, known for his work on the Bourne series starring Matt Damon). Since the film was so badly marketed I went it to the theater with low expectations, which were happily easily exceeded.

6.  X-Men: Days of Future Past. This latest entry into the X-Men franchise was directed by animating force behind the reboot: Bryan Singer, which is a good thing. The key feature of this movie is that it featured Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart from the first set of X-Men films as well as Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy playing the same characters (Magneto and Professor Xavier, respectively). It's really fun to have both sets of actors in the film, even though they basically have no scenes together (since they are playing the same characters in different eras). Another strength of this film was the plot which, although it depended on a somewhat cheesy time travel device allowed the film to be mostly set in the early 1970s, which was an inspired choice. 

5. The LEGO Movie / Guardians of the Galaxy. At the beginning of the year I guess I might have been one of the many people who did not know the name of the actor who plays the young, tall, goofy white dude on Parks & Recreation but there are very few people who don't know who Chriss Pratt is now after he appeared in not one but two of the biggest box-office hits of the year. The LEGO Movie sounded like it would be a painfully bad attempt to leverage a well-known nostalgic brand (Battleship, anyone?) but instead was a surprisingly clever romp strengthened by the voice talents of Pratt and Morgan Freeman, the silly but hyper-infectious theme song "Everything is awesome!" and a snarkily satirical script. The Lego Movie was fun and a huge hit but since Pratt does not physically appear in the film it took the summer blockbuster
Guardians of the Galaxy to really send Pratt's profile into the stratosphere. Guardians of the Galaxy  can not be considered a surprise sleeper hit like The Lego Movie since it is one of the Marvel suite of comic-book movies but even in that context, Guardians of the Galaxy is a surprisingly effective entertainment. And Pratt is front and central to the movie's runaway success, in all his attractive goofiness.

4. Gone Girl. Regardless of what Oscar voters think, in my opinion David Fincher's representation of Gillian Flynn's blockbuster mystery novel was one of the best directed  and most thrilling movies I saw in 2014. Even though I read and quite enjoyed the book, I was very impressed with how much of the book was able to be included in the film. There are very strong performances by a bevy of well-cast actors, starting with Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as the (un)happily married couple Nick and Amy Dunne at the center of the film, and also including Carrie Coon as the suspicious detective who investigates Amy's disappearance,  Neil Patrick Harris as Amy's obsessive childhood crush and even Tyler Perry as Nick's buffoonish but media savvy defense attorney. Fincher's film also includes a wickedly dark sense of humor that adds oomph to the impression it leaves on the psyche.

3. The Imitation Game.  This film was another one of my most anticipated films of  2014 that also lived up to my expectations. Additionally, it also provided a fair number of surprises by giving information about the story of Alan Turing's life and work that I was unaware of even though I was generally familiar with the broad outlines of his heroic contributions to society and the tragedy of his personal biography. In fact one of the key strengths of The Imitation Game is its ability to present a British period piece in a way that is both compelling and suspenseful, even though we know how the story ends. Another major strength are the performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley as well as the structure of the screenplay adapted from Andrew Hodges classic biography.

2.  The Grand Budapest Hotel.  This is the only film that I saw multiple times throughout the year and was also one of my most unexpected pleasures at the cinema all year long. I have not been a huge fan of Wes Anderson's work in the past (I still have not seen Moonrise Kingdom) but was convinced by friends to see this one and found it absolutely delightful. The screenplay is so clever, and the film is anchored by the hysterical and self-possessed performance of Ralph Fiennes  as M. Gustave, the concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel as well as an impressive debut by Tony Revolori as the Lobby Boy. Additionally, the huge supporting cast (Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton, F. Murray Abraham, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton) and surprising cameos (Bob Balaban, Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, Jeff Goldblum, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Fisher Stevens) present an inexhaustible supply of smiles and giggles that cement this film as one of the most enjoyable films of the year.

1. Interstellar. When I started thinking about this list I did not place Christopher Nolan's film at the number one spot, although I was pretty sure it would be somewhere in my Top 5. However when I went back and looked at my written reviews I saw that I had basically felt that The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Interstellar were all essentially tied as my favorite films of the year. Then as I reflected more upon the three I realized that Interstellar was not only my most anticipated film of the year it was also the film that had the strongest emotional impact on me after viewing. It was not a perfect film (some of the dialogue is painfully bad) by any means but there's no question that it was the film which had the most memorable visuals of anything I saw in the theaters all year long. The suspenseful plot and the always rock-solid performances by Sir Michael Caine, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Matthew McConnaughey are other impressive strengths. I still do not think it was as compelling conceptually as Nolan's Inception (2010), which possesses one of my all-time favorite soundtracks and is a film that I have seen and enjoyed multiple times.

 There ya go. There are still some very well-regarded 2014 movies which I have yet to see, such as Boyhood, The Theory of Everything, Selma and Foxcatcher.

Some Honorable Mentions that could be on this list are Divergent (mostly for Theo James' hotness), and Birdman (although overall I think it is somewhat self-indulgent and a bit too-"inside Hollywood" for me).

Looking forward to seeing more movies in 2015!

MOVIE REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy

The latest movie from Marvel Studios is Guardians of the Galaxy. This movie has been heavily marketed and I really had not intended to see it but after it was released the film earned excellent reviews and stellar ratings at rottentomatoes.com (92% critics, 96% audience). The film stars Chris Pratt as Peter Quill a.k.a. Star Lord, the sole human member of a rag tag group of misfits and criminals from across the Galaxy that includes Groot (a talking and walking tree-like alien, voiced by Vin Diesel), Rocket (a small furry alien who resembles a raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper), Gamora (a green-skinned humanoid played by Zoe Saldana who is also a deadly assassin and daughter of the villainous Thanos) and Drax (a muscular, powerful humanoid who takes all statements a little too literally, played by Dave Bautista).

Guardians of the Galaxy is bolstered by a breakout performance by Pratt as Star Lord. He is funny, sexy, geeky and charismatic--sometimes in the same scene! Pratt is definitely the best thing about the movie, but after him the next best thing is the overall "vibe" of the film, which irreverent and fun. It is also, quite often, a bit ridiculous.

Some examples of the ridiculous aspects of the film include: 1) Glenn Close's hair and make-up (playing the leader of the planet Xandar whose people Thanos is trying to exterminate) is comically bad, resembling a cartoon. 2) Peter Quill has a mixtape of 70's and 80's hit songs from his dead mother which we are to believe that even though these civilizations have spaceships and advanced technology they don't have digital copies of music? 3) There's a scene which takes place in a prison which our characters will of course break out of (is this a spoiler?). The ridiculous part of the scene is basically how easily our heroes escape because of how incompetent the guards are as well as the venality of the other prisoners.

The irreverent vibe is exemplified by the film's great soundtrack and Pratt's goofy but effective dancing, to songs like "Oooh Child," "I'm Not In Love," and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Another example is the Star Trek like make-up to indicate alien physiognomy.

Overall, Guardians of the Galaxy is a classic sci-fi romp, reminiscent of the original Star Wars  (in tone) but with flaws reminiscent of other fun films like The Fifth Element and Serenity. What I'm trying to say is that Guardians of the Galaxy is definitely worth seeing and an enjoyable entertainment.

Title: Guardians of the Galaxy.
Director: James Gunn.
Running Time: 2 hours, 1 minute.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language.
Release Date: August 1, 2014.
Viewing Date: August 10, 2014.

Writing: B.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: A.

Overall Grade: B+/A- (3.50/4.0).