KnightsofNi11

For the next five years a Marvel Cinematic Universe film will never be more than 6 months away. The Disney owned studio is pumping these things out like the world is ending, for better or for worse. Some end up being dazzling action spectacles and some end up being uninspired disasters. Then there's Marvel's newest film, Ant-Man, which falls somewhere in between as a competently entertaining, yet intrinsically flawed film. It's nothing more than middle of the road superhero fare, and there's really nothing wrong with that.

Ant-Man marks the end of Marvel's Phase Two. If Avengers: Age of Ultron was Phase Two ending on a bang, Ant-Man is the quieter fizzle that follows. It also marks Marvel's first return to telling origin stories since Captain America: The First Avenger. Yes, Guardians of the Galaxy was new territory but that's far from the origin story model that Ant-Man so closely adheres to. The film follows ex-con Scott Lang who is hired by Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, to carry out a heist to get Pym's shrinking technology out of the wrong hands. Scott, motivated by the love for his daughter who is in the custody of Scott's estranged wife, accepts the Ant-Man torch passed to him by Pym, and by the end of the film the newest member of The Avengers is born.

I'll admit, Ant-Man starts out rough. I went into this movie with skepticism, mostly fueled by how badly I wanted to see Edgar Wright's version of this film. After seeing what Ant-Man became after Wright's departure I'm not terribly disappointed but I want to believe Wright's insight could have saved some of the weakest parts of this film. Those parts in question surround the human relationships that the movie tries so hard to make us care about. You've got Scott's relationship with his daughter, as well as Pym's relationship with his driving the "emotion" of the film. It didn't take me long to realize how little I cared about either. This script tries incessantly to get us invested in the human element at the core of this story, but some of the most sentimental moments played so cheesy, and some pacing issues stuck scenes of important character development in oddly random places.

As the family drama bullshit continued to develop I really started to think Marvel had churned out a dud. Then about 20 minutes in Scott shrinks for the first time and my whole opinion of the film started to change. Despite everything else, I was reminded that this is a superhero story. Ant-Man takes a while to establish itself as what it actually is, which is a strange yet fun mish-mash of genres. At it's core Ant-Man is a by-the-books superhero origin film, but it also wants to be a comedy, which is something it succeeded at about 70% of the time. It's lucky enough to possess real comedic talent in it's lead, Paul Rudd, and Michael Pena who steals the show as the goofy fast talking friend/sidekick of Scott's. Then, in terms of the action, Ant-Man is also a heist film that utilizes all the beats and tropes of bank robbery flicks of the 60's and 70's. This amalgam of genres doesn't always work, but it gives you enough of reasons to enjoy Ant-Man.

I think what will save this film from being lost in the halls of Marvel is the uniqueness of its action. For years we've been so used to big action spectacle from these films. We expect buildings to blow up, cities to be destroyed, and larger than life figures to be punching each other as hard as they can. Ant-Man gives us something so fresh in its macro spectacle, turning the inside of a briefcase into a battle arena and a little girl's bedroom into the battlegrounds for a final act showdown. Marvel continues to work its visual genius here, making the ant sized world come to life and feel so authentic. There is some great use of macro photography that puts us right in the middle of the action making something as mundane as a bathtub an exciting venue for CGI fueled excitement.

In many ways Ant-Man is a breath of fresh air. However, there's a lot in the writing that makes this film feel like a story we've already seen hundreds of times before. All in all Marvel has delivered to us another entertaining use of two hours. This is by no means a bad film. It's a problematic film that saves itself with the familiar spectacle of Marvel given to us in an unfamiliar fashion. There are a lot of other Marvel films that I would recommend before this one, but Ant- Man has still succeeded in being a lot of innocent fun. It teaches us that, sometimes, that's all you can really ask for.

In the past few years, I'm not gonna lie, Pixar Studios have had some duds. They became far too comfortable on the sequel train that didn't require boundary pushing creative storytelling to make millions. Monsters University was a sore disappointment and don't even get me started on Cars 2. Now, they've finally decided to get off that train and return to their roots in telling incredibly clever and beautifully original stories, and they're quickly being reminded that this train makes lots of money, too. Inside Out takes us back to the Pixar heyday of films like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and The Incredibles and reminds us why we fell in love with this studio, and why adults and children alike can enjoy the hell out of an animated movie made "for kids."

Pixar has always been playing with the idea of giving emotions to different creatures (toys, bugs, fish, etc.) and now they've gone Inception on us and given feelings to FEELINGS. Inside Out is the ultimate personification of what goes on in a person's head as they think and feel different things, having their decisions and actions fueled by the multitude of emotions swirling about in their brain. And by multitude I mean five because that's a workable amount of characters and voice actors to fill the core of your story.

Inside Out follows Riley, a girl from Minnesota who moves to San Francisco with her family. Inside her head lives Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger. These five personified emotions work together to keep Riley's mind in check in an elaborate and infinitely clever world full of personality islands, thought trains, imaginary friends lost in long term memory, and so many other brilliant representations of abstract concepts that exist in the human brain. Pixar has always had a knack for high concept world building, and they've outdone themselves here.

If you want a totally immersive experience within a world that is abstractly absurd yet also feels so real, then go see this movie. Inside Out builds a world and a system that is full of all the fantastical elements you would expect from an animated experience like this, but it is executed so well and the way thoughts and feelings are represented hits so close to home that after the movie you'll find yourself imagining what your little feeling characters are like in your own head. You'll find yourself thinking about what your own core memories are and what islands of personality they power. Inside Out represents growing up in a way we've never seen done before. It is a perfect way of making sense of all the different emotions we experience as we grow up and learn more about the world. I promise that you've never seen a coming of age story like this. I honestly don't know if I've ever experienced an animated film of this caliber that, while so fantastical and so extravagant, also feels so real.

The human brain is nothing more than billions and trillions of electrical synapses, but sometimes those synapses can create something beautiful, like this incredible personification of the mind that is adorable, funny, sentimental, and powerfully touching. I'm so thankful for the synapses working in the minds of those geniuses over at Pixar, because it has given us one of the most heartwarming films in a long, long time that is so universally relate-able I don't know how anybody couldn't enjoy it. I suppose if your Joy emotion were trapped somewhere in the halls of Long Term Memory that might be one way you wouldn't enjoy Inside Out, but hopefully she can catch the next Thought Train back to emotion headquarters soon. Yes, I believe I will be explaining mine and all other emotions through personified characters voiced by Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, and Lewis Black for a while now. This movie had an impact on me, for sure, in the best way possible.

It's really amazing how such quality films can so quietly fly under the radar, seeming to be done and gone as soon as they arrive. Such is the case with the hidden gem The One I Love, starring Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss. Moss and Duplass play a couple whose marriage is slowly crumbling apart as they attempt to salvage it with the help of a marriage counselor played by Ted Danson. The solution to their failing love life seems to come in the form of a weekend getaway to a beautiful house in the countryside. Things are nice at first, but then, well then they get weird. And weird is all I'm going to say.

The less you know about The One I Love the better. If you're planning on seeing this movie don't scope out any spoilers whatsoever. Rarely do movies benefit this much from going in blind, but The One I Love pretty much demands it. With little to no idea about what I was actually getting myself into, this movie quickly became a fascinating ride into a strange and mysterious plot with bizarre twists and turns each as unexpected as the last. It's hard to really praise what all is so awesome about this odd little flick without giving anything away, but just trust me that it's great.

The One I Love is a beautifully poised statement on relationships and identity told through fantastical mystery. It does an amazing job at being poignantly real and wildly unbelievable at the same time. The dryly funny script and two stellar performances by the leads (and the only two actors in the film apart from Danson) sell this as a completely believable story about an unbelievable situation. It captures with unapologetic realism the way such a weird scenario would play out in real life circumstances, with characters trying their best to make sense of the otherworldly situation they find themselves in. It employs Twilight Zone level mastery of making the unreal real and the impossible possible, allowing the audience to not have to question the legitimacy of the plot and rather just join in on the ride that the characters get taken on. It's hard to make high concept stories like this human and relateable, but The One I Love freaking nails it.

Like I said, it's hard to speak the volumes I want to speak about how good this movie is without giving anything away. I'm having to choose my words carefully, and there are a million other praises I want to give specific parts of this wacky little film, but alas I can't. It's simply just something that needs to be seen to be understood and fully appreciated. I can's say much more, because preserving the mysterious wow factor of the movie is what makes it worth the watch. Don't read anything else about The One I Love, just go see it for yourself.