The MacGuffin

In this latest art house action thriller, Haywire, director Steven Soderbergh returns to some familiar stylistic territory while simultaneously adding to a growing subgenre. The story is rather basic when it comes to the plot; a black-ops special agent for a private security firm is double-crossed after pulling a job and seeks out revenge. Since Soderbergh is such an interesting and dynamic filmmaker, he takes a rather tired plotline and revitalizes it with style and character. Last year director, Nicolas Winding Refn did a similar (and even better) job of stylizing a retro concept with the film Drive, and pumped life into a seldom-sought-after genre of the art house action thriller, especially in a time of mega-budgeted, fantastical epics such as superheroes, transforming robots, and kung-fu-ing sleuths of Scotland Yard—all of which provide many grandiose explosions.

In honor of Haywire, Spencer and Greg discuss Ewan McGregor. Then they look at vampires and werewolves together in film, before giving DVD picks of the week.

I think Top 10 lists are fun. Many critics write beleaguered sorts of “I don’t really want to be doing this and it’s stupid and rankings are meaningless” disclaimers at the beginning of their lists. Ugh. Look, it should go without saying that any list (or review) is a reflection of the writer’s personality and their un-duplicate-able individual experience. If you’ve read the rest of my writing this year, you will not be shocked by my list. What I’d like to say before I dive in I don’t consider to be a disclaimer, but just necessary context: the films I didn’t/couldn’t see that are on my mind anyway.

Spencer and John look at the cinematic history of the X-Men franchise, preview the indie films coming out this summer, and give their DVD picks of the week.

Let’s break this down, shall we?

On the big screen

What have I been watching in theaters lately? (I mean, besides Bridesmaids, of course.) Because I couldn’t seem to get it together to see it in a timely fashion, I haven’t yet talked about Source Code here on the site, but I did see that movie, and liked it very much—and not just because of my well-documented girl crush on Michelle Monaghan (I was once within three feet of her and kept my composure!) or my more-traditional-for-a-straight-woman crush on Jake Gyllenhaal. Let me say: if the conceit is fun enough, the actors have enough chemistry, and the execution works, I am never going to be the person who gets stuck on logic details of a sci-fi film. For example, if you start talking to me about time travel paradoxes or some such in relation to, say, Back to the Future, I will zone out. As long as the momentum works, I just do not care. And it really does work here. So eight minutes of one dude’s memory should not a whole detailed world make? So the way information travels from one track of the story to another probably doesn’t make much sense if you think about it? So what? Tension! Banter! Explosions! Pretty people! Enjoy the ride.

The Men Who Stare At Goats – This is a story about a reporter (Ewan McGregor) who interviews who he thinks is a crazy person (played by Stephen Root) who talks about being trained by the military to stare down animals and ultimately kill them with their minds. Some sort of telepathic soldiers. The reporter doesn’t believe him (at first), but sadly, the reporter’s wife leaves the report for his editor and in a desperate move, the reporter sends himself to Iraq. He tells his x-wife he’s joined the military, but he’s on his own dime.

In this movie, two brothers in England scrape together some money to buy a sail boat. The one brother (Colin Farrell) gets his money from gambling and the other brother (Ewan McGregor) is slightly more responsible and has been setting aside money for a business venture with some friends from the US. Colin gets in too deep into the gambling and after a couple of wins, ends up getting in the red for 90K. Ewan tries to help him out by borrowing money from their dad’s restaurant – which isn’t doing well in the first place.