First Man 2018

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The first scene of First Man, the new film about Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, shows what an astronaut’s life is all about. Test piloting the X-15 aircraft, which reached hypersonic speeds (five times the speed of sound) and left the earth’s atmosphere to touch space, Armstrong bounces the craft off the atmosphere on descent, and he nearly wrecks, but manages to pilot the plane down to the desert floor. The whole scene shows him in a small capsule made of steel and sheet metal, held together by bolts and rivets, and shaking violently as he does his best to control it and survive the trip. That more-or-less describes every trip the 1960s astronauts took, whether just testing systems or ultimately landing on the moon.

First Man, directed by Oscar winner Damien Chazelle, opened this weekend at the Esquire IMAX Theater in Downtown Sacramento. Ryan Gosling plays Armstrong, scaling back any charisma he may have to inhabit the calm, stoic, and heroic pioneering astronaut. He and his wife Janet, played by Claire Foy (well-known as Queen Elizabeth in the Netflix series The Crown) are a typical astronaut family, moving from place to place and living in set-up neighborhoods with the other test pilots or astronauts and their families. The Armstrongs, however, are met with personal tragedy as their toddler daughter, Karen, is struck down by cancer, and her loss haunts the couple, especially Neil, who internalizes her death, seeing her in visions throughout the film. Janet, however, soldiers on, and raises their two sons, often on her own while Neil is frequently either away from home or so focused on the tasks at hand that he doesn’t have time for them. Foy does a great job showing the woman divided between being a loving and supportive wife and mother, and one who longs for the “normal life” she will never have while her husband faces death with every new task or mission.

 In the 1983 film, The Right Stuff, based on Tom Wolfe’s book, the Mercury 7 astronauts are portrayed as a group of adventurous “space cowboys.” Led by John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and Gordon Cooper, they take to their task with exuberance and swagger, having achieved the ultimate assignment for a test pilot. Cooper famously hooped and hollered during the final Mercury flight, circling the earth 22 times, flying higher and faster than anyone ever had, in the last solo space flight of an American. In contrast, the mood around the Gemini and Apollo programs depicted in First Man are much more somber occasions. With a much larger task ahead of them, and much larger rockets under them, the astronauts and program leaders are a lot more serious. Meanwhile, the risk of death becomes much more present.

Death has always haunted those pioneering flight, and the phrase “The Right Stuff” from Wolfe’s book came from the philosophy that while others have died test-piloting aircraft before, a pilot with The Right Stuff could overcome whatever he faced to survive heroically, and push the boundaries, as Chuck Yeager had done time and time again. There is a scene in First Man when the astronauts are dealing with the death of their friend and colleague Elliot See, who was killed in the crash of a trainer jet while away from the others in St. Louis. When Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stull) suggests that See may have made an error that caused the crash, he is met with cold disapproval from Armstrong and the others, not the hubris of The Right Stuff attitude. And it became more and more clear that a lot could go wrong that was out of their control when three of the Apollo astronauts, Roger Chaffee, Ed White, and Gus Grissom, who was one of the original Mercury 7, died in a test of the Apollo 1 craft while just sitting in the capsule, with no plans to launch. A simple electrical short, mixed with an oxygen-rich, tightly sealed chamber, doomed all three; no “Right Stuff” could have saved them.

So it is no surprise that seriousness and a somber dedication to the task had taken over, especially true for Janet Armstrong and the other wives. Ed White had been one of Armstrong’s best friends, and Janet and the others are left to comfort his wife, knowing that with every mission, they could be the next widow. Foy portrays the difficult transition from being part of a romantic couple who enjoy a spontaneous dance to Moon Music, to angrily demanding that her husband deal with his sons before leaving on his mission. She is torn in her role the entire time, and barely registers emotion when reunited with her husband after the death-defying trip that made him a hero to the world, and a part of history that will never be forgotten.

Of course the movie is also about the mission, and the film shows up close and personal the experience those few men had while achieving these historical feats. Akin to sailors setting off in unknown waters in the early days of navigation, they are confined in too-small spaces with almost primitive construction. The film often shows in close-up the rivets and Phillips-head screws holding the craft together, while the launches are shown largely from inside of the capsules, shaking violently as the mighty engines roar, launching them skyward with no control until they leave the atmosphere. None of slick, high tech surfaces and interfaces we see in modern crafts, the controls are back-lit buttons, toggle switches, and dials—stuff you could buy at Radio Shack. While the scenes of the flights are spectacular, especially in the giant IMAX screen, they do have a familiar ring as we have seen this footage before. But once they are on the moon, it becomes something new—wide, desolate, bright white. And silent. While the music, by Justin Hurwitz and featuring lots of Theremin, is terrific, notably the orchestral landing music, it is impactful when it, and all other sound, cuts out, as Armstrong and Aldrin leave the lunar module. The complete and utter silence enhances the desolation, broken only by brief radio communications, including Armstrong’s rather bland reading of “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

As a child of seven, I watched the moon landing with the rest of the world, drew pictures of the rockets, even build a model of the Lunar Module, and knew Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon. But I knew virtually nothing of the man, and that was largely intentional. Chosen in part for the mission because he seemed to lack the oversized ego that might have made him the star rather than the mission itself, Armstrong was presented as a calm, gently smiling hero who helped make America great. It was a riveting and proud moment for the country, and one that will never be repeated in quite the same way. It’s nice to have a chance to relive those times from the inside out.

Ken Kiunke 10/13/18

Originally published in GoldCountryMarketing.com. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Marketing and Ken Kiunke

Halloween season has officially begun with the release of the spooky, yet fun, adventure, The House with a Clock in its Walls, a rather unwieldy title for a family-friendly adventure featuring lots of fun special effects, the always engaging Jack Black, the classy Cate Blanchett, and a 10-year-old orphan boy, played by Owen Vaccaro, who is in need of a family. He gets more than he bargained for when he is sent to live with his eccentric uncle. The film opened Friday, and is playing in the spectacular IMAX format at the Esquire IMAX Theatre in downtown Sacramento.

Set in 1955, the boy, Lewis, is sent to live with his uncle in the fictional town of New Zebedee, Michigan, after his parents died. He discovers his uncle Jonathan lives in one of those amazing homes that only exist in movies—beautifully built with fantasy architecture, with intricately carved bannisters and stained glass, and looking like a museum of magic and wonder, filled with endless details like a suit of armor and a pipe organ, and hundreds of clocks. Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) is welcoming and charming, and has no interest in being a parent to Lewis; there are no rules to follow (save one) and if all Lewis eats is chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, well, that’s perfectly fine.

Lewis meets his uncle’s two neighbors; Mrs. Hanchett, who complains of Jonathan’s 3 a.m. saxophone playing, and Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett), a purple and lavender wearing lady who joins them for poker games and to share insults with Jonathan. Lewis soon finds that things are far from normal, and pictures and objects in the home often move at their own will, and that late at night, his uncle wanders through the house with a flashlight, searching for something. Uncle Jonathan reveals that he is indeed a warlock—a “boy witch” as Lewis, who loves words and carries a supply of dictionaries, defines it. In a nod to The Wizard of Oz, Lewis asks if he is a good warlock or a bad warlock, Jonathan says he is a nice one, but not a very good one. And it turns out Florence is a witch herself, though also not a practicing one.

The house itself is a character as well, and Jonathan says that it likes Lewis. For a not very large house on the outside, it seems to have endless rooms and secret passageways, filled with ancient libraries and museum-like pieces from old magic and amusement objects, including a number of life-size manikins apparently pulled from a carnival haunted house, and a topiary lion in the garden who comes to life. As it turns out, the house was once owned by Isaac Izzard, another warlock who met his demise in a spell gone wrong, and left the house to Jonathan, but also hid a mysterious clock hidden in the house, which ticks and tocks endlessly, and which Jonathan is compelled to find, even if he must tear down walls to do it. Izzard is played by Kyle McLachlan in flashbacks, and later in heavy aging makeup.

Meanwhile, Lewis convinces his uncle to teach him to be a warlock, and he uses some of his new-found powers at his new school, where he is treated as an outcast. The story continues to unfold around the mystery of the clock, and Lewis’s efforts to make friends at school, while learning more about the ways of witchcraft. The film is very reminiscent of the Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and the Netflix series, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, in tone, humor and the look of the sets. Jack Black is always interesting to watch, though he is a bit toned down from his usual manic personality. Cate Blanchett is there to add heart to his world, without being overly affectionate, and she adds coolness and vulnerability to the trio. And Owen Vaccaro is good, but frankly not all that interesting a character. He is mostly just a nice kid reacting to the chaos around him, both at home and in school.

This film, visually and narratively is a lot of fun, and especially suited for grade school to middle school aged kids and their parents. It’s spooky, but not too scary, and especially enjoyable in the giant IMAX screen format. It is not presented in 3D, and I liked it just fine without the added dimension. And as an added bonus, another Halloween-themed film is presented before the show, and it is in 3D format.

 Back in the 1980s and 90s, I lived in Southern California and worked at Disneyland, and one of the attractions I hosted was Captain EO at the “Magic Eye Theater.” It was a pioneering advance in 3D film technology using polarized-lense glasses instead of the old red/blue syle, which is now the common process for presenting high-quality 3D films. Captain EO was a 20-minute 3D music video featuring Michael Jackson flying through space with his rag-tag team, bringing music and peace to an evil queen. It feature two songs, and an extended dance with Michael leading a group of Star Wars inspired characters in a dance for the queen, played by Anjelica Huston.The Esquire IMAX is presenting a new 3D version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, which originally came out in 1983, when Jackson was at the peak of his artistic and popular success. It was a landmark video, and was the first MTV “World Premier Video” and in 2009, was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, the first music video to ever receive this honor, for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant. It was one of a series of great videos Jackson produced for his albums Thriller and Bad. It was fun to see it again, and the 3D really does make it pop, and shows off some of the monsters especially well. The plot, as directed by filmmaker John Landis, is kind of amusing. Michael and his girlfriend, Ola Ray, run out of gas, and as he walks with her, he asks her to be his steady girl, and then promptly turns into a werewolf and attacks her. But this is just a movie on the screen, which Michael is watching with Ola Ray, and she gets scared and runs out of the theater. (Did she not remember filming the scene?) After he comforts her, the couple are soon surrounded by zombies, and then Michael turns into one himself, and leads the zombie dancers in a great number to the song Thriller, and as he once again attacks poor Ola, but she wakes up—the whole thing was a dream!—or was it?In any case, the film is a lot of fun to see, and to remember Michael when he still looked great, and, with Vincent Price providing narration, and zombies emerging from a graveyard, it really fits into the Halloween theme. For the kids who may be too young to remember Michael Jackson, it’s a great introduction to him as a dancer and singer, who changed the world of entertainment. And it brought me back to those days of watching Captain EO over and over again, as both are very similar in the fantasy story built around a great dance, with Michael out front, especially in 3D.The House with a Clock in its Walls and Michael Jackson’s Thriller are now playing together at the Esquire IMAX theatre in downtown Sacramento. Seeing both films on the amazing giant screen of the IMAX Theatre, with the incredible sound system, adds much to the experience of these spooky fun films, perfect to kick off your Halloween season.Ken Kiunke 9/23/18Originally published in GoldCountryMarketing.com. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Marketing and Ken Kiunke 

 It is now just two years away from the time that the original Blade Runner (1982) was set—2019 Los Angeles was the futuristic home for Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard, a cop assigned to hunt down synthetically bioengineered humans who had escaped their extra-terrestrial colonies to come to earth. These “replicants” were designed to be both more powerful than humans, but with only a four-year lifespan. The “Blade Runner” cops were tasked with both identifying and dispatching (or “retiring”) them. The film was a landmark in modern science fiction in its depiction of the future as a mega-media environment, inspired partly by Hong Kong and Tokyo, mixed with other dystopian visions of the future (such as the 1927 film Metropolis,) complete with flying cars and giant electronic billboards. As the story progressed, Deckard fell in love with one of the replicants, Rachael, played by Sean Young. This point will turn out to be crucial to the plot of the new sequel, Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve, just released and now playing in IMAX format at Sacramento’s Esquire IMAX Theater.

Thirty years later, Los Angeles now looks partly like the slums of Calcutta, with stacks of buildings crowding the landscape, but with skyscrapers interspersed, and the giant advertising now including 3-D projections, usually of alluring young women. San Diego has been turned into a giant trash heap, and Las Vegas is still largely intact, but deserted due to radiation. Our new blade runner is Ryan Gosling, who is identified by his serial number KD9-3.7, but is mostly known as just K. Replicants are all over now, integrated with humans and hard to tell apart. Older models, however, need to be retired, by order of the government and the Wallace Corporation, who creates the new ones. The first scene takes us on such a mission outside of LA into the farming region of California (yes, we’re still a leader in agriculture!) where K is hunting a replicant farmer in a protein-raising operation (growing meal worms, or something like them, for consumption.) This mission reveals clues that a past replicant may have biologically reproduced (had a real baby) and that news, if true, would upset the whole apple cart of the difference between humanity and, well, replicanity? K’s boss, Lieutenant Joshi, known as “Madam” and played by Robin Wright, assigned K to continue the investigation, and remove any evidence that this may be true.

 One of the open questions of the original Blade Runner was whether Harrison Ford’s Deckard was human or a replicant himself. There is no confusion here; K is a replicant, and Gosling plays him as one who is aware of his superior strength, but questions his place as a person. He has childhood memories, but he doesn’t know whether they are real or implanted. As he does his job, he also deals with his yearning for real feelings. At home, he has a digital companion, a lovely, sweet, and transparent young woman named Joi, played by Ana de Armas. She can be everything he needs in a companion, except physically. He brings home a portable device that allows her to travel with him as needed, and she is summoned with an excerpt from Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a nice touch. She goes outside and “feels” rain for the first time, bringing up the question, can a digitally-created being be truly sentient and have feelings and emotions, or is it just programming? And does that also apply to the replicants, who certainly seem to convey intense emotions?

Another woman replicant K must deal with is Luv, played by Sylvia Hoeks, an assistant to Niander Wallace, the head of Wallace Corp. Luv’s emotions are embodied in ruthless efficiency, and she does everything in service of her leader, from managing the database to assassination of enemies. Despite her appealing looks, she is as cold as ice, quite in contrast to the digital Joi. Jared Leto plays the very creepy Wallace, who laments that there are only so many replicants he can make. But one of the most compelling and disturbing scenes shows a female replicant being born, and then “retired” by Wallace, apparently out of frustration that he cannot perfect breeding replicants.

And yes, Harrison Ford is in this film, reprising the role of Deckard, though he does not appear until well past the halfway point of the film. If he is a replicant, it answers the question of whether they age. But it also explains why he can survive all those years in the radiation-contaminated Las Vegas with his whisky-loving dog, who, he implies, may be a replicant too. The visuals of the mid-21st Century Vegas are stunning, with some familiar hotels, notably the Luxor, still intact, and some in ruins. There are giant, toppled statues of Vegas showgirls—classic nude sculptures, but wearing high heels. It suggests a Vegas that had continued to expand its decadent playground until disaster—likely nuclear war—brought the whole thing to a halt suddenly and completely. (But Elvis and Sinatra still survive, at least digitally.)

The film’s story can be difficult to follow at times, but if you just soak it in and hang with it for the nearly three-hour running time, it will all come together and give you plenty to think about afterwards. And the whole while you can be amazed at the stunning scenes and effects from Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins. Each location brings a new world, from the overpopulated LA, the vast farming and solar array region, the ghost of Las Vegas, and the trash dump of San Diego. In that area, there is a collection of people surviving on the heap, and buried within, a vast orphanage, where a Mr. Cotton, played by Lennie James, employs hundreds of children, from ages about seven to twelve, to deconstruct waste and remove precious metals. Where the kids come from and where they eventually go is not explained, but it is a crucial plot point that this has been going on for many years.

Besides Harrison Ford, there are a few other echoes from the original cast. Watch for Edward James Olmos, and a digitally-enhanced Sean Young, both reprising their roles in brief scenes. Hampton Fancher, who worked with Ridley Scott on the first film, returns to create the story, and co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Green. The film is rated R for violence and nudity, and is obviously not intended for young audiences.

Blade Runner 2049 is now playing at the Esquire IMAX theatre in downtown Sacramento. Seeing the film on the amazing giant screen of the IMAX Theatre, with the incredible sound system, adds much to the experience of this intense, but somehow hypnotic and visually compelling film.

Ken Kiunke  10/7/2017

Originally published in GoldCountryMarketing.com. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Marketing and Ken Kiunke

Christopher Nolan’s telling of one of the key British stories of World War II, the Battle of Dunkirk, opened this week; shot on 65mm IMAX film, it is an immersive experience. Relying on almost no special effects, the film puts the viewers into a direct experience of being at the scene, whether on a British Spitfire fighter plane, on one of the boats or ships, or on the beach at Dunkirk awaiting evacuation.

For Americans, the story of Dunkirk has always been something of a footnote to the history of the war. It happened in 1940, before the U.S. had entered the war, when Allied troops—British, French, Belgian, and Canadian—occupying France and northern Europe, were met with a heavy German assault, and pushed to the north coast of France, where they were trapped. While fighting off the German assault, 400,000 troops awaited evacuation from the beaches. Hundreds of English civilians aided the rescue operation by manning small commercial boats, crossing the English Channel, and ferrying the soldiers to safety. For the British, however, it was a major episode in the war. By rescuing over 300,000 of the trapped soldiers, it was a major victory and preservation of the Allied forces. However, it also marked the beginning of the end for the French army, with many of their forces captured, or rescued then only to be returned to France, which surrendered to Germany less than a month later. It was four years before the D-Day Invasion brought the Allied forces, then with America of course, back to France.

Nolan, who directed, wrote, and co-produced the film, tells the story by focusing on three aspects—the young men on the beaches fighting for survival, the naval officers and civilians trying to save them, and three British pilots fighting to protect the evacuation from the German aerial onslaught. Tommy, a young private played by Fionn Whitehead, is caught under fire in the town, and manages to escape the attack. He comes upon a French fortification, who are there under sandbags to hold of the German advance, and they send him along to the beaches. With no one left of his division, he is left to figure out how to survive. He eventually meets up with Alex, played by Harry Styles, and we follow them through various disasters. Styles is of course best known as part of the boy band One Direction—he’s the one with that special hairstyle the young girls love the best. However, once the film began I forgot all about him; he does such a good job blending in with all the other blokes in uniform, it wasn’t until the end that I actually recognized who he was playing.

Kenneth Branagh is Commander Bolton, the most recognizable star of the film. He is the naval officer in charge of the evacuation, and we see many of the successes and tragedies through his eyes—most notably early on in the film when the wounded are loaded on to a ship for evacuation, and as it is about to leave, it’s bombed by a German plane. Bolton has to order it cut loose from the dock to keep it clear for other ships, while men jump off and the wounded all go down with the ship. Meanwhile, from England, Mr. Lawson, played by Mark Rylance, heeds the call for help and takes off in his small boat, along with his son and a friend, to do what they can. He represents the quiet, stoic heroes the British citizens had to be during the war, as they supported the war effort over many long years, sending their young men to fight and die while they endured bombing and other hardships at home. They pick up a sole survivor of a ship hit by a German U-boat, and Lawson has to tread carefully with the shell-shocked young man who does not want to return to the battle. Lawson proves to be as much of a brave hero as anyone, while enduring the great costs of war.

Meanwhile, in the air, the three pilots in Spitfire fighter planes approach the scene with limited fuel, and engage with the German fighters and bombers. Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden play the two pilots left after their squad leader is shot down, and the film offers cockpit-eye views of the scenes below and in the air. Since the primary assault on the troops trying to evacuate are the attacks from the air, the pilots prove to be crucial to the survival of the troops and the boats. It is great to get an up-close look at the primitive (by today’s standards) workings of these planes, how the individual performance of the pilots made all the difference, and how vulnerable they were to the forces against them, including gravity and fuel capacity.

You do have to get used to Christopher Nolan’s style of storytelling, as the scenes shift from bright daylight to nighttime, and back within the same day, showing different aspects of the storyline. He also gives the impression that the battle all happened in one day, and that there were only three planes and a small handful of British ships involved in the evacuation. The historical reality was that the whole operation lasted over a week, and 39 British destroyers, and many other naval vessels, were involved. The hundreds of civilian craft were crucial to the operation, but mostly for ferrying soldiers from the shore to the larger warships which couldn’t approach the shallow waters. There was also a major presence of the Royal Air Force, whose 16 squadrons flew over 3500 sorties to support the operation against the German Luftwaffe. The men on the ground, however, were often unaware of how much support they were getting, as much of the dogfighting happened away from the beaches. But to show all of that would make a nice documentary of the Battle of Dunkirk, rather than a personal tale of the experience those men felt in the heat of battle, fighting for survival and witnessing the horrors of war.

As a child of the 60’s, I grew up watching many great movies about World War II, like The Battle of the Bulge, The Longest Day, Patton, The Guns of Navarone, and, my first Humphrey Bogart movie, Sahara. These were terrific films, but they sanitized war, showing little of the intensity of real battle and the effects it had on the men who fought. That all started to change with Oliver Stone’s Vietnam War film Platoon, in 1986. I remember talking to a friend who was a Vietnam veteran, who said that while watching the film, he was gripping the armrests of the theater seats the entire time because it brought back the reality and horror of the experience to him. Platoon was followed by many more great films that tried to show the intensity and reality of war, notably Full Metal Jacket, Glory, Flags of our Fathers, Hacksaw Ridge, and Saving Private Ryan, which depicted the D-Day invasion with such intensity that it made you forget The Longest Day. Dunkirk fits right into that new genre of war films, showing the terrors of some moments, while exploring the day-to-day details of what goes on while these people do their best to do their duty and survive another day. What is left unsaid in this film is that these men, who managed to survive this incident, would have had but a brief break before fighting four more years, in Africa, Italy, France again, and ultimately Germany, before the war ended, and the lucky ones went home for good.

Dunkirk is now playing at the Esquire IMAX theatre in downtown Sacramento. It is well worth seeing this intense film on the fantastic giant screen of the IMAX Theatre, with the incredible sound.

Ken Kiunke  7/22/2017

Originally published in GoldCountryMarketing.com. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Times and Ken Kiunke

The first film of the new Star Wars “Anthology Series” has now been released to great fanfare, and is showing on the spectacular IMAX screen at Sacramento’s Esquire IMAX Theater. The Anthology Series will present films outside the regular Episode I – IX tales, which included last year’s The Force Awakens.

As all Star Wars fans know, the first film released was the 1977 Star Wars, which was later titled Episode IV—A New Hope. Besides the tale of a young Jedi finding out who he is and beginning an epic heroic journey, the plot revolved around a droid—R2D2—who had a message from Princess Leia seeking help from Obi Wan Kenobi, and carried the schematic plans of a new weapon of the Imperial Army called the Death Star. With the help of Obi Wan, Luke, Leia, and Han Solo, those plans are delivered to the rebels, who use it to destroy the Death Star at the conclusion of the film.

After the immediate popularity of the first Star Wars films, which enabled the franchise to grow into its eventual nine-part saga, questions began to arise about the details of the first film. Where did those plans come from, how did they get implanted into R2D2, and why was the Empire so stupid as to create this ultimate weapon that could be destroyed by one well-placed torpedo shot down an exhaust port? And why was Darth Vader clever enough to be the only one from the Empire to get off the Death Star when it was destroyed? Rogue One answers all those questions with a very clever plot involving the chief engineer in the creation of the Death Star, and his daughter, Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones. The film was directed by Gareth Edwards. The story revolves around Jyn searching for her father Galen Erso, who was taken from her when she was a child, and her becoming involved with the Rebel Alliance and Galen’s goal to help destroy the weapon he created.

When the original Star Wars movie came out, one of the things that made it different from other science fiction, such as Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey, was the gritty realism of the environment. I remember first noticing it looking at Luke’s landspeeder. It was dented and scratched like an old Chevy a teenager might be driving. R2D2 and the other droids were often pretty beat up as well (only C3PO managed to stay mostly immaculate and shiny.) Rogue One takes this gritty realism to a new level. Just about everything in the film is well-worn and fairly filthy, including most of the characters. This all adds to the impressive visual effects, which also includes some pretty spectacular images of Imperial Cruisers, which can somehow hover over the landscape like the alien ship from Independence Day.

 Joining Felicity Jones in the cast are Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, a rebel officer who joins up with Jyn in her quest. Forest Whitaker plays Saw Gerrera, a character from the animated Star Wars—the Clone Wars TV Series, and who had rescued the 5-year-old Jyn when her father was taken. He plays a disenchanted old rebel who helps Jyn connect with others to join in her quest, including Chirrut Imwe, a blind warrior played by Donnie Yen. He’s a cross between Jackie Chan and Master Po from the old Kung Fu TV show, and great fun to watch in battle, as he regards “The Force” the way a Shaolin priest uses Kung Fu.

Two of the characters, taken from the original Star Wars film, were re-created digitally, and though the effect is impressive, it also gives you that “not quite right” feeling when seeing them. But they are important characters, and the digital versions are better than recasting the iconic roles to someone who is “close enough.”

The film is a fine addition to the Star Wars saga, equal to last year’s The Force Awakens. However, like all of the films since the original trilogy, it lacks the great characters George Lucas first came up with. Perhaps because the inspiration for the original film was a swashbuckling space western adventure, it was natural to come up with Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Obi Wan Kenobi, and of course the ultimate villain, Darth Vader. The challenge since then has been to fit new characters into the story, but they often come up as too earnest, purely evil, or downright goofy (like Jar-Jar Binks.) The characters in Rogue One are mostly on the earnest or evil side, though they did create a sarcastic droid with K-2SO, who reminded me of Marvin, the android from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. (The next “Anthology” film is supposed to be about Han Solo, so perhaps some of his magic can be recreated.)

Rogue One is also very battle-heavy, with rarely a scene without someone getting blasted. But the hardware is all very impressive, so if you enjoy seeing the Imperial Cruisers, X-Wing fighters, and all the other familiar ships from the first Star Wars movie, this one is for you. The filmmakers did a great job re-creating the original ships shown in Star Wars, so this film fits seamlessly into the original. Once it is out on video, it will be fun to watch them together. But for now, seeing Rogue One on a giant IMAX screen is an experience every Star Wars fan will love. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is now playing at the Esquire IMAX theater in downtown Sacramento.

Ken Kiunke  1/05/2017

Originally published in GoldCountryMarketing.com. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Times and Ken Kiunke

Ron Howard directed the latest film in the Robert Langdon saga, which started with The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons, all based on Dan Brown novels. But you don’t need to have seen, or even liked, the previous films to enjoy Inferno, a taught thriller full of twists and turns. Though each scene seems to bring a new surprise as you, along with Tom Hanks as Harvard professor Robert Langdon, try to figure out what is going on, the plot is not difficult to follow. The film is available in spectacular IMAX format in downtown Sacramento at the Esquire IMAX Theater.

Imagine if one of today’s socially conscious billionaires—say Richard Branson or Elon Musk—came to the realization that the world is dangerously over-populated and, as a result, is undergoing a mass extinction event that will lead to the death of humanity, and that the only solution was to wipe out half the population now to allow civilization to survive. Such is the character of Bertrand Zobrist, a wealthy biogeneticist famous for giving speeches—sort of doomsday TED Talks—about the dire straits the world is in. He has decided to unleash a virus, which he has called “Inferno,” which will spread like the plague and wipe out half of humanity. After all, he asks, what followed the Black Plague of the 14th Century? The Renaissance! The film opens with Zobrist chased to the top of a tower in Florence, Italy. The scene, as has been shown in the previews, ends with him willingly falling to his death to avoid capture by the agents.

We then find Tom Hanks, as Langdon, waking up in a hospital in Florence, with several wounds, and no idea why he is there, and no memory of what happened. Langdon, a professor of “symbology,” has visions of a hellish nightmare reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno. Fortunately for him, his doctor is a beautiful young British woman (Felicity Jones) who happens to be a big fan of his work, something of a medieval scholar in her spare time, and an expert in Dante as well. She helps him escape an assassination attempt by the Italian police, and so begins the chase to save his life, discover just what is going on, and save humanity in the process.

Chasing after the pair through museums and historical sites are Omar Sy as Christoph Bouchard and Sidse Babett Knudsen as Elizabeth Sinskey, both of the World Health Organization; Ana Ularu as Vayentha, the Italian cop who tried to kill Langdon in the hospital; and Irrfan Kahn as Harry Sims, a mysterious figure who runs some kind of powerful organization. Langdon, along with the viewer, is never sure who is on his side, but they all seem intent on capturing, and possibly killing him. Any more details would spoil the plot, which also involves Boticelli’s painting of the “Map of Hell” —an illustration from Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and Dante’s death mask. The intriguing and complicated story unravels much like an episode of the modern day Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Rated PG-13 for scenes of violence, and some pretty hellish images, the film is suitable for anyone old enough to follow a complicated plot line. Ron Howard, who has directed all three of the Robert Langdon/Dan Brown movies, has shown he is equally adept at handling action thrillers as warm-hearted family films. Hopefully not lost on viewers is that Zobrist, played by Ben Foster, is at least partly right—the world is in the middle of the next “extinction event,” known as the “Holocene extinction” by scientists. As the world loses up to 140,000 species per year due to human activity (according to some estimations), one hopes that human science and technology can mitigate the losses and save the environment. But Robert Langdon is right—a worldwide plague is not the answer! But perhaps a modern-day Renaissance is.

Inferno is now playing at the Esquire IMAX theater in downtown Sacramento. Several fine restaurants are within walking distance from the IMAX Theater for prior or after-movie enjoyment. Movie-goers may bring the parking stub from the Capitol Garage, L & 10th Streets, to a theatre host or the Box Office Monday through Friday after 5pm, and all weekend long, for free validated parking (not valid on $5 pre-pay parking events) . You can also 'like' Esquire IMAX Theatre on Facebook, or follow on Twitter. For more information about the Esquire IMAX, upcoming movies, services offered or to purchase tickets, visit www.imax.com/oo/esquire-imax or call (916) 443-4629. Enjoy the IMAX experience soon at the Esquire IMAX Theatre, located at 1211 K Street, Sacramento.

IMAX, an innovator in entertainment technology, combines proprietary software, architecture and equipment to create experiences that take you beyond the edge of your seat to a world you've never imagined. Top filmmakers and studios are utilizing IMAX theatres to connect with audiences in extraordinary ways, and, as such, IMAX's network is among the most important and successful theatrical distribution platforms for major event films around the globe.

Ken Kiunke  10/29/2016

Originally published in GoldCountryMarketing.com. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Times and Ken Kiunke