The beautiful thing about old-school arcade games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Centipede is that they take passion, endurance and dedication to master. Few people on this earth are equipped with the skills to be the best at these electronic mental marathons, and these special few are basically freaks of nature (watch Seth Gordon’s modern classic The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters to fully understand their freakiness). Retro arcade gaming is an amazing, fascinating, largely undiscovered American subculture that’s deserved to be the subject of a  big-budget, big-screen vehicle for a long time. (No, Wreck-It Ralph doesn’t count; that movie’s about the games, not the gamers.)

Pixels, a movie by Chris Columbus and a product of Adam Sandler‘s Happy Madison Productions empire, is meant to be about retro gamers, but isn’t about anything at all. This movie makes no sense, has no message, isn’t funny and harbors what is easily the worst performance of Peter Dinklage‘s career. It’s a crying shame, especially for a lifelong gamer like myself, though the movie is extraordinarily impressive in one, very unexpected facet of its presentation, which I’ll save for later.

The plot is Independence Day, except woefully over-simplified and with classic video game characters playing the aliens. In a flashback to 1982 (when video arcades still existed), we meet our heroes. Sam Brenner is an good-natured arcade wizard, but he loses a NASA-sponsored gaming tournament to Eddie “The Fire Blaster” Plant, a cocky, mullet-rocking little person who smokes him at Donkey Kong. Sam’s best buddy, Will, is loyal to the end, though, and assures Sam that he’s destined for bigger things. As a consolation prize, they make a new friend at the arcade, a Napoleon Dynamite-like creature named Ludlow. This opening sequence has a great, vintage look and starts the movie on the right foot, though it’s all downhill from there.

Jump ahead to present day, and aliens that inexplicably look and behave exactly like the characters in the games Sam mastered as a kid have declared war on earth and threaten to blow our blue planet to smithereens. (Well, not exactly “smithereens”; everything the aliens touch gets “pixelated,” falling apart into neon-bright cubes of light.) Naturally (predictably), adult Sam (Sandler), Will (Kevin James), Eddie (Dinklage) and Ludlow (Josh Gad) are the only ones with enough gamer skill to save the day. (Oddly enough, Will grew up to be the President of the United States, which fast-tracked his friends to the front of the military earth-defense line.)

Nonsense incoming: When a giant, alien Pac-Man starts tearing apart New York City, he and his friends jump into color-coded cars, chasing Pac-Man through the streets and alleys as if they were the evil ghosts from the game. Sam was good at arcade games. How in the world, then, is he suddenly also a professional driver? Earlier in the movie, he’s holding a laser gun, shooting “centipedes” out of the night sky in London. I could have sworn he was a master of buttons and joysticks, not a badass gunman with perfect aim. It’s moronic. This movie isn’t about video games or gamers; it’s generic, trashy, sci-fi action shlock that prostitutes retro gaming and uses it as arbitrary window dressing. Blech.

Across the board, the cast is on their D-game. Sandler’s been playing the same, sleepy-Seth-Rogen character for the past several years, and he doesn’t break that streak here (same goes for Kevin James and his meathead routine). Michelle Monaghan plays Sandler’s love interest, and her role as a sexy government official is as demeaning and stereotypical as you’d imagine. Gad alternates between shrieking and sulking as the mentally unstable Ludlow, but his performance is more off-putting than funny.

Like I said, Dinklage is a mess: He puts on a mind-numbing accent that sounds like Barry White trying to talk like a “totally tubular” ’80s kid, and his comedic timing is near nonexistent. He says nasty things, like demanding a three-way with Serena Williams and Martha Stewart in the Lincoln Bedroom, and Columbus lingers on him forever, as if he’s positive the audience is erupting in laughter at the absurdity of it all. Instead: crickets. Not one laugh-worthy line. Not one. It’s painful to see such a great actor fail so miserably.

Family-friendly action adventures like this typically leave you with some kind of moral or encouraging message. For the life of me, I don’t know what Pixels is trying to say. All of its heroes have dreams, and at the end of the story, all those dreams come true. But they learn nothing about themselves along the way. It’s a head-scratcher trying to figure out the point of it all. You’d think, maybe, that the message would be about retro games and how, even amongst today’s more complex, technologically advanced games, they still hold up as essential gaming experiences. Nope. Spoiler alert: Sam saves the world by ditching his old-school gaming philosophies and adopting a modern gaming approach. I honestly don’t understand most of this movie.

I saved the good news for last, though it’ll only apply to those willing to shell out extra dough for a movie ticket. Pixels has some of the best 3-D glasses implementation I’ve ever seen. Seriously. Aside from a few exceptions (Pixar movies, Coraline, Avatar), I detest putting on those damn 3-D glasses, but this movie blew me away: the colors were vibrant; people’s noses looked closer to us than their ears; shots of large crowds had cavernous depth. The more obvious visual effects—like the aliens exploding into a zillion “pixels”—looked great too, but it was the subtle stuff that dropped my jaw. I really, really didn’t like this movie, but at least it’s a fun tech demonstration.

The buzz around what could potentially be the first good Adam Sandler film in a while (sorry The Cobbler, but no) has finally culminated in a first trailer for Pixels.

In 1982 the world sends out a capsule to the universe as a peaceful token of our openness to communication. With clips of President Reagan and Rubik’s Cubes and…Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Only the aliens take it the wrong way. They interpret the pixellated muncher and the patience-challenged gorilla as a threat to their existence so they build weapons to match. When they begin attacking the planet Earth, U.S. President Will Cooper, played by Kevin James, and his First Lady, played by Jane Krakowski, know to look for one man: his childhood best friend and ’80s video game champion Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler). Along with a team of old school gamers including Peter Dinklage and Josh Gad they will have to figure out how to beat the ultimate arcade challenge. And the stakes are high.

Directed by Chris Columbus, the screenplay was written by Timothy Dowling whose past credits include Role Models and Just Go With It.

Rounding out the cast is Sean Bean, Michelle Monaghan, and Pretty Little Liar’s Ashley Benson.

Pixels is the eighth time Adam Sandler and Kevin James are partnering up in a comedy. The release date is set for July 24th, 2015.

SFFS Awards Night

On May 1st, right in the middle of the 57th annual San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF57), the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) held and awards night gala, honoring some of the industry’s most vital filmmakers and contributors. It was a star-studded event, with Richard Linklater, John Lasseter, Jeremy Irons, screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, and more receiving awards presented by young stars including Zooey Deschanel, Josh Gad, and Parker Posey. Check out pics from the red carpet below:

The Skeleton Twins

On the same night, a few blocks away in Japantown, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig were in attendance to introduce their dramedy (heavy on the drama) collaboration with director Craig Johnson, The Skeleton Twins. Hader, ever the entertainer, had fun with the press on the red carpet, pretending to cough to screw with photographers (I still managed to snap a couple good ones), and even conducting almost an entire interview in an Australian accent. Check out the hilarity below:

Palo Alto

Adding to the illustrious Coppola family legacy at SFIFF57 was Gia Coppola, niece of Sofia and granddaughter of Francis, with her gritty slice of teen life Palo Alto. Based on a book of short stories written by James Franco (who also acts in the film), it’s the best representation of modern day teens I’ve ever seen, an impressive outing for a first time filmmaker. Coppola and star Emma Roberts made an appearance on the red carpet at the Kabuki, both looking gorgeous as usual. (Photo credit: Adam Clay)

Last Weekend

Taking over the red carpet this past weekend were the directors and stars of Lake Tahoe-set family drama Last Weekend, which made its world premiere at the festival. Many of the ensemble cast were in attendance, including Patricia Clarkson, Joseph Cross, Chris Mulkey, Alexia Rasmussen, Devon Graye, and Fran Kranz. First time co-directors Tom Dolby and Tom Williams (lovingly referred to by the cast members as “Tom-Tom”) celebrated the film’s successful launch on the red carpet with their stars, as well as on a second carpet at the film’s after party. (Photo credit: Adam Clay)

The first trailer for Zach Braff’s Kickstarter funded film Wish I Was Here has arrived. The film quickly raised over $3 million on the popular crowdfunding site, which produced a bit of controversy during its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival when many backers weren’t able to get into the screening. Focus Features has since acquired rights to the film for $2.75 million.

Those familiar with Braff’s breakout hit Garden State won’t be surprised that a song from The Shins plays during this trailer. Wish I Was Here is about a struggling actor who can’t afford private school for his two kids anymore, so he decides to home school them. They’re a few shots in the trailer that may get fans of Garden State excited to see Braff’s latest offering.

Wish I Was Here plays in theaters on July 25th.

Watch Wish I Was Here trailer

Wish I Was Here movie poster

The first of what will surely be an unending wave of Steve Jobs films (Aaron Sorkin is hard at work on his) is here, and a doozy it’s not; Joshua Michael Stern’s Jobs is about as straightforward and unremarkable a hero’s story as you can imagine, never mind the elephant in the room that is Ashton Kutcher‘s strained and uneven take riff the Apple genius. Despite all its shortcomings, a few elements work: the focus on Jobs pre-iPod/iMac, the strong supporting cast, the willingness of the filmmakers to show Jobs at his darkest and most unlikable. What it comes down to is that the negatives severely outweigh the positives, a disparity that the real Jobs would have likely thrown a spitting, fuming tantrum over.

The film opens in 2001, with Jobs’ reveal of the iPod (Kutcher’s resemblance to the man is actually pretty startling.) Then, we zip back to 1971, where he’s a stinky, bare-footed, horny hippy at Reed College. He takes embarks on an LSD trip and we’re treated to one of the most idiotic-looking montages I’ve seen—Kutcher is flailing his hands like a fool in an attempt to pantomime an orchestra conductor while (you guessed it) orchestra music plays and the camera twirls around his dunce ballet. This is meant to show that he’s a genius, that mind works complexly, somewhat musically, and on a plane we can’t understand. Instead, it comes off as silly and heavy-handed. I get that Kutcher’s dumb expression is appropriate—he’s tripping balls after all—but the sequence just feels confused.

After an enlightening journey to India and some fiddling around as a technician at Atari, we see Jobs and his buddy “Woz” (Steve Wozniak, played endearingly by Josh Gad) found Apple computers (they work out of Jobs’ parents’ house). Now we dive into the meat and potatoes. Fueled by Jobs’ drive and ingenuity, company grows and grows, until it’s so big that its board of directors—who don’t appreciate the high financial risks of Jobs’ lofty vision—fires Jobs, booting him from the company he birthed in his parents’ garage. Years later, as Apple flirts with irrelevancy in the ’90s, they invite Jobs back, and he returns triumphantly (we glimpse conceptualizations of the first iMac, you know, the awesome candy-colored ones.)

The story Stern and writer Michael Whitely are trying to tell is actually a good one. The period of Jobs’ life they focus on is rife with all the trappings of a great drama. What they fumble with is getting the bits of story to cohere to a central arc. Some scenes, like one in which Jobs screams and breathes fire into a phone with Bill Gates on the other end, lead nowhere. In fact, it feels like a lot of the characters are thrown in simply to make those familiar with the Jobs story go “Ah! I know who that is!” It contributes almost zero to the narrative. “Steve, I’d like you to meet [insert name of guy from his biography].”

Kutcher puts forth a good effort. He really does. It’s clear that he’s spent days and days perfecting Jobs’ slouched saunter, his Midwest/Californian accent, and his infamously volcanic temper. Plus, he unquestionably looks the part. But, there are two problems here, the first and most important of which is that he simply doesn’t have the acting chops to carry the film. You can see it in his eyes; he’s constantly, desperately grasping at the emotion he’s trying to communicate, and when (if) he finally finds it, he gets overly excited and plays it way too big and loud. Everything he does feels magnified (his accent feels painfully forced), but that’s not the most distracting thing.

With some actors (Will Smith, Angelina Jolie), I have difficulty divorcing their character from their celebrity. Ashton Kutcher is the prime example of this barrier to belief. When I see him, I see the guy from “Punk’d” who wears funny hats and tweets on the daily. I just can’t shake it. Unlike a lot of actors, he’s made himself widely accessible to the public, which makes it nigh impossible for me to dissociate his face from his fame. I believe it’s the actor’s job to convince us of their role, to deceive our perceptions of who we think they are in reality. By this standard, Kutcher may have dug himself into a hole too deep to escape.

Kutcher does show glimpses of fine acting—some (not all) scenes where he seethes and bursts with rage are truly intense, and a pivotal bedroom breakdown (captured nicely by Stern) resonates emotionally. Whiteley’s dialogue is blunt and heavy-handed, but the supporting players have no problem making their lines count (legendary character actor J.K. Simmons plays a great jerk as a member of the board of directors.) The film isn’t the complete stinker I feared it would be; I love that it cuts off just before Jobs’ glory days (we only get a brief look at the “keynote master” Steve Jobs we’re all so familiar with), and Stern illustrates vividly his fight to conquer the mountainous challenges he was faced with. Unfortunately, the film’s major moving parts are damaged, effectively crashing the machine. Send this one back to the factory.

Jobs opens this Friday, August 16th.

Jobs trailer