Looking over the work of Roald Dahl, one starts to understand that his work is predominantly focussed on his mind as a child. His work has always been layered in the existential panic that the nasty old stories that the children used to tell him, and the authorities switches were just about to capture him. That’s what makes The BFG an interesting beast on his side. It’s less about the ways that human stupidity and childishness befall children (like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and more about how a child with childishness and intelligence can make a difference with the help of those around him/her. That’s an upbeat message in a film market saturated with children either being the monsters in horror films or dough-eyed plot contrivances for the heroes to fall back on. What’s also saturated in a negative way? The market of big budget live action/CGI character films out there. The magic that CGI characters brought to films like Lord of the Rings and Terminator 2 has now devolved into a computer wasteland full of films from once great visionaries. The question as to whether or not Steven Spielberg aka THE MOST ACCESSIBLE BUT NOT NECESSARILY GREATEST FILMMAKER IN THE WORD, would drown in that comes to a head in The BFG and the results are better than even I expected. Brimming with CGI and live action creativity, Spielberg's The BFG is an imperfect, but wondrous work.
For those who grew up with Roald Dahl, you’ll get the idea here quickly. This is a film completely based on the mind of a child, but with all the dark depths of loneliness, and fear tossed back in for good measure. We follow Sophie, a small orphan, who is snatched from her bedroom and taken to Giant Country by the Big Friendly Giant, a runt giant who doesn’t eat children like the rest. From there, an adventure embarks. The surprising thing, though the reason for it is obvious, is that the darker subtext always hidden in Dahl’s work is not fully present here. Spielberg isn’t trying to upset anybody, but since the story plays like a vignette series of events rather than a flowing connected plot the weight of the picture doesn’t really stick around. An emphasis on over the horrors of the authority in the real world would have gone a far way to inform some of Sophie’s character, but young actress, Ruby Barnhill, is a classic Spielberg child actress, providing a performance that while not be fully realistic, hits the correct notes for the bossy little character. The emphasis on diction and intelligence in the voice makes for some incredibly charming sequences. Charming their way through the movie though is Mark Rylance, and some stunning if not always perfect CGI. The BFG himself sometimes seems to slip out of his own movie because of little patches of unpolished CG on the character, but the Academy Award-winning actor Rylance (oh shut up Stallone people, I wanted him to win too) brings his kind and gentle vocals and expressions to the character in a lovely way. To talk of Spielberg comes with the familiar comments. The camera movement flows with such efficiency that the confidence of 50 years becomes incredibly apparent. His calming camera shows such an epic sweep that even when the CG is off putting it’s still believable. The more childish moments of the movie, which mainly have to do with fart jokes, are actually pulled off well, with Spielberg playing the audience’s discomfort and embarrassment against them to the point of it becoming giggly. As a director, he continues to direct movies in a way that invokes a happiness. The BFG has a difficult time feeling fully there, as the effects and story seem to be unpolished, but the direction and charm on display here are enough to make it worth a watch. As a work, it also lacks the depth and fear of Dahl’s others but this is an enlivening picture. Spielberg really brings his talents and it makes the movie miles better than the rest of the live action/CGI crop. The BFG gets an 8 out of 10.
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The law of diminishing returns is discussed in length during the duration of Swiss Army Man, and might happen to be the only reason that some (including myself) will find it less genius than those who are less attuned to the emotions that Swiss Army Man is dealing in. That said it is pretty original. Paul Dano ends up on an island and must use the body of dead Daniel Radcliffe to escape and survive in the wild while developing a friendship with the corpse. Sounds like a Sunday afternoon movie in America right? Right? Well, here’s the point that I want to get to fast. Swiss Army Man is a stupendous, emotional, and beautiful film, and is so effortlessly those things that the only thing that’s worth criticizing in the movie, and that would make for a review structure that doesn’t read like, “the acting’s great, the direction may have a universal flaw but you get what you get, the script is great, and the ending is the stuff of dreams when it comes to true visual thinking and taking a concept to its full potential” is the discussion of how overall Swiss Army Man just isn’t quite as original as it lets on. It’s a movie about the folly of life in the presence of loneliness, and when observed through the way it allows us to catch onto that, while the premise is creative and mind tickling, the inner thematic concept is not and therefore can’t be as emotionally satisfying. This is a personal opinion, though. Swiss Army Man is a film that should be studied and is a complete revelation, but it seemed to be telling me things that I’d already known in a way that I had already seen. The spin on such things in that only one of the main characters is alive is executed well enough to keep this from becoming wholly apparent, but when the film reaches what might be its logical emotional climax I realized that I’d seen that type of scene in many works of theatre and film and here it didn’t hit me quite as hard. The way the film literalizes everything about its also takes it down a notch. There’s so much drama that could have been informed by the visual metaphors that are still present in the film but seems to be taken so literal and less dreamlike to the point of almost dissipating. That might actually be a complaint in direction, and cinematography but those are pretty visionary all around, so it’s hard to find fault in them. Swiss Army Man is a film that’s going to make a lot of people hurt. It’ll dig up the shit that the systems of the modern world put them in and make them confront that in themselves in a weird, but familiar way. The weighted message of the entire piece is brought down from greatness by the literalizing of the entire thing, and the familiarity of the themes, but the potency should be extreme for anyone who hasn’t encountered these types of emotions before. The law of diminishing returns struck me, and while this is a stupendous, emotional, and beautiful film it felt a slight bit diminished. Swiss Army Man gets an 8.5 out of 10. The Shallows is a movie that upon reflection of its first hour is flawless, and in the last twenty-six minutes only seems to slightly lose enjoyment by virtue of contrivance. It’s the type of excellent little action thriller that actually thrills and scares, but also doesn’t overstay its welcome. If you’ve seen the trailer of The Shallows you’ll know that it mainly focusses on Blake Lively as a med student who gets caught on a rock outcropping a few hundred yards from shore after being bitten by a shark. It’s short, concise, and incredibly well-conceived stuff. From that you’ll probably guess that Lively is well cast, and she as a personality is truly perfect for this type of movie. I will give credence to how she is blatantly objectified near the beginning of the film aka slow motion camera gliding along her body, but it’s almost a big middle finger to the audience in that way. Let me explain. The true greatness of The Shallows is how the film uses the cultural significance of presenting such a familiar situation, shot verbatim to how shark movies are shot while infusing it with a Sucker Punch level of subversion. The fact is the objectifying of Mrs. Lively might have actually had a purpose in calling out how violence is so often placed so close to sexuality. This has become a huge problem in modern society as the growing violence of sexuality on the internet has become more and more acceptable. The film even hangs a marker on such sexuality by having Mrs. Lively wear a black jacket over herself most of the time, and not reveal the elements of sexuality too much. When she finally does so it’s to help stitch herself up, therefore, revealing a strength in such sexuality. But that’s not the subversion that I am talking about The combination of sexuality and violence usually comes with the idea that the women is being made to submit. The fact that the film will draw a certain audience in like that and then watch as Lively ultimately drags herself out of such a position to take control is wonderfully sly, and the very 90’s action movie way of going about killing the shark only prompts the screaming of “Awesome.” The film’s only flaw only comes in the fact that the more it contrives ways for Lively to escape the shark, the more tired the movie seems to get. That doesn’t mean such contrivances aren’t interesting. At one point the camera shows the shark swimming through water that reflects purple and blue only. I immediately noticed that it must be laced with oil, but this had come almost out of nowhere. I won’t spoil the oil's use because that is actually an awesome plot point of the movie, but the oil showing up with no explanation prompts how the movie is actually making a slight bit of commentary, almost getting up in the face of everyone in the audience and screaming, “You don’t think there’s oil in the water? Well, there is. A lot of it. Your argument for our movie being contrived is invalid.” That might be a little far fetched but it serves the purpose of making the audience think in the middle of a shark movie. The Shallows is a nerve-wracking ride even if you don’t catch onto the layers under its surface (ha ha). This may turn out to be one of the better thrillers of the year. 9 out of 10 I’m starting to get the sense that all the Pixar movies are made the same way (barring Cars 2) and that the best one can only be determined by whether or not you enjoy the subject at hand. Some people like Monsters Inc. the most because of the interesting caretaker and global warming stuff that it’s talking about. Other’s might be preferential to The Incredibles because of its superhero trappings. I personally think Up is a perfect creation in the filmmaking landscape but that’s mainly because I’m tailored toward the idea of the pulpy action that dominated the filmmaking landscape of the serial. However, all of these movies seem to share a common ground. They all share the ability to drape a childish sensibility over otherwise mature themes, and Pixar’s done it for years. Minus the forgettable roller coaster ride that was Cars 2, all of their films have an aspect of that in there. That’s where the ideas of taste come in, though. The formula is so familiar by now that it’s harder and harder to drag catharsis out of their films, and with some of them if the interest isn’t in the subject the formula almost lies bare ( I mean why do people just ignore A Bug’s Life sometimes). Now, that doesn’t mean that any of the films are bad, just that they are similar in structure enough that a person could pick specifically what they wanted and stick to it. Most people just like every version here and Pixar often makes the films beautiful enough to sustain attention even if the subject isn't there. I like fish. Not enough to make a living out of it, but I like the idea of the danger that could reach a person in the unknown ocean, and that makes the idea of a completely underwater adventure fascinating. Finding Dory may use the same structure of dark themes hidden in a kids movie, but it’s one that takes place in the ocean so personally it's already exciting. Just as in its predecessor, Pixar has created a beautiful and serene world that holds a lot of danger for the stories little heroes. Speaking of the story, Finding Dory has Dory (Ellen Degeneres) trying to find her long-lost parents, but it extends into much further territory than that. The overall plot structure is very similar to Nemo, but that doesn’t end up mattering. The fact that we got to revisit such beautiful vistas, and enjoy some new ones is enough. The turns the story takes, much like other Pixar films also prove to be devastating, but there could have been more focus. During the climax, the film seems to just be throwing whatever it can out there just to make sure the characters end up ok like the animators decided the absolutely gut-wrenching “all is lost moment” of the film and then made up the third act on the fly to fix it. That said it’s still so interesting to watch the world that Pixar has created unfold. The new characters that have begun to populate them are as usual extremely well animated and have enough characterization that they start to feel connected to Dory, Marlin, and Nemo. A new character, a Septopus (watch the movie to figure that out) played by Ed O'Neill is a surprisingly deep character, and a snooty beluga voiced by Ty Burrell is hysterical. If anything Pixar has not failed to create some very personable characters. Pixar’s been using its formula for so long that it sometimes lacks the bite that it used to, but Finding Dory feels almost none of this tiresome feel. This is a sad, funny, and beautiful little movie. That said that may have to do with me liking fish. Finding Dory gets a 9 out of 10 . The ideas behind Warcraft are so great, and the people behind the project are so talented that the fact that it’s not a good movie is enough to tire one of the entire prospect of a blockbuster. It’s the type of film that displays the ever slightest bit of promise, and then without mercy slowly allows all of it to drip away allowing the audience to slowly grow with dread. Warcraft is a truly incredible torture display. In its beginning moments, Warcraft is fascinating. The darker, more creepy tone that is displayed is classic dark fantasy and seems a perfect fit for Duncan Jones. This is almost a delicious tone. The fact that the images on the screen are both inspired and interesting makes this glimmer even more promising. Durotan (Toby Kebbell) and his fellow orcs are marvelous creatures of motion capture wizardry. It’s not as good as the work in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but they’re so wonderfully expressive that the film draws you in. For the record for as bad as the review is about to get from here the direction of Duncan Jones, while being horribly misguided, never drops into the realm of bad. His action especially is startlingly hard hitting for PG-13 films, at the least in smaller scale intimate moments. The following sections of Warcraft feel like it’s excruciatingly bleeding out all the promise that it originally held. The moment when it starts is almost subtle, almost to the point that you miss it. As you move into the ending of the first act the dialogue doesn’t change from setup and continues that way forever. Characters aren’t characters, and the inert nature of this grinds the fantasy adventure to such a halt for so long that by the ending you’ll be begging for the final act to be just skipped. The story is the next similarity to the aforementioned Apes movie in that Warcraft steals the powerful, “You May Be the Leader, but Your Followers Want to Fight Turning this Into an Unstoppable Tragedy,” conceit of that entire movie. It can’t even orchestrate it correctly, though. By the end of the film instead of being saddened by the emotional bonds that the characters shared being ripped apart for unstoppable, but trivial reasons, I was saddened by the draining of anything that could have made Warcraft meaningful and bearable. The dark tone had soured, and soon after realizing that it had nothing else to offer the film started to rely on extremely unsubtle pop iconography that overshadows the power that scenes may have held. The hate that has descended on the actors is deserved, but these are incredible actors given material that does not suit them so I will not break them down too much. Their engagement level is different across the board with some like Travis Fimmel doing his best, and others like Paula Patton not trying to do anything special. Fimmel is a great actor (in fact I saw him in a very nuanced performance this same weekend) but even the best of performance drowns in this film. Warcraft is the type of film that takes everything out of the person watching it. At almost every turn it’s excruciating in a dangerous way. So inept that I thought two characters were hooking up only to be reminded soon after the film that they were brother and sister by another viewer. To explain such a thing proves only scattershot, and dumbfounded. I implore you to go see something else. The Lobster is weird and cruel, but it’s awesome, and Maggie’s Plan is really funny. Don’t see this. Warcraft gets a 2 out of 10 . The first Now You See Me was a dull, and preposterous affair that felt like an adult telling you and your friends that you couldn’t have fun. Here’s a movie about a group of people that use “magic tricks” to rob banks while laughing at the authorities for it. That sounds awesome. The problem? The movie doesn’t work if it’s missing a few pieces. The characters were likable enough, but it almost seemed like it was all being played too straight, killing whatever energy that the film might have otherwise had. Now You See Me 2 is much more preposterous than the first one, but it has the good sense to build in a mechanic to make sure that all of it is fun. The great idea? Add an actual audience POV character. The whole point of the first Now You See Me’s characters was that they were continuously ahead of the audience in everything that happened. Sure, that could cause us to marvel at their achievements, but it also introduces the problem of sympathy. We as an audience are always looking up at the characters, but never really emotionally connect with them so the engagement factor of the film drops substantially. Sure, it does cover up the stupidity of the events of that movie by shielding us from them, but it’s boring no matter how much tension that film tried to drudge up. Most of the characters in Now You See Me 2 act the same way, but one doesn’t. Lizzy Caplan's new Lula character is from frame one the antivirus to that problem. She’s over the top and weird in a way that most female characters are not allowed to be, she calls out just how incredibly stupid all of this is and acts as the almost capable but incapable person that maybe one of the audience members might be on the team. That’s at least a tangible connection which allows us to sit back and actually buy into the nonsense. That all said it is still all nonsense. The story picks up with the Horsemen living in hiding, then being exposed, and then having to deal with the punches as they come. The whole story seems tailored to bring us to each new let’s use “magic” to be awesome moment, and then promptly gets going to the next. The whole thing’s moving so quickly that it almost forgets to give us the moment of betrayal that a villain would theoretically need to create to give substance and emotion to the entire last act of the movie. It only barely explains the motivations of such villain, and that’s surprising seeing how this movie seems to only be about explaining the magic tricks that we are gawking at. It makes one wonder what this series would look like if the perspective were shifted more towards the almost now pointless cops watching in awe, like the rest of us, four master criminals use traditional magic tricks to avert them. There might be real magic in that. But that’s a discussion for another time. Look at the movie you have, not the one you want. Now You See Me 2 is much more fun than the first and prompts much more audience engagement. That seemed to be the goal, and they’ve at least succeeded at that. I give Now You See Me 2 a 6 out of 10 . 10. Louder Than Bombs: This might be the most potent film (Other than The Lobster) of the year. It's the tone that keeps this one together as the thin veneer of goodness that the central family has to offer is ripped apart, but the actors are so great that the effect can't help but bombard you with emotion. 9. Captain America: Civil War: The Russo Brothers and Marvel studios made a great film with The Winter Soldier, but almost rose above the occasion for Civil War. The full scope of the Marvel Universe is now laid bare, and it's only going to get better from here. 8. Hail, Caesar: This is a movie that has grown on me over time. It's so focussed on the somewhat thin characters that might be fuller to the directors that brought them to the screen, that it has less of an impact than it might have. That said it's hilarious and the new Han Solo, Alden Ehrenreich was excellent. 7. 10 Cloverfield Lane: Dan Trachtenberg has excellently directed a fresh little suspense picture that rises above the occasion with excellent twists, and insert shots. 6. Green Room: The use of gory violence to bolster themes and catharsis is truly Jeremy Saulnier's true calling. It lacked some of the bites of Blue Ruin, but even toned down Saulnier is better than any of the competition. 5. Love and Friendship: Whitt Stillman's Love and Friendship is resoundingly tickling. It's not crass, but it slowly and intricately builds its punchlines. A joke streched out over an entire conversation can sometimes create more suspense than a ticking time bomb. 4. The Witch: This movie was made for $1 million, and actually scared me. I often walk out of horror films in a state of disappointment because I wanted something thrilling and exciting, but all I got was a fine drama that had screaming things in it. The Witch terrified me. 3. The Nice Guys: Contrary to what people might think my opinion of Shane Black has only gotten better with time. He started with the pretty good Lethal Weapon, then made the jumbled but still good Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, then went on to make the best character piece of the Marvel Universe, and now has returned to the buddy cop genre with The Nice Guys. This is a vibrant, and enlivening film sporting great performances from its leads. 2. The Lobster: No film affected me quite like The Lobster, and that's because it understood the loneliness that comes in rigid structures of love. This juxtaposed with the actual rigid, repeating structure that the film had to offer made a tight, great film of endless cruelty but also catharsis. 1. Everybody Wants Some: Lots of movies on this list are dark affairs that sit in your stomach and make you wonder how messed up life will be. Everybody Wants Some creates the opposite effect. It fires up with all it's passion to find what good can come out of life, and how these moments will define us. Everybody wants some happiness, exuberant joy, and they're all going to fight for it by being as positive as possible. The hedonistic surface of the film is enough to give anyone a contact high, but it's the depths of it's longing that pushes it into being the best film of the year so far. I was perfectly ready to go into Me Before You and burn it to the ground for being trite, sentimental, and at worst a romantic comedy. Not that I have anything against romantic comedies (When Harry Met Sally is a masterpiece), but from the trailer and poster Me Before You looked like it was going to be that cutesy tearjerker, cute font and all, that I was not looking forward too. The snob glasses were on, and then about 30 minutes in the movie called me out on that, and persisted to kick them off and then make me play a game of chicken with myself on whether or not I would actually cry with my girlfriend at the events. That does not mean the this is a great or even good movie. Me Before You is the type of film that dangles at the facet of just likable enough, but also just corny and disposable enough. The likeableness isn’t even the thing that pushes it into the ballpark of high mediocre. The mechanics and performances do that. See, the dialogue here being so cutesy really robs the movie of any sense of tension, but Me Before You is on a serious time limit. It follows Emilia Clarke as Louisa, the caretaker of one Will Trainer, a womanizer who after an accident was made a quadriplegic. If you’ve already guessed that Louisa’s plucky nature is going to start to change Will, and make him start to appreciate life than enjoy that small reward as the film’s story is much more ambitious than just that base. See, Will is in six months going to travel to Switzerland, and end his life, leading to Louisa take all the pluckiness she has and convince him that the world is not so bad. Ok, so there’s a time limit built in so what? Well, that leads to the film’s biggest problem. As likable as the movie is and as good as Clarke is (I’ll get to that in a sec) the time that Emilia spends trying to cheer Will up feels almost like dead air waiting to gain a point. Soon, the chemistry of the two leads takes over and allows this to become serviceable, but weightless wish fulfillment, but that’s all it is. SPOILERS, though, this is all finally given weight when the fact that all was for not and Will still actually wants to die no matter what is revealed. Controversy aside it’s a sly twist to get the audience in a calm and breezy mood and then bring the anvil of reality down on their heads. I was most likely the only dry eye in the theater, and that was only barely. That dead air section of the movie though isn’t intolerable. Emilia Clarke is a truly expressive actress, and the way she uses her face to act is surprising in the age of stoic main characters. Clarke is endlessly cheery and innocent making her extremely loveable. The thematic throughline of the movie almost gets flipped as Will (Sam Claflin also a charm) starts to take the activities that Louisa initially planned to cheer him up, and use them to both distract her and become humbled at his own ability to make her happy and Claflin’s sly note working with Clarke's overbearing joy only serves to blindside the audience more. These two things help to keep Me Before You keep itself above the Nicholas Sparks crowd, but it’s all only covering up the emptiness just better than those movies. Me Before You gets a 6 out of 10. SERIOUS SPOILERS, BUT THEY ARE NECESSARY IN THE DISCUSSION OF THE FILM. THIS IS MORE AN ANALYTICAL ARTICLE/REVIEW. Love in all it’s treacherous trickery. How can one determine if it’s real or not? That is to put it simply the whole entire point of The Lobster. Its overarching goals are almost completely described by a scene in which a man is asked to shoot his wife. He finds no other option seeing how the rules of the threateners dictate that he cannot love. Eventually, he does pull the trigger. His sector of society forced his love, and that was the only thing doing so. This may sound difficult, but let me explain. The “normal” society is based on the idea that having a partner will make everything better; forcing people over a certain age to stay in a hotel over the course of forty-five days to find a partner. Once time is up the person is turned into an animal. A society of loaners lives in the woods and forces its members to stay away from anything resembling love. Human nature is caught in between. The hilarity of The Lobster comes in both a sense of overwhelming joy and the absurdity that both sides of love have to offer. The hotel at first seems funny, and even as the horrors of the limitations placed on guests and the fear of being turned into an animal onsets the absolute craziness of the situation only serves to be hilarious. Until it’s not. The purpose of a story built in a society different than our own comes from the way characters interact with it, and how that makes us feel. The Lobster’s purpose seems grounded in making us feel exactly the way the characters feel in the world that they inhabit, forever stuck between two ideals that they cannot choose. Truthfully that’s just not the way the world seems to work. The structure of the film is completely based on these described emotions. That’s where the aforementioned overwhelming joy comes from. There are only three characters in The Lobster that ever feel love, and only one of them is a lead. The first is a woman with blonde hair at the hotel. She’s always next to an auburn haired girl who eventually finds a partner (Ben Wishaw is excellent as him), and in the narration that plagues the first act of the film is immediately tied to her. It makes one wonder whether or not these two feel something for each other. When the auburn girl is described she’s always attached to the idea of “who was here with her best friend.” Later, the auburn girl reads a letter to the blonde haired woman on the blonde woman’s last day before conversion into an animal. The letter is lush and intimate, bringing the emotions that the audience has been feeling for the two to the surface of the film. It allows you to stare into the eyes of real love, and experience the untapped joy in it...but the film ends it. The blonde woman grows upset and slaps her friend. She stares at her with cold eyes as she realizes that the love she feels for her is only going to be brought down by the society around them. The blonde haired woman’s story only accentuates the way the film gets us into the mind space of the characters. The disappointment you feel in the deflation of the scene….the frustration. This is how the characters of this society feel every day. They feel in constant suspense of their emotions getting the better of them and the societal implications that could have. Many of the scenarios the film has to offer play this way. First a setup, then an overwhelming sense of joy or relief and then the dashing of that against the rocks. Catharsis through frustration, and suspense ever building. This is a film that believes real love exists, but it also believes that the society can corrupt us into false loves, or lead us away from it. Love in all it’s treacherous trickery. How does one determine if it is real or not? The film stars Colin Farrell in a beautiful character role that he inhabits scarily well. Farrell’s last great role was In Bruges, so it’s a treat to see him back in a role that allows him to flex the true acting chops he has. The same goes for Rachel Weisz, as she seems to have dropped into lesser fare since her Oscar-winning performance in The Constant Gardener. The world mechanics are sold on the performances, and each actor helps create the feeling of frustration and desperation. The camerawork and direction do this as well. The film is all into pushing its emotion, even to the point of employing traditionally bad cinematography techniques to manipulate the audience. As a reader you might be wonder what in the hell all of that above means? I hope to leave you with the thought that it was at least interesting though. That way you’ll go see the movie. I give The Lobster a 9 out of 10. The first third of X-Men: Apocalypse is a triumph of X-Men filmmaking. Sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s strikes the balance that First Class did so well between very zany comic book ephemera and real world humor and an understanding of what drove its characters. The last two thirds of X-Men: Apocalypse are empty vessels of CG action and character beats that either don’t make sense or don’t hold any significance. Clearly, there seems to be two movies in here: one barren and cold, and another exhilarating and full blooded. Too bad the former won. So, before we get to the slap around session that this review will ultimately devolve into, let’s discuss that first third. X-Men: Apocalypse, in its first third, manages to be better than almost any of the other films. The reason? Because it simply embraces the dominant format for an X-Men film and manages to be humourous and engaging in a way Days of Future Past didn’t even manage to be. The X-Men have always felt like they belonged on a television show, and the masterpieces that were X-Men: The Animated Series Seasons 1-4 and X-Men: Evolution are there to prove it. The serialized version of these characters helps create a balanced tone coming out of the big civil rights allegory, but also helps transcend it by creating the feeling of a rich world that exists in the aftermath of such issues. Days of Future Past has world changing events that took place in it for these characters, and the lived in results create the rich world that inhabits the beginning of X-Men: Apocalypse. It’s also not too blunt about the existing prejudices against the mutants, allowing them to be more organically blended into the background. Sure, this could just be shallowness at work, but the way it came off was like a more subtle version of the “mutant hate” themes of the first film. Not to say that there isn’t “mutant hate” stuff in here (the fight between Angel and NIghtcrawler is a very unsubtle example of that), but a lighter tone keeps this from all bogging down this third of the movie. This also contains Cyclops’s origin scene and that’s just Sam Raimi Spider-Man types of awesome. The opening action sequence is the craziest this series has dared to get, but it balances that out with a more brutal and horror-like sensibility, balancing the ridiculousness of the action with hard hitting violence. MIchael Fassbender has a tired (but in a good way) sense to him as Magneto in these opening moments, and he actually gets a chance to act for the last time in this movie. You know what? Other than the tonally awkward sections that actually seem to add to the aesthetic here, the first third of this movie is actually very good. The new X-Men as kiddos are compelling in a Freeform TV show type of way, and the other actors seem to be happy to be back and playing everything like old pros. Even Oscar Isaac seems to show some crazy and corny promise as Apocalypse. Soon though, everything they build falls. Soon, the balanced act falls apart, and X-Men: Apocalypse becomes Gods of Egypt combined with writer Simon Kinberg’s Fant4stic. I’m the most lenient critic in the world, and I still gave those movies .5’s out of 10. Combining them does not make a better movie; it just pisses all over everything that was built up well. So, as promised, here is the smackdown of X-Men: Apocalypse’s final two thirds. All the characters that were previously interesting cease to exist as entities. Magneto becomes a mindless goon, along with Angel, Psylocke, and Storm (none of whom were really given personalities to begin with). Now, yes, the argument could be made that the few of them were mindless Horsemen of the Apocalypse (aka the bad guy's henchmen), but that all breaks down on first glance. If they truly were characters, they would have an actual purpose in the story. These characters only serve as bosses in the tiresome-looking ending. The ending, by the way, is tiresome, and when one considers the effects used to bring it to life, the parallel to Gods of Egypt becomes even more clear. The garish computer effects (especially on a cargo boat) make the film completely intangible, almost to the point that the characters become action figures in their own movie. For all the modern blockbusters that beat the critics over the head, I never usually find that sympathy. Blockbusters are loud, but the good ones can just cover it up with interesting action and colorful visuals. X-Men: Apocalypse is not that blockbuster. Again, I’d use the words “garish visuals” allows the overall tone to skew for the ugly, including the loud booming of the explosions and powers. Olivia Munn, after the greatness of The Newsroom, is stuck moving around like a CGI character even when she’s in live-action. Fassbender gets the worst part of it all, as he just stands around for a lot of the time. When the team actually does team up, Fassbender’s actions become completely irrelevant, and as a character, he takes a step back. Also, notice how the Fantastic 4 kill Doctor Doom in Fant4stic. They all just punch him at the same time, and seeing how Kinberg can’t think of anything better to do when his heroes need to beat down a villain the heroes do the same here. Director Bryan Singer doesn’t do anything flashy, which on one hand helps create the TV aesthetic, but on the other hand makes the tone really flat and untextured. Yes, these are all the nitpicks that could be pointed out about the ending of this movie, but it’s thematically empty, so there’s nothing else to do than nitpick. The unfortunate bottom line is that after a downright classic (X-Men: First Class), and another pretty good movie (Days of Future Past), X-Men: Apocalypse has taken the bar down low. If this seemed like a positive review, it’s because the positive stuff was more digestible than the negative. I give X-Men: Apocalypse a 4.5 out of 10 (only a third of the movie is good, so statistically that’s actually a leg up for the movie). The planning to create such an excellent and intelligent comedy must have taken months, or even years. It would take forever to find the right balance of empathy and disgust, hilarity and serious emotion only to bolster it. Yet, here it is all up on screen. Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship feels like a film that could only have been focused by a single artistic mind. It’s a film that hysterically burns down the structure of the British hierarchy by ultimately showing it through manipulation. Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale (in a dramatic role she’s deserved forever)) is a true manipulator of the existing system, and yet is trapped in it. You can’t help but despise her as she manipulates such personable and beautiful people, yet the reason she has to is because of the rigid system that cripples all available love. It’s a fascinating characterization and Beckinsale only accentuates Lady Susan’s predicament through the acting that she pristinely pulls off. The dialogue is delivered in a way reminiscent to Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America, in that it never slows down. This gives a sense of urgency to what Beckinsale has to say; despite her bitchy (to put it lightly) demeanor, Susan is only barely staying above things. She talks like she is above everybody else in trying to control the system because it’s almost as if she resents it to the point of wanting to master it. The last shot of the film so perfectly ties this up that you’re left with a sense of both “Awww, but she deserves love like that rest of them,” and “Haha that b*** got what she deserved.” Beckinsale is so grounded in this movie that it’s impossible to separate her from any part of it. The supporting characters are used to challenge her worldview, with some defending it and others only supporting the almost tearful cynicism that Lady Susan represents. Susan’s own daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), represents the more reasonable and enjoyable side of the system, existing in a different sort of idiocy or at least ignorance than Susan is. She seems to at least believe that the system doesn’t need to be manipulated. Clark manages to create such a great character out of Frederica, only accentuating how the nuance of her character compared to Susan, which creates a dichotomy in the system that only serves to make the world of Love and Friendship richer. All the entertaining or attention drawing characters do this. Tom Bennett as Sir James Martin shows the result of a person who has too much trust in his place in the system and is not willing to escape the established rules of everything, resulting in him seeming like one of the funniest yet ungodly endearing characters ever put to screen. It’s deliciously deceptive how these characters are built around each other only to support the underlying motivations of themselves. Good thing that they are so strong too. Much of the comedy and punchlines that are present in Love and Friendship are based off the audience being unaware of things that characters know. This leaves a lot of the moving pieces of the story to the dialogue. How Stillman structures his conversation all but alleviates any problems that could arise in following action based in dialogue by employing a good amount of natural repetition, and building certain tantalizing elements into the story that pay off in startling ways. Bennett’s Sir James receives the most tickling one of these near the end of the film in a moment of dialogue so uncomfortable and well played that it left the audience in stitches, and me squirming in my seat. The number of things to talk about in the excellent way characters are built to the way that compositions slyly push the almost radical point of the film are infinite. Love and Friendship is not simply about a woman controlling her loved ones; it’s about the person and world that would make her do such a thing and the emotion that Stillman, Beckinsale, and the cast and crew drag out that is unlike anything that can be seen in theatres today. I give Love and Friendship a 9.5 out of 10. ...for the record the .5 deduction comes from the fact that much of the action is based in dialogue, and the difficulties inherent with that. The film, as I already mentioned, finds it’s way around them, but it was an unavoidable problem. The Nice Guys: Written and Directed by Shane Black, Starring: Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe5/22/2016 Looking at the first hour of Shane Black’s excellent The Nice Guys from a purely analytical standpoint will not yield a big response beyond the initial “this is awesome,” and “hahahahahahahha” that comes with a buddy cop film. That’s before the mid act though. The first hour is breezy character build up that gets everything into place, and that’s ok for a film like this. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe are a bruiser and a P.I. that are on the track of a missing porn actress. It’s a fine idea to base a mystery in. The most important thing about using story elements like this is that it offers the taboo forces of the exploitation film to come fill in the rest of the worldbuilding that The Nice Guys has to offer. Sure, 70’s L.A. is probably as lovingly created as it’s ever going to get here, but it’s nice to see the tone of the exploitation actually playing a part in what makes this movie so well-crafted. Don’t get the surprisingly saccharine marketing wrong though, The Nice Guys is a bloody, sleazy little picture, and that sleaze gives it an unaccountable amount of character. For the first hour or so, the film is running on its character, mainly leaving it to Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, and the amazing newcomer Angourie Rice to keep the film going. This part of the movie is all set up, but it’s the good kind that doesn’t immediately reveal itself as such. Instead, it takes the route of being funny for the sake that: 1. The dialogue is actually really funny, 2. Crowe and Gosling are playing characters so close to their real life archetypes that you can immediately buy them as comic protagonists in the story, and 3. Writer/director Shane Black smartly leads the tone of the film into the almost meaningless energy-fueled vignettes that inform most of the surreal noirs out there. The art of exposition lies in the art of tricking the audience so that you’re not giving out exposition, and Black’s short clue gathering vignettes that slowly build the film up for its real punch make for an excellent distraction. The acting and the pacing are there, and the film could have probably survived on just that, even with the ever-prevalent fact that this is all exposition in one way or another hanging around in the background. That fact robs this section of the film of too much depth, but it all still comes together pretty excellently mainly on the shoulders of Gosling, Crowe, and the fact that the world that they occupy is really as interesting as the movie obviously thinks it is. But, that can’t stay forever. Soon, the film would have to buckle down and start revealing what’s actually happening, and with such a scattershot-vignette format, that part of the film could go either way. Fortunately, The Nice Guys actually gets both funnier and crazier when all this happens. The seedier aspects of the story really start to rear their heads, and the two straight men get caught up in something bigger than themselves. This part of the movie is sadistically satirical of everything about its own premise. Soon, it becomes almost a parody of Chinatown...while also paying off as satisfying as Chinatown. Many films feature third act blowouts, but not too many feature the converging excitement of a porno, a brutal fist fight, and a bumbling idiot trying to make sure something doesn’t get destroyed. Everything that doesn’t seem to cohere about The Nice Guys first hour comes blasting into relevance on the tail of its exploitation film inspiration. The large and exciting emotions that come from those only serve to boost the film’s satirical agenda (something that Gosling hilariously points out). The Nice Guys is the type of well-thought-out, intoxicating fare that should be appreciated. It’s a feverdream blend of hilarious buddy cop humor, archetypes of two of the greatest leading men of all time firing on all cylinders (quite literally most of the time), and explicit emotional passion of 70’s exploitation. It may seem a bit slight in its opening acts, but soon the true colors of the film are revealed, and it’s really, really nice guys. I give The Nice Guys a 9.5 out of 10. After looking at the marketing for The Meddler, the first thing one must think is that it’s a chick flick. What one might never expect is the fact that it’s a backhanded slap to everyone that thinks that’s the case. The story here is surprisingly inconsequential and is mainly a vehicle to set up as many situations showing the perverse nature of the chick flick as possible. Susan Sarandon stars as Marnie, a recently widowed woman who has lots of money. That last characteristic is extremely important here. Marnie, after not being able to connect with her daughter (Rose Byrne), starts to do good deeds for her daughter’s friends by giving away lots of money. Money is important to the central themes of The Meddler. There’s a lot of moments of people whole heartedly thanking Marnie for giving them so much money and making big speeches about it. This is all stuff that you’ve seen in every tripe Gary Marshall affair, but The Meddler has no interest in sinking to that level. It instead wants to show you that ultimately all of that is a facade, and the excellent direction from writer/director Lorene Scafaria ramps up how uncomfortable this is. People pour their hearts out over money, and Marnie hides her pain. Everything here is fake, but just outside the frame, the painful reality is sitting. Yet, lots of movies that have a good central through line aren’t perfect, and The Meddler is one of them. First, there is the unfortunate problem of trying to make a spin on a genre, but doing it by presenting the film in similar aesthetics. There will be people who simply see this as a straight chick flick, and that’s because it plays just like that. The comparison of Marnie’s almost scattershot character and the falsity of the proceedings is a difficult message to pull out, but if you look, it’s there. There’s also the fact that The Meddler plays extremely scattershot, and not all that interesting once you get past the darkness of its core. Some characters are simply forgotten after a couple of scenes and others are not given worthy arches. It’s a testament then to say that Susan Sarandon absolutely dominates and holds the film together. There’s other fine work from J.K. Simmons as a guy so nice you can’t help but wonder if he’s actually a bad guy, and Rose Byrne as the daughter who has to lift the other end of the film, but Sarandon completely embodies everything the movie stands for. Marnie may seem more like a catalyst than a character, but Sarandon hasn’t really been able to so fully dominate a film a recent, and she goes a long way in instilling Marnie with a sense of life. Behind those things, there’s not really much to The Meddler. It’s nice to see a film that isn’t scared to completely upend its target audience by making them think about the basis of what the genre really means to them. Too bad some of The Meddler doesn’t really coalesce. I give The Meddler a 6.5 out of 10. One thing overlooked about Joss Whedon’s legendary The Avengers is the fact that the story pivots on over the top, and the fighting personalities of its characters. Half the dialogue is the good guys clashing, and the problems that this mounts for the characters. That’s almost the whole reason why the movie worked. However, after that one “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!” shot (you know the one I’m talking about) and the battle for Sokovia and New York, none of that could still be the case...right? Captain America: Civil War is here to show us that ultimately the Avengers are a team of people that don’t get along, It also proves that Marvel is so intelligent as a whole that they’ve technically created an excuse for the changing tone of the universe they’ve spent so much time crafting a certain way. That’s getting a little ahead of ourselves though. The story here, due to undisclosed events, Iron Man and Captain America are forced to fight each other, each forming teams that support their own ideologies. The background stuff is pretty easy to figure out once the movie gets going and really isn’t necessary to prove why the film works so well and hits so hard, but it’s an interesting story that addresses and enriches the previous mythology that the universe had built. The Avengers/Age of Ultron both left large body counts and terrors behind, even with the implications that the Avengers were saving people, and those deaths have to mean something. And, they do, but that’s the least of the real gut punches that Civil War has to hook you in. For that, you need to look at the Marvel Universe as a whole. By this point, it’s trivial to put it in any other context. There has now been 13 films in the Marvel extended universe each relating to each other, but Civil War is the first to use the ever-shifting tone of the universe to its benefit. The reason why The Winter Soldier ultimately didn’t work when related to the other Marvel films (even though it was a pretty good movie) was because of the ever-darkening and straightforward tone. Up until then, the universe had been more fun with The First Avenger and Thor representing the pulpy roots of the universe. The grounded sense of Winter Soldier seemed to take it down a level, but soon into Civil War you can see that this is only in the interest of the universes thematic arching. This movie wants you, as a member of the audience, to wish for the days when the Avengers were buddies. That can’t happen though...because now is the time for Civil War. This undertone makes the entire movie work, even when the pacing seems slightly off or the story takes yet another preposterous turn. Yet, Civil War is armed with a strong thematic backbone that, much like The Avengers, makes up for anything seeming slightly off. That said, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t fun to be had in the film. The normal snappy dialogue is present and mostly intact, as the comedic characters bolster the film. The newcomer that everyone has been waiting for (Tom Holland as Spider Man) is absolutely perfect. Holland perfectly portrays the “boy from Queens” attitude that Spider Man needs to show, while also creating an excellent sketch of a lonely and secluded Peter Parker. The promise of better days for the Marvel Universe are practically riding on Holland’s shoulders, and he carries the weight in an unbelievable way. When the triumphant moment of the Avengers coming together for a second time somewhere near the middle act of Infinity War finally comes, it’ll all have been building from how well Holland has sold the fact that the darker and more realistic tone of Civil War will not last. Even better, the incredible fun and milage the Russo’s and Marvel get out of him are astounding. The Russo’s also seem to be ones who are also doing their homework. The action in Civil War seems to evolve rather than stay the same as in Winter Soldier. The obvious jumping off point for it is last years Mad Max: Fury Road. For a moment, consider the lasting impact that film is seemingly going to have. It’s so revolutionary that even the directors of a Marvel movie adopted the action style of it. And, much like with Fury Road, the action in Civil War strikes down with a furious anger, providing a nice balance to the cartoonish characters and making you believe that they exist in the real world. It is inspired work. The actors though might be more inspired. Most of these guys have been playing these characters for over 9 or 10 films (Downey Jr. has been there for about all 13) and as the story gets darker, the characterization does too. The motivations of all the characters are not explicitly carved out in Civil War and it seems like a full-on acid test to check if these actors really have what it takes to make the film still work without the obviously carved out exposition. They all pass with flying colors. The darker tone of Civil War may be less fun compared to other Marvel films, but it means much more in the bigger picture than any of those ever could. This is the Marvel Cinematic Universe evolving to the next level of well-placed audience manipulation and the results both are and will be glorious. I give Captain America: Civil War a 9 out of 10. Green Room: Written and Directed by Jeremy Saulnier, Starring: Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart5/4/2016 There are a lot of gory, trashy, and vile pieces of work out there... that are absolutely AWESOME! The bad ones just don’t carry purpose. Those that do however can use their gory natures to push the genre to new heights, and when someone smart gets ahold of these the bar goes up even more. Enter Jeremy Saulnier. Saulnier's last film, Blue Ruin, was a full tilt revenge masterpiece of boundless violence, but everything about it’s characters actions made sense. The violence seemed earned because we weren’t just watching completely void tough guys shooting at each other, or chopping each other up. We were watching intelligent, if possibly mentally challenged people shoot, and stab through each other. Green Room, unfortunately by design can’t keep things quite as personally to the characters. Ruin was mostly focussed on one man, a character that could be intensely watched. Green Room has multiple moving parts which keeps it from that level. Saulnier however is a smart enough writer/director to make up for that though. Green Room isn’t the masterpiece it’s predecessor was, but it’s pretty damn close. The main reason?: Green Room gets bigger, but not more ambitious. There’s more characters sure, but the mechanics here are much more sparse and focussed. Green Room is about a punk band fighting neo nazi’s. Saulnier knows for sure that the safest place for his characters is in the presence of loud and even somewhat obnoxious noise, and the playing of these sound cues and designs against the audience makes the pretty bare characters into the full people that Saulnier’s films have previously showed. The main lead played by Anton Yelchin explains how much he and his band enjoy music, and feel the cathartic flow of it when performing. Couldn’t tell you his name though. However, this sound cue is used perfectly as moments of silent and sobering sound become the most dangerous. The film also has a vague punk band soundtrack to be heard outside of the green room of the title which shows the contrast of safety that the characters are in. They are that close to being safe, and in the music but instead they are in this room. The contrasts also seem to make Green Room a richer movie. The punk band in question is intentionally loud and obnoxious on stage, but is very soft spoken off. The Neo Nazi’s are horrible people doing savage stuff, but they seem the most reasonable, and level headed. Patrick Stewart accentuates that contrast as their leader, Darcy. Outside of the door he speaks in the voice of a kind grandfather, but is most certainly not. The dogs (oh the dogs) bite people’s throats off, but are still whining and loyal little dogs. The quietness always leads to violence, the loud noises (which should be the more dangerous ones) lead to safety. Green Room builds it’s wonderful contrast and mechanics on top of the characters. The results make sure Green Room is unforgettable. What is also unforgettable about Green Room is the other reason you should be in the theatre. Jeremy Saulnier is really smart about gory violence, and that intelligence is extremely refreshing when it comes to watching very realistic, trashy gore being shot with a level of respect. The tone of the film during the fights ends up feeling like the tone of Blade 2 in its violent middle act, and if anything reminds you of Guillermo Del Toro that’s a good thing. The situations that appear aren’t as special or new, but they’re all dressed up and great looking so there’s not reason to be worried. The actors seem to slip into the back of the movie though at times considering just how much fun the themes, and violence are. Yelchin is the only character we get to know from the punk band, however the violence and thematic material are so terrifying and effective that every time that someone gets picked off you feel it. Stewart really is as spectacular and gut wrenching as you’ve heard. He’s playing a character against type (i.e. the kind father figure), but playing it just like he’d play those. He’s wonderful. See it for the actors, see it to watch what happens whenever a gorehound movie has a purpose, and see it for the gore. Green Room is the beautiful horror experience we never see anymore, and you should not miss it. I give Green Room a 9.5 out of 10. Elvis and Nixon is a very funny film built on a basis as light and loose as a comedy prompts to be. Though, it may be a little too loose when you consider the incredibly serious and heavy handed ideals that the film adopts at times, so it all seems like a contradiction. Seriously, one could have a field day calling out the thematic and acting contradictions that this movie presents at face value. Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey never look close to how the president and the rockstar actually looked (Spacey lacks the wide-eyes/nose combo, and Shannon is a little too wrinkled in the face). But, the performances are wonderfully well researched with the mannerisms and outlandish natures the men fully represented shining through. It leaves a parallel to real life that seems broken and yet absolutely hilarious in its own right. One could even say that the impersonations are SO good that they almost push the spirit of the two men, given both impersonations have become unanimous in pop culture (Think Point Break for Nixon and the prevalence of Elvis impersonators for Elvis). The hilariocity is especially pushed through a scene in which Shannon’s Elvis runs into two mocking Elvis impersonators. The men still don’t look like Elvis and Nixon though, which leads to the ever so slight rupture between the film and the audience. To top it all off, the screenplay goes and does the same thing. The events that are taking place seem like they should ultimately carry weight as Elvis goes on a madcap journey to gain a Federal Badge, but everything isn’t played one bit straight. The offices that Elvis struts into are the offices of important people who make real decisions, but in front of a man so famous he could be recognized half a world over, the sense of professional courtesy goes out the window. It almost seems to adopt the structure of watching Elvis walk up to a powerful person and seeing if they will break under the excitement of being next to him. That’s an odd and almost schizophrenic structure to attack in this movie, but it never fails to be funny, watching big men in important rooms gawk over this one man who almost seems like a simpleton compared to them. One such person is Colin Hanks, as Egil Krogh. He’s basically Nixon’s glorified secretary, and his performance accentuates how the film becomes more interesting when a character that almost doesn’t take any of Elvis’s shit clashes with the King. Hanks is as good an actor like his father (Tom Hanks), and plays the role as a man swirling in all the excitement of meeting Elvis, but not being able to control him. The film’s stand out funniest moments come from two instances of Hanks simply saying one word (guess what it is?) that is both funny and sharp. That said, the use of strong language popping up liberally does bring to mind how sachrinne the rest of the film’s design is crafted. Everything has an early 70’s pop to it; a manufactured sense that seems like it fits a less silly and vulgar movie. Yet, the whole thing is hilarious enough to keep chugging along for 86 minutes until the obligatory, but somehow unnecessary “This happened to this person later in life” biopic scrawls happen. Shannon and Spacey can’t be understated, and are not wasted. The film succeeds at being the comedy that it is, but might embrace that comedic touch a little too much. I give Elvis and Nixon a 7.5 out of 10. NOTE: If you’re wondering why there’s no review of The Jungle Book, it’s not because I didn’t see it. It’s because it’s a good movie that ultimately has no thematic ideals that are worth discussing. It’s a great looking and inspired piece of work, but there’s not much to actually talk about. The Huntsman: Winters War steals verbatim from numerous sources like Frozen and The Lord of the Rings, but at the very least, it steals from sources that are interesting and good. That stuff is still just as good too, even though it lacks the thematic depth (this is a Huntsman movie after all). But, the middle act is mainly focused on exactly what could make those movies worth your time in the first place. The Huntsman: Winters War is not really all that special, but at least its sources were. The first 20 minutes of Huntsman is expositional tripe. As the well composed scenes play out, the deep voice of a narrator blows in and robs the scenes of any of their intended weight (not that any of this actually has any weight). It’s just over the top fantasy schlock that kind of works when the film levels the heck out and just coasts on being funny, but the beginning of the film is almost excruciating. You have some charismatic actors (Chris Hemsworth), and some downright great actors (Jessica Chastain), but instead you’re going to have a guy explain the story? When the film finally does let all these actors do their thing, the film actually gets pretty fun. Sure, it’s just recycled stuff (no really there are sets and dialogue so close to Lord of the Rings that Universal should be lawyering up), but it’s good recycled stuff, as the corny nature of the characters pretty easily comes out and makes the film really hilarious to watch. It also takes some time to make some interesting (and subtly racist) creature design for some goblins that proves for a pretty fun action sequence. Nick Frost, Sheridan Smith, and Rob Brydon show up as dwarves, and keep the film rolling through sheer wit. The middle of this film doesn’t feel cheap, and if the film didn’t fall into campy disposability by the end this movie, it could have been a solid 7. But, soon a finale does have to happen, and Charlize Theron has to show up. Theron is awkwardly pushed into this film, and watching her act against Emily Blunt is akin to magnets trying to come together, but are inevitably pushed apart. The only purpose for Theron to be here is for franchise building. And, the purpose of that franchise isn’t even there anymore. This is a sequel (despite what the marketing tells you) to Snow White and the Huntsman, but the main character of this universe, Snow White, is almost nowhere to be seen. The purpose for this film’s existence is non-existent, unfortunately, and with nothing thematically to hold onto, the inevitable fade into obscurity will come. The Huntsman: Winters War is a briefly entertaining piece of fantasy action that ultimately fails because it lacks sense of purpose and feels forced. It’s worth a late night viewing, but nothing too expensive. I give The Huntsman: Winters War a 5.5 out of 10 Everybody Wants Some is one of those triumphantly great movies invoking the feeling of something like A New Hope. It’s a film whose sole goal is to throw everything onto the screen and take 80’s college kids back to the time when they were young, along with new and younger minded people. Everybody Wants Some for sure succeeds at taking people who didn’t experience that era back to that era. Everybody Wants Some is about a college baseball team, but more specifically what happens to one of its members Jake (Blake Jenner) on the 3.5 days leading up to the start of class. It has all the college movie tropes you’d expect, and it’s just as funny as one might guess. Though, the true power in Everybody Wants Some comes from the intense nostalgia the 1980’s can offer. The Cold War was tapering out, and for the normal Texas baseball player, the world didn’t have any worries to offer other than the straightforward goal of getting laid a lot. However, one full culture shock decade and a few wars later, maybe what we really need is a reminder of how good those times were. Everybody Wants Some succeeds on the merit that it presents a world where ultimately there isn’t a whole lot to worry about, and lets an audience experiencing the stresses of the world indulge delightfully in that existing world. You want a brass tax reason why this is a great movie? Because it gives people the greatest catharsis in the world. It lets them know that the world they live in, with all its chaos, can have meaning and direction. Linklater has always been the director best at analyzing why the good times were so good, but it’s simple. There was a meaning, and there was a relief from stress. That’s why Boyhood works so well as a movie. Linklater tailers tough situations around moments when everything can finally be ok, making them all the more satisfying. Everybody Wants Some is a movie simply running on the “everything’s okay, nothing matters, just experience life and culture as fast as you can” mentality. So, while it doesn’t have the staying power, it is still an excellent and entertaining ride. It helps that the competitive “screw everyone else” nature of most of its characters fits so well with the hedonistic mentality of the whole movie. The competition to have better and better times leads to the ultimate beating heart of the movie. Now, living in the modern day, it seems as if Linklater has baked his own desperate need to get back to a time like the 1980’s in his movies, and that desperation is both relatable and cathartic. Every character is competing to make this the best time of their lives because, eventually, it’s not going to be as good. And oh boy do they. If Everybody Wants Some was just a party movie, then it would be one of the more inventive ones; it excels at showing a bit more than just the frat party. There’s a party near the ending of the film that has to do with arts and crafts people that is something most people probably haven’t seen before. The actors, much like in Boyhood, aren’t really actors in this movie. These are people bound together so well that immediately the film feels intoxicating. It’s based almost entirely on watching these guys mess around and try to find meaning in a real world where eventually they are going to have to take off their rose colored glasses off and face. Blake Jenner, Tyler Hoechlin, Glen Powell and J. Quinton Johnson aren’t themselves in this movie. They are these players, and Jenner and Powell get a huge chance to shine. The movie, as it goes on, almost becomes a character film about how all these guys use the simple “it’s ok” mentality to grow and understand the world. How using supposed freedom can ultimately improve how you interpret everything. Bottom line: Everybody Wants Some is an intimate achievement, miles better than any other party movie because of the emotions it brings to the table and the way it transports its audience into a more easygoing state of mind. In achieving this, it becomes a film that will live with us, always there to teach us that everybody wants and needs happiness and meaning. I give Everybody Wants Some a 10 out of 10. I Saw the Light is just as tired and old as it needs to be. Its subject, Hank Williams, was much the same way, and props to the film for using the tone of the man to guide the movie. Those who don’t like the uneven and more deflated tone will probably be less inclined to enjoy this film though. Heck, most critics have kicked it to the curb. It’s just an exhausting movie, but it’s plain and simple. There’s no crime against filmmaking or acting here. In fact, the acting in I Saw the Light is so mindbogglingly perfect for this particular film that it’s difficult to think of it getting anything lower than average. It really sweeps you up, and lets everything seep in about Hank Williams. There’s an intense emotion to grab onto as the film dives into the worry that Williams must have felt while living a life of extravagant flaming out. That’s another thing that the critics might not really enjoy about the movie that I actually found surprisingly refreshing. I Saw the Light does not have the happiness that Walk the Line provides when everything eventually ends up ok. Sure, that makes the movie anticlimactic. In fact, it doesn’t really have a climax, but it’s still engaging for a long while. Plus, the pitch perfect tone and acting really makes up for it. Tom Hiddleston is a great actor, but hasn’t really gotten a great dramatic role (unless you count Crimson Peak, but nobody saw that when they should have). But, Hiddleston is offered a role that almost bulldozes anything else he’s done previously. His interpretation of Hank Williams is startlingly clear, and his performances of the songs are very realistic. Elizabeth Olsen is also on great display here, but her whole non-existent arch is where the film takes its major misstep. I Saw the Light has got a pretty hacked up structure. The trailers sell it as Williams’s relationship with his first wife (Olsen), but that’s only a good two thirds of the movie. The next good third of the movie is about other relationships that Williams had, and while it does boast the film’s best scene, it’s a scattered and broken third act that seems to just be killing time until the movie can kill off Williams offscreen. Overall, the film is much better than it’s being given credit for, and overall probably better than the other musical biopic that I saw this week too. Move it on over to the theatre. I give I Saw the Light a 7 out of 10. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Directed by Zack Snyder. Starring Henry Cavil, and Ben Affleck3/24/2016 There’s a film out there—not a good one—called Pompeii. You probably don’t remember it because admittedly it’s kind of terrible, except one moment. At the very end, the film plays a moment of such sweep, such a delicate camera, such a cathartic moment. It’s not effective enough to save the movie though. It’s a perfect moment that a movie like itself doesn’t deserve. Pompeii is Batman v Superman. Batman v Superman doesn’t deserve its rousing moments. It’s too incompetent otherwise. That hurts too. Man of Steel, for all it’s violence, was a full blooded and earnest action movie. Superman was a likeable and inspiring character, and each of the other characters were given something heroic to do. It was structured well. It was almost poetic in its use of imagery. Batman v Superman retains that for its first scene, which is probably the most excellently staged killing of Batman’s parents put to screen. But then it cuts to the ground level view of the attack of Metropolis, and problems seem to rise immediately. The usually still camera of Zack Snyder is shakier than it usually is, Superman is no longer heroic. Cut to a generic and deflated desert area… oh god. No. The blood is gone. The personal drama. The moment of awe when Perry White stares into the eye’s of his weeping employee caught under the rubble of Metropolis, as the Man of Steel gets up finally to win. Anything of that sort is lacked here, and that’s probably a focus issue...or maybe it’s just Batman. Hell if I know...guys let me level with you here; I’m wildly caught off guard. I haven’t seen such an empty piece of work since...well maybe Pompeii. Batman v Superman is indiscernible from it’s predecessor. Sure, Man of Steel was washed out, but it had hope. Batman v Superman has one excellent villain (Jesse Eisenberg is about the only thing that works here), well choreographed but sloppily photographed fight scenes, and the WORST TYPE OF BATMAN YOU CAN HAVE. I watch movies for the feeling I get from the good ones. I like Superman because it means something to me that a person on Earth with all the power in the world would use it for good. I like Batman because...well everyone gets angry and wish fulfillment is awesome. I like Lois Lane because will they won’t they bull is awesome. I like Wonder Woman because she’s abjectly feminine, and because she is a well drawn female character that doesn’t even prompt the conversation of how she can kick as much ass as the men. She’s just Wonder Woman. Yet, with this movie I saw a Superman that was looked down on and didn’t use his powers for good. I saw a Batman that I wouldn’t want to be. I saw a Lois Lane that said she loved Superman, but lacked the ability to show it, and I saw a Wonder Woman who...actually she was fucking awesome and completely in character. And yes it might be just because my versions of Superman and Batman aren’t there, but the filmmaking incompetency here is still apparent. Snyder, usually a great visual stylist, presents images that shake, and disorient the audience. Why pay $400 million dollars on a movie if the audience can’t properly see it? I don’t blame you if you look down on this review. It’s sloppy, fragmented, and probably not worth your time, but I guess that’s the perfect way to convey this movie. Go see Zootopia, or 10 Cloverfield Lane. You’ll be happy after those. The first two Divergent movies were fine films that fell apart on a storytelling level; but ultimately, they had so much passion infused into what they wanted to be, that they managed to have something actually good. Sure, the only point of them was to be blatant YA-genre ripoffs using every trick in the book to make the film as appealable to the mass audience as possible, but Shailene Woodley tried, and the Neil Burger, and Robert Schwentke tried. Allegiant is the first film where the essence of “tried” has left the movie, and that almost works to it’s advantage. That may sound counterintuitive, but it’s a completely valid point. Allegiant, at first glance is not that bad. It’s pretty bad, but it’s bad in the good kind of way. Schwentke, the director of the last one, almost seems to have just given up on the series. That’s ok though. His sense of direction has seemed to become so tiresome and laughable that the film becomes funny. That tone would have actually worked really well for the series, allowing it to jump into self parody, instead of nobly fizzling out like The Hunger Games did. The whole thing has a manic energy at this point, and Miles Teller’s overly sarcastic and painfully unfunny sensibilities draw everything out of this thin, flaccid material. Divergent could have become something other than a normal, as is YA-genre entry. But then it starts to take itself seriously, and the entire thing goes to hell. There’s not so much to say for story here, but the simplicity of the set up fits the film better here. It’s only when the film notices that it actually is supposed to progress somewhere that it seems to actually do that but without thinking of a logical or interesting place to go. Jeff Daniels stands around looking evil for a good 90 minutes until we are immediately told that he is evil losing all weight that this character could have had. The film however is very serious about this man, so when the audience doesn’t care, the piece just falls apart. It’s not just Jeff Daniels, but that’s just one of many things. As the production starts caring about what happens, the less we can laugh at the movie, and the less we can make anything out of it. Shailene Woodley is a great actress, but she’ll probably write this one off as a contract piece, as will everyone else. Allegiant has finally driven the series into the territory of “bad,” and it’s sad to see this franchise go. Divergent’s chances of being “good” 2014-2016. I give Allegiant a 3.5 out of 10. 10 Cloverfield Lane is so intense and scary at times that it brings tears to the eyes and makes you sweat. The reason: juxtaposition of power. A good horror movie is good because it takes all power away from the audience. 10 Cloverfield Lane is better because it lets you have a glorious taste of it, and then strips you of it all leaving you a wreck. The filmmaking on display here is unprecedented. This is a beautiful mix of everything the insanity of Fincher and the wonder of Spielberg. And this power is central to all the themes that make the film awesome in almost every single way. Dan Trachtenberg’s direction immediately reveals itself to be a master class of thriller filmmaking because of it. He teases the audience with power throughout the entirety of scenes showing establishing shots of items in the middle of action scenes that the characters will use immediately allowing telling the audience that this item will be integral in the character escaping the situation that they are currently in. There’s a twist to him setting up the scenes like this. On the flipside, this scene structure becomes so apparent that when it’s used in intense scenes that are playing against the audience; aka scenes when the item is not used to help escape, but instead brutally hurt it leaves us in an emotional panic picturing the many horrible things that could happen. It’s actually really clever as Trachtenberg uses his own ingenious scene structure to leave the audience in a state of shock...caused by themselves. We get all the power in scenes when they know the character will escape. We lose it all in the scenes when we know they won’t. If you’re wondering why no story has been mentioned...well this is a film built on the way the story progresses so knowing nothing of it is much better. What can be said is that the actors are all game for the continuing havok they thrust upon the audience. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is expertly cast as Michelle embodying one of the best female characters in a film in years. Michelle is actually the toughest character in the entire film, and trumps the other characters. John Goodman shows a reason for being relevant in the modern film industry... other than playing characters from the old film industry (Argo and more recently Trumbo). Goodman is playing a hard role having to fluctuate from happy to intimidating. Both Winstead and Goodman kind of outshine John Gallagher Jr. (Jim from The Newsroom) but Gallagher is still very interesting, and is actually given the most character as Goodman’s is only hinted at and Winstead’s is more about her actions. 10 Cloverfield Lane is a small scale work, but as you can tell it’s an excellently executed film. The only problems manifest in the fact that the ending seems a little rushed. This piece of work is so intelligently put together that it’s close to a masterpiece of suspense. Go see it I implore you. 10 Cloverfield Lane gets a 9.5 out of 10. |
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |