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writer-monster · 3 years

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11 reasons why cap 4 should reintroduce Bucky Barnes as the love interest, an essay

to start this off, i am not writing this essay from a shipping place nor do i believe that this would have any influence at all over the upcoming movie. i expect nothing. this is simply something that i would personally like to see. (of course no hate to anybody who thinks differently)

here are 11 reasons why i think making Bucky into Sam Wilson's love interest in Cap 4 would be a good move for Disney.

1. on the Chinese film market - and why it's an irrelevant argument against the inclusion of homosexual themes in Cap 4

the Chinese film market is something that has been blamed for a lack of diversity in Hollywood films a lot lately. many people claim that this market with a lot of buying power has been responsible for the lack of gay and black representation in particular within Hollywood films.

and we have certainly seen Hollywood treating it as such, going so far as to cut gay scenes from movies for their Chinese releases, and vastly minimising John Boyega's (a black actor's) presence in the Chinese poster of Star Wars The Force Awakens.

[image ID: on the left is an image of the American poster for Star Wars The Force Awakens, featuring John Boyega prominently on the right-hand side. And on the right is the Chinese poster for the same movie, in which John Boyega is barely visible.]

so we know at the very least that Disney believes this through their own actions and efforts to self-censor for the different markets.

but Captain America 4 is a black-led movie, don't you forget. and Disney can't minimise Sam Wilson/Anthony Mackie in the movie or the poster because it's his movie and his poster. and no amount of creativity in the editing room can change that (thank God!).

so if by their own argument the film is already going to be either banned, panned or slammed in China... then what do they have to fear from making it a gay movie too?

2. oh, the queerbaiting

queerbaiting is an unusual cultural idea. and sometimes i find myself thinking that the term is far too easily used, but then all of a sudden i will stumble upon a movie or show that is so quintessentially cruel and overt in it's... well... queerbaiting that i will start to wonder what the hell kind of a bizarre relationship all these straight people seem to have with their friends. take Troy and Abed from Community or John and Sherlock from Sherlock as the perfect examples of this. (in which my reaction to the show's creators saying the show wasn't gay was to ask so then why did you make it so gay?!)

i felt that Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes in tfatws were getting quite close to this level of queerbaiting.

there was the field scene, the couple's counselling scene, the boat scene, the couple's counselling scene, Bucky going with Sam to face Karli when she told Sam to come alone, the couple's counselling scene, ALL the staring scenes, Sam checking out Bucky's ass here as they said goodbye, the "i would move in with him but" hidden scene, "Uncle Bucky" showing up at the cookout scene, the romantic walking off together into the sunset together ending scene, and the couple's counselling scene. did i forget anything? but i mean seriously, the couple's counselling scene!!! that thing they did with their legs and their crotches while staring deep into each other's eyes, would any straight guy willingly do that? do straight guys crotch-snuggle now?

[image ID: an image of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes during the therapy scene with the quote, "Isn't anybody going to drag me into impromptu couple's therapy and slot my legs firmly between theirs before staring deeply into my eyes?"]

(yeah i stole this image from a buzzfeed article on the fan reactions to the couple's therapy scene. but given that they stole 80% of the content of that article from fandom tumblr, i think it's pretty even-steven.)

there's also the fact that people started talking about bisexual Bucky Barnes a lot after the tiger pictures line, and the lead writer Malcom Spellman responded to the talk of Bucky's bisexuality with "just keep watching". well we watched, Malcolm. but it's beginning to feel like you were just jerking us around.

3. the writing

seriously though, what else is Bucky Barnes doing right now in the MCU? his only remaining connection to anything going on right now is through Sam. there is literally nothing else established that's left for him to do that doesn't involve Sam. he moved to Louisiana to be closer to Sam (canonically), he hangs out with Sam's family (canonically), and Steve is presumably gone and is definitely not coming back for more adventures.

he has no villains or loose ends left. he has no other superheroes that he appears to be in contact with. he has no girlfriend or potential love interest, or even other friends or family. he is living in a tent that he has secretly set up in Sam's backyard and is mysteriously appearing from the bushes when it's time for dinner like a stray cat.

in my opinion there is no other meaningful and pre-established progression for Bucky's character that wouldn't just feel cheap.

plus, i don't think the general audience would be all that surprised if they kissed. i think a LOT of people picked up on all that tension. i think a lot of straight people picked up on all that tension too.

4. the chemistry between the actors & the chemistry between the characters

the original pitch for tfatws was essentially just this, it was the chemistry between Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie and their respective MCU characters of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson.

now obviously Anthony and Sebastian are simply friends, and i wouldn't mean to imply anything more. but they are also not their characters.

Sam and Bucky's scenes together before tfatws were both limited and short, and yet audiences still fell in love with the dynamic between the two characters.

in interviews, these two actors are constantly slipping into character and flirting with each other and frankly it's adorable. plus it's really entertaining. i'd love to see that dynamic, unfiltered, in a movie.

because believe it or not the flirting is actually even more open in their interviews than it was in tfatws. and i'm leaving some links as proof.

this here is known as the "married" compilation

and here's a "lucky dip" selection of interviews - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

and here's Anthony trying to get Seb to take his jacket off.

i'm just saying, why not let their chemistry shine? these two are so talented and so entertaining, especially when you put them in a room together. and can you imagine how absolutely hilarious and brilliant it would be to watch them navigate being a couple?

(and for those who bring up the "friends would be uncomfortable pretending to be dating" argument, i'm not here asking for a sex scene or anything. i don't think anyone would expect them to show any more intimacy (physical or emotional) while playing a couple than what they've already shown together in say... tfatws or in their own interviews. not that i actually expect anything regardless.)

5. if they were a man and a woman they would've gotten together in tfatws

i have no more to add here. just that... yeah, they would've.

6. and i'm not talking about the comics here, i'm talking about the MCU.

i understand fully that none of what i'm saying here falls in line with these characters from the comics. but the mcu itself doesn't fall much in line with the comics either, and these two characters especially are very different from their comics counterparts.

i'm not asking for these two to get together in the comics. tbh i don't think that it would work.

but the mcu Sam and Bucky are different and closer than their comics counterparts. they've got different histories, different backstories, and a very different dynamic. please rest assured that i am only talking about them in the mcu.

7. Bucky Barnes is believably bisexual. and Sam Wilson has never been proven to be straight in the mcu, nor has he had a love interest.

(now please continue to keep in mind that these points only stand for the mcu versions of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, and not at all for their comics counterparts.)

Sam Wilson has never had a love interest, which is crazy because have you seen that man! he has had two blink and you'll miss it moments of verbal expression of attraction to women, both in TWS. and that's the extent of it, through his entire history in the mcu.

Bucky Barnes has had a number of surface-level female love interests, but none of them even came close to the level of connection and chemistry that Bucky shares with Sam.

and i'm sorry SarahBucky fans, but i just don't think there's very much to their relationship either. i love Sarah, i really do. but it's Sam who shares all the meaningful moments and history and chemistry with Bucky. and i don't see what making her into a love interest would do for Sarah's character either, what would that add to her story?

[Picture ID: Bucky at the cookout with Sam, Sarah, Cass and AJ. Bucky and Sam are looking at each other and smiling.]

and also there is the whole tiger pictures thing... again. which does strongly suggest that Bucky is bisexual whether this was intentional on behalf of the writers or not.

8. it's representation... AND it feels natural

marvel hasn't had a lot of queer representation that's been noticeably present in the MCU at the time of writing this.

there have been a lot of failures so far, from the bisexual erasure of Valkyrie in Thor Ragnarok to the wlw erasure in Black Panther.

there was queerbaiting almost identical to the bisexual Bucky baiting for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. when asked if he had considered featuring a gay hero in gotg2, director James Gunn stated that "We might have already done that. I say, watch the movie." after the movie's release audiences were understandably confused about the lack of queer representation. To which the director followed up his comments with, "But we don't really know who's gay and who's not. It could be any of them."

there is also Loki, considered by most fans after the airing of his six episode series on Disney+ to be both a poor attempt at both genderfluid representation and bisexual representation. with both attempts being summed up fairly well by the term "blink-and-you'll-miss-it". (also it's just terribly written and Loki doesn't wear any interesting clothes! fanficcers are a Goddamn blessing in this hard time!)

and let us not forget that Andrew Garfield was apparently FIRED for pushing for a bisexual spiderman. a bisexual spiderman within an interracial mlm relationship no less.

so for all these failures, marvel, why not allow us queer fans this? two brilliant and heroic men in a loving interracial relationship. two heroes that we can look up to.

now, one of the biggest detractions from the argument for representation is the idea of "forced diversity". and some poorly written characters certainly do end up feeling forced into the narrative. take Iceman in the comics for example, with Jean Grey just straight up suddenly telling him he's gay. like, marvel, sweetie, that's not how this works! and i don't know a lot of queer people who thought much of that "representation".

but the crux of the "forced diversity" argument is almost always that it feels unnatural within the story, right? and i don't think that anyone could say that about MCU Sam and Bucky ending up together, given these characters' existing chemistry and their history. they've both played characters in gay relationships before so we know that it's not outside of either actor's wheelhouse. and y'all know that Anthony and Seb can act, people. if it's in the script i believe that they'll make it seem like the most natural thing on earth.

9. it'd be a nice change

there's been an ongoing meme lately about "Disney's first gay character", the joke being that they continually announce gay characters without really ever including gay characters in their films.

this is to the point where Disney has formed a reputation amongst queer audiences of being homophobic.

if Sam and Bucky were to become a couple, then Disney could have its first actual gay character within a gay relationship. AND have him be in the lead of his own movie, no less.

it's also worth keeping in mind that there's likely an overlap between the people who were outraged by a Sam Wilson Captain America, and the people who'd be outraged by a gay Captain America. and if they were already not seeing the film, then i don't think much is gonna change that.

queer audiences would definitely love it, and the media attention would be guaranteed to be huge. i mean, simply look at the amount of media attention mere rumours of a character's queerness gets you and multiply that by a canon confirmation of said rumours.

but i'm pretty sure that Disney already knows this.

10. and yet, in truth, it's not about the representation

in truth i've never felt that i had any trouble relating to characters of any sexual orientation, race, gender, sex, body type, etc. (although that is not to throw any shade at all on people who do wish to see themselves represented) but for me, i think it's more about the story than the packaging.

and yet, a love story is still just a story. straight or queer, monoethnic or interracial. when two characters have chemistry and history and have sacrificed for each other time and time again, and they also can't keep their hands or their eyes off each other, then i'm pretty sure that that's a love story.

straight or queer, monoethnic or interracial, it shouldn't be about these simple labels. it should be about how well written the relationship is. it should be about chemistry, and history, and sacrifice.

because i'm fucking sick of all the hollow, forced romances in media no matter the genders of the participants. i'm sick of lazily written, shallow relationships where any two people sharing the same space for any extended period of time will simply fall in love. it's boring, it's repetitive, and as a writer myself it drives me up the wall!

romance stories suck! and everyone knows that romance stories suck. between twilight, and most of the entire YA genre, and love triangles (so boring), and romance used as poorly-written throwaway subplots in Hollywood movies, the world is in agreement that the romance in western media is simply dreadful. and yet we still want love stories. it's an entire genre that sits at the heart of the human experience (<3), and yet one which so few of today's best known writers seem truly able to capture.

i don't think that i'm the only one who feels this way, either. i suspect it's actually a large part of why fandom is so romance-centred in the first place, that we're all just starving for a good love story.

(btw i think fandom has a reputation for being something that as a whole that it is not. it has this reputation for straight up demanding things and harassing people until they get their way. while unfortunately there are a few people who do this, they're fucking annoying and i swear that they're far from the majority.

in my experience fandom is mostly about writing a five thousand word story at three am while drunk off your ass because it might make someone whom you've never met smile, editing it in the cold light of day, and then posting it. expecting nothing. sometimes getting nothing. and sometimes getting someone send you kudos or a comment so heartbreakingly wonderful that it makes you smile in return.)

11. so once again, it is all about the writing.

i want to see Sam and Bucky get together in the mcu, not because they would be a gay couple but because i genuinely believe that their story has potential to be an amazing love story.

and i know the mcu isn't about the romance. it's why in my personal opinion we haven't gotten a lot of good canon romances besides Peter Quill and Gamora. and i don't think that the mcu should be all about the romance either. i fucking love the action and the fighting scenes. i love the comedy. Captain America: The Winter Soldier had no romance and it was a fucking treasure, it was an amazing spy-action-thriller and it made my little gay heart dance. Thor Ragnarok had no romance, and it was an utterly brilliant comedic spectacle action film. not every movie needs romance.

but mcu Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes were doing couple's therapy and fixing a boat and walking off into the sunset together in tfatws. they were inseparable on the battlefield. they've got a dynamic. it's beautiful, it's romantic, and it's gold.

a budding relationship between them in the next movie would be a good way to explore both characters more without the narrative feeling too stilted and separate. at the end of tfatws, both Sam and Bucky fans found that their respective fave felt somewhat underutilised and that their characters were underexplored.

now, that problem would be even more difficult to remedy in a movie, because the plotline of a movie needs to be really tight to work (giggity). and we know that the central conflict of the movie is gonna be action-based (which is good), but we still need each character's personal journey and growth to tie into the main conflict. (which is another issue that some fans found with tfatws, that these characters didn't really feel connected to the action-based plot on a more personal level.)

if Sam and Bucky are already in a relationship, however, this whole dynamic changes. first, their relationship has already been set up for nicely since TWS and through tfatws and they would officially be the best-fleshed-out couple in the mcu. but most importantly, a relationship gives them a perfect vehicle to explore both of their pasts comparatively and connect them personally to the action-based plot.

do you want to establish that Sam is a little too trusting and naïve? then establish this through his relationship with Bucky, and through showing his placing his trust in Bucky. (rather than through having him sympathise with a villain who threatened to murder his sister and his nephews).

perhaps you want to show Bucky recovering from his trauma? show us how comfortable he is with Sam. they get along, they're enjoying each other's presence, we see more of Sam's life and of his family, and then let Bucky tell Sam something that's raw and dark and honest about his life as The Winter Soldier. something about a memory, one that he only just recalled. he's opening up. and maybe what he tells Sam is even something that sets up the future action-based conflict, to ground that in something real.

you want to explore that Sam has trauma too? do this through Bucky. he tells Bucky a story about his time in the military. in the form of a flashback, he shares his own story of loss to evoke before the audience the shared theme of feeling at fault even when you're simply a helpless bystander to an act of pure destruction.

then, action sequence! and it's directly connected to Bucky's time as the Winter Soldier. explore the grief of someone whose life the Winter Soldier tore apart manifesting into a villain perpetuating the cycle of pain. establish your villain.

Later, Sam is dragged into battle against this villain for protecting Bucky. But Bucky doesn't want Sam to protect him. He feels guilt for what he can't control and he doesn't want Sam getting hurt because of him. Bucky reminds Sam that he has a family, one who needs him and who loves him. He tells him to go home.

Sam reminds Bucky that he's a part of that family. And that sure Sam's a hero and his job is to protect anyone and everyone, but that he's doing it because he wants to. It's not simply to prove that he can, or to prove that he's not a bystander (this connects to Sam's trauma here), but that he's doing it to help people.

and this gets Bucky thinking about who he is and what he's doing here. is he a hero who stands by Sam's side? or is he an ordinary man who stands aside? or perhaps, does he stand alone? what does he stand for? Maybe Sam knows. But does Bucky?

Sam and Bucky fight off the villain again, and for the first time Bucky meets this adversary face to face. And Bucky recognises this villain, and has a flashback to the genuine pain that he inflicted upon them in the form of the Winter Soldier. Bucky freezes mid-fight, he almost dies, and Sam has to save him.

Sam chews Bucky out for almost getting killed because he was afraid for him. but Bucky takes this the wrong way and goes off to fight the villain alone, or perhaps to die alone, he's not quite sure.

He puts up a half-hearted fight. He apologises for what the Winter Soldier has done, and he waits for the killing blow, when Sam swoops down and he saves him. He asks Sam why he saved him and Sam calls him a moron. And then, Sam asks him what sacrificing himself would solve. He tells him that you can't choose your past but you can choose your future (connecting to his own experience of loss and guilt and grief). And that no matter what Bucky Barnes still has a future, whether that's as the Winter Soldier or the White Wolf or just some dork with a day job. And that he has a future as a part of Sam's family too.

Sam fights the villain, and it's toe to toe. He delivers a few good blows, but receives a fair few himself. And then the villain tears off his wings, first one and then the other, in a manner reminiscent of what the Winter Soldier did to him in TWS. Through Bucky's eyes there's a flashback to highlight the parallels. Sam gets back on his feet and he fights his best fight, but is now losing.

And then the heavily injured Bucky steps up and fights by Sam's side, and only together do they take down the villain.

"So... I inspired you, huh?" Sam teases with a smile, utterly exhausted. "With my heroism and-"

"You inspired me." Bucky said, equally exhausted. "Let's leave it at that."

Together, Sam and Bucky go back to the safety and warmth of their family. Sam fixes his wings. Sam goes back to being Captain America. And Bucky... he's around, but it's unclear what he's doing.

That is, until the very end. When Sam is in a fight, and suddenly Bucky shows up and helps him out.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asks.

"I've made up my mind." Bucky says. "I'm the Winter Soldier. But now I'll save lives, Sam. Now, like you, I'll be a hero."

Sam smirks. "So does this make you my sidekick, then?"

Bucky smiles. "C'mon, at least make me a partner." He says.

"How about co-workers." Sam says (in flashback, he remembers back to the death of his last on-the-job partner).

"How about friends." Bucky says, with a wry look.

"Bucky... I don't want to see you put your dumbass self in danger." Sam says.

"Oh, and it's ok for you to go running off into danger on your own all the time?" Bucky asks.

"Yes." Sam says stubbornly. "Absolutely it is."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not a dumbass?!"

"Sam, if you think I'm not gonna be watching your back for the rest of time... then you're the biggest dumbass I know. And I don't care if you need me or not, I will be there for you."

"Because Sam, you're more than Captain America. You're more than a good soldier. You're a good man. And I think sometimes, the world forgets what the difference is."

...or something like that.

(i only spent like 15 minutes on that. you know if i were actually writing this movie i would come up with something much better. and if anyone from marvel is seeing this, yes i can come work for you. i will make the time, let's do this thing right!)

finale

at the end of the day, whether or not the mcu chooses to make Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes a couple, it's their decision. and they don't owe me anything.

i'm just some random person on the internet. who thinks that Captain America 4 should #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend

#givecaptainamericaaboyfriend #meta #analysis #captain america 4 #caatws #fatws #tfatws #captain america #cap 4 #sam wilson #bucky barnes #sambucky #marvel #mcu #mcu phase 4

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agentnico · 3 years

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) Review

So, are we just gonna sit here not addressing the elephant in the room or do we give director Hayao Miyazaki a call and make him aware that he has full right to sue Disney for blatantly stealing his design of the water dragon from his movie Spirited Away? I don’t know, just seems like the cool thing to do these days, you know, suing Disney? Wait, is that me throwing shade at Black Widow for no reason? Why yes, yes it is.

Plot: Martial-arts master Shang-Chi confronts the past he thought he left behind when he's drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization.

Critics and reviews are useless. Yes, stating that makes me a hypocrite of the highest order of orders seeing as I am a film critic myself, albeit an unpaid one. I even have a T-shirt that states “UNPAID FILM CRITIC” and that is both hilarious and also self-heart-breaking but nonetheless you are not here to read about my wardrobe contents. You’re here to read about my thoughts on Shang-Chi and all those numerous rings that are referred to even though we all know that the only ring that matters is the One Ring that needs to be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came!! Unfortunately that ring does not make an appearance in this film nor is it even mentioned, and that may be due to the case of it belonging to a different franchise entirely however, and this is a big however... I don’t give a crap! Gimme the One Ring!! I wants it!! The precious is MINE!! But anyway, returning to my original point from which I strayed unnecessarily, this movie underlined how frustrating reviews can be.

You see, Shang-Chi is a solid movie. It very much is a good solo superhero origin story that features some well choreographed martial arts action sequences and makes great strides in pushing for diversity in major Hollywood blockbusters. Similar to Black Panther in fact. That is all well and good, however about half a month ago this film was previewed to a bunch of critics and they all came out with their social media reactions and reviews screaming and hailing this movie as being one of the greatest superhero solo movies ever. Naturally that got us all really excited, especially since at least in my eyes, with me being a huge Marvel Cinematic Universe fan and all, Shang-Chi was never particularly in my radar of interest originally as I was more looking forward to other MCU upcoming titles such as Thor: Love & Thunder, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and The Eternals. So when critics came out on the internet spilling endless praise for Shang-Chi, my first reaction was “DA FAK!?” following which I joined on the hype train and screamed “choo-choo!” in excitement as I looked forward to this new exciting entry in the MCU. Having now watched the film I come out feeling disappointed, as even though I enjoyed it, like any Marvel film, I find that this movie suffers heavily from being overrated.

As stated prior, Shang-Chi, like any Marvel movie, is enjoyable. It’s perfect blockbuster movie escapism filled with action, fun characters, big visuals and many references and Easter Eggs that would excite die hard franchise fans. However does this film really offer anything truly out of the ordinary that other films prior to it have not? The central dramatic plot dynamic involving a son and his father not seeing eye to eye due to one being blind sighted from reality is very common in the world of cinema. Also the martial arts action sequences, though certainly well choreographed and especially one of the first fight sequences set in a magic forest (naturally) that plays out more like a dance is worth mentioning, are cool to look at, however they too are downgraded by some sloppy editing and camera cuts that really make you lose the feeling of immersion that some superior martial arts films have such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or The Raid or any of the Bruce Lee movies. I’m certain that the stunts and choreography are effortless, but due to the shaky filmmaking and jump cuts I missed a lot of it. However nevertheless for Marvel and the superhero genre as a whole this is evidently more impressive than the usual Hulk-smashing shenanigans.

The central main cast is made up of mostly Asian heritage which of course is great for diversity in cinema, and to be fair many of these actors prove themselves to be major stars that fit quite smoothly into such a big blockbuster as Shang-Chi. Simu Liu as the titular character is a natural born star. He has that genuine star power and he easily proves that he can carry a big movie. He has the necessary charm and charisma that shines on screen, so I look forward to seeing him more as this character in future MCU entries, and also hope this proves Simu Liu a gateway into more mainstream movie projects. Awkwafina is fine in her role as Shang-Chi’s best friend Katy, and it was nice seeing a central duo of a man and a woman that doesn’t force a useless love story between them. They are just friends and it was nice seeing that type of dynamic. That being said I personally am not a fan of Awkwafina and her overly croaky voice, but that of course is just personal preference. Tony Leung as Shang-Chi’s father and also previously Marvel teased villain the Mandarin brings the necessary heft and gravitas to the role, and also a certain appearance by a British actor returning as a character we’ve seen previously in another Marvel movie was a welcome surprise that brought many laughs in my screening and honestly this guy nearly stole the entire show. It’s just that this is such a well written and performed character and I’m so happy they brought him back. I’m certain if you look it up on the old Internet Explorer you’ll find out who I’m talking about, however no spoilers in this review.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a perfectly enjoyable Marvel movie featuring martial arts. That’s in a nutshell what it is. It has moments of true greatness but in my opinion doesn’t actually stand out that much from other Marvel solo superhero outings. That’s in no way a complaint towards the movie, I’m just confused as to why this movie is so overrated? Maybe I’m missing something. Regardless, I’m now gonna go back and focus on the ring that actually matters - the One Ring - and begin yet another marathon of the Lord of the Rings movies. Ciao!

Overall score: 6/10

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davidmann95 · 4 years

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JJ Abrams Superman Movie officially announced, with Ta-Nahisi Coates writing

Anonymous said: Just a few days after you said you were happy with DC taking a break from Superman movies and just focusing on him being on tv again, they go and announce a new Superman movie. How do you feel? Coates is an exciting choice, I think

Caught me red-handed! But to be fair a couple times I said that I left a caveat of ‘barring extraordinary circumstances’, which I’d say this qualifies as.

There’s only so much to go off of at this point, but even these tidbits open up a lot to think about.

* As out of left field as Coates feels at first blush - he’s a Marvel man! - it’s not entirely shocking that he’d be on WB’s shortlist to be their ‘how to fix Superman’ guy: he got a MacArthur Genius Grant the same year as his #1 bestselling book about what the American Way actually means, after which he got into superhero writing with a run that ended up having elements incorporated into a cultural moment in Black Panther, and then Between The World And Me was cited as the inspiration for the Watchmen show that substantially drew on Superman iconography and won 11 Emmys. People are already talking about him admittedly not being a DC or Superman guy (though in that same interview he notes his love for the DCAU, specifically including STAS), but if he’s here he’s got something to say and, y’know, probably read a decent amount of Superman stuff either since then/prior to this or to get ready for the gig, so can’t say I’m worried.

* Related note: I’m seeing folks concerned about how much control he’ll really have over the project, which is fair. But that it’s his involvement that’s being touted over JJ Abrams’ (the guy who, like him or not, rebirthed Star Wars as a going concern to the tune of over $2 billion), and that they’re formally announcing and hyping it up as TA-NEHISI COATES’ SUPERMAN MOVIE™, COMING 202X before even having a director or lead actor attached, says to me that whatever his vision is it’s one WB’s going all-in on for the time being.

* I’ve seen plenty of discussion already about the appropriateness of this potentially starring a black Superman given both the dynamics/thematics of Superman as a character, and more significantly the implications of Coates maybe only being brought onboard to do ‘the black version’. That is a conversation I have precisely zero qualifications to wade in on with my own takes, but given that he is a dude with enough options that he could probably even turn down an opportunity on this scale, and the aforementioned weight being given to his role in this, I think it’s safe to say whatever we’re going to get is something he’s onboard with.

* Also seen concerns re: his pedigree as a fiction writer - another one I’m not that qualified to weigh in on, I’ve only read the first year or so of his Black Panther and Captain America runs (though I got the rest of his BP on Comixology while it was free, gotta check it out sometime), which were solid if a bit more workmanlike than you’d hope, along with the (other category altogether) Between The World And Me some time ago, which was...considerably more than solid. I know however his fiction novel debut in The Water Dancer was well-received, his Marvel work rather than staying ‘grounded’ hasn’t shied away from the sort of outré high concepts you’d want to see in a Superman movie, and the main criticism of his runs of ‘they’re too slow’ wouldn’t likely have the space to apply in a 2-3 hour Hollywood blockbuster, so again, not too concerned.

* Perhaps time will make me eat my words, but hot take: there is a basically 0% chance this is about Calvin Ellis or Val-Zod. Yes, yes, the DC movies are reportedly embracing the multiverse an excuse to do standalone stuff, but the two examples of that thus far in Joker and The Batman are still broadly rooted in the conventional trappings of those characters even if they’re separated from the ‘main universe’. Maybe someday the options might go further afield, but right now, when Superman hasn’t had an unambiguous silver screen hit in over 40 years? They’re not going to pour a quarter-billion dollars into a movie with the premise of “last son of the doomed planet Krypton, imbued beneath Earth’s yellow sun with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men and raised with the noblest ideals of truth and justice, Some Other Guy Most Of You Don’t Know protects the world...as Superman!” Not even getting into Val-Zod being just one member of an ensemble cast from a largely overlooked book and having the baggage of being Zod’s kid, and the EVERYTHING of making a four-quadrant tentpole film about Super-Obama (when you haven’t even been able to make your regular Super work) - this is either going to be Clark, or if they do make Superman black or brown but still want some distance it’ll be a Jon movie so it’s still got the direct connection to the original and the ‘son of Superman’ pitch in its corner too.

* Abrams is an interesting partner. He’s Hollywood’s big nostalgia guy, and that’s...probably not what Coates is going to be going for here. I assume he’s basically there to keep things familiar enough for WB’s tastes, which itself raises questions about the nature of Coates’ pitch and how it was internally received even if they’re clearly very publicly committed to it.

* Michael B. Jordan probably won’t really be the guy - he apparently talked about it, reasonably concluded he didn’t want to face that inevitable scale of backlash after what he already went through just playing the Human Torch, and the tradition is to cast an unknown in the part - but I guess never say never. Heck, while I sure wouldn’t bet on it I don’t think Ryan Coogler ending up involved is out of the question either; Coates’ previous screenwriting experience was working on a project with Coogler and Jordan that evidently didn’t come to fruition (Wrong Answer, a drama about a 2006 Atlanta public school cheating scandal), and they seem to have maintained a relationship as they had a public discussion regarding The Water Dancer in 2019.

* Ok I know making fun of Snyder people is passé at this point and usually more “NO SUPERMAN MOVIES MAY BE PERMITTED UNTIL THE CIVILIZATION-REDEFINING FIVE-FILM SAGA IS COMPLETE” howling into the void is barely worth notice, and “this is solely WB retaliating against us for bending them to our will!” in response to a Superman reboot would normally be just an amusing side-note too. But trying to get #HenryCavillSuperman/#HenryCavillIsOurSuperman trending in response to the possibility of a black Superman...I mean obviously so fucking many of them are fully aware they’re just not saying the quiet part loud, but what’re the percentages here?

So that’s what I’ve got so far. How do I feel about it all? It’s odd; given that there are basically no actual details beyond a name attached I’d never thought about in this context, and that this came with no forewarning just as the prospect of Superman in movies for the next long while seemed as dead as it ever had been, it’s so ill-defined and seems so unreal that I don’t feel much of anything about it yet? Plus I’m no longer driven on a day-by-day basis by a savage, all-consuming desire to slake a thirst for quality Superman stuff long left unquenched the way I was even a couple years ago, which likely also plays its part. But objectively? This is a guy formally, nationally recognized for being smart who’s also a journalist and comics fan being given Superman, with what sure feels like a lot of leeway and presumably a blank slate, which is basically the abstract concept of a perfect pick. So yes: I formally rescind my “please no Superman movies in the 2020s” plea.

#Superman #Ta Nehisi Coates #JJ Abrams #Calvin Ellis #Val Zod #Jon Kent #Michael B. Jordan #Ryan Coogler #DCEU #Worlds of DC #Opinion

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nclkafilms · 3 years

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Politically impotent, but highly entertaining courtroom drama

(Review of ‘Trial of the Chicago 7’)

*Warning: contains minor spoilers*

To say that the autumn release of Aaron Sorkin’s ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ felt timely following a summer of numerous instances of police brutality against peaceful #BlackLivesMatter protesters would be an understatement. To say that Sorkin’s high speed courtroom drama is revolutionary in any way whether as a film or a contribution to a political debate would - on the other hand - be a serious overstatement. From the sharply constructed and fast paced opening sequence where all our main characters are introduced with fast editing, upbeat music and brilliantly written shifting dialogue, Sorkin’s main mission (or ultimate fate) is clear: ‘Trial’ should above all be entertaining filmmaking.

Its story does not seem as the obvious fit for an entertaining story, however. In the shadows of the Vietnam War’s growing number of fatalities, various protest groups plan to come to Chicago in 1968 for the Democratic Party Convention to voice their contempt towards the US’ involvement in the war and the military service procedures. The protests, however, end in violent confrontations with the Chicago police. In the aftermath of these confrontations the leaders of the different protest groups are prosecuted for inciting riot and breaking various other laws. It is the battle between the Nixon administration and their oppositions represented by Students for a Democratic Society, the Yippies, several smaller figures and for some reason Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers (actually making it the Chicago 8), although they did not take part in the protests. The film follows their trial at the hands of eccentric and controversial Judge Hoffman combined with flashbacks to the events of the protest.

The film won the SAG ensemble award and that stands perhaps as one of the single least surprising awards of this awards season. ‘Trial’ is - as hinted at by the title - an ensemble piece if there ever was one. The film has no real lead, although Eddie Redmayne as Tom Hayden (SDS), Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman (Yippies) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Richard Shultz (Prosecutor) might be at the centre of attention. All involved actors have clearly had a good time with their roles portraying them with great enthusiasm, but for most parts also some degree of limitations.

Redmayne’s Hayden is the typical “good guy” who forgets to stay seated when the group protests the judge and continues to argue with Abbie about their political opinions and especially the manner in which they want them implemented. Redmayne does a decent job, but Hayden never really unfolds as a fully fleshed character to me. I do not feel that Redmayne ever really becomes his character and that is main reason why I never fully connected with him. Baron Cohen has run away with most attention for his portrayal of Abbie Hoffman, which I think partially is down to the fact that he is a somewhat unusually dramatic role for the Borat-actor. Cohen is without a doubt a better actor than he might be acknowledged as, and Abbie allows him a chance to show that. It is, however, still in combination with his classical sarcasm and wit that Cohen fully succeeds with his character. Through a returning stand-up routine throughout the film, Cohen’s Hoffman functions in some ways as a narrator and might be the closest we get to a leading role. He also gets to deliver the most touching lines of dialogue in my opinion as he takes the chair towards the end. Finally Gordon-Levitt tries his best to convey the mixed emotions and increasing doubt as Schultz faces the choice between blind loyalty and his devotion to the law. While I always love to see Gordon-Levitt on the screen, I cannot help but feel that Schultz as a character feels highly constructed and I had a hard time believing him to be that sympathetic towards the Chicago 7.

In many ways, I found Mark Strong as Jerry Rubin, John Carroll Lynch as Dave Dellinger and Mark Rylance as the defendants’ attorney, William Kunstler, to be more fascinating characters than both Hayden and Schultz in particular. Mark Strong continues to be more and more interesting and his Jerry Rubin is easily the most enjoyable character along with Cohen’s Hoffman. Strong, too, manages to balance the vulnerability of the sometimes blue-eyed Yippies with their sarcastic distancing and humour-driven protests in the courtroom. I actually believed in his character, when both the protests and the juridical proceedings become too overwhelming for him and he snaps in various ways. Carroll Lynch is an almost criminally underused actor and here I, too, would have liked to explore his character more as he feels so different from the remaining defendants. With the limited material he gets, he manages to create a sympathetic character. The same can be said about Rylance, who uses all of his theatricality as be battles with Frank Langella’s overdone Judge Hoffman. Langella gives it everything and then some to make Hoffman as unscrupulous, derailed and amoral as possible, which ultimately cooled my resentment towards him. He ended up feeling like a caricature more than an actual character and for that, way less scarier.

How come - despite all the characters’ flaws and limitations - that the film is still entertaining, then? Well, the main answer is Aaron Sorkin. While he is still to fully proof himself as a director (Molly’s Game also had some issues), he still is one hell of a writer. You can accuse him (rightly so) of over-writing his stuff, taking to many freedoms with his source material and balancing on the edge of using too much pathos, but it is hard to resist his razor sharp dialogues and tongue-in-cheek one-liners. He is no stranger to courtroom dramas and it is clear that he is on home-turf with all of these juridical and political exchanges of beliefs. For this reason, alone, ‘Trial’ never feels dull or slow. Additionally, this is aided by an often fast-paced editing and the fact, that it never dwells to long on one point before moving on to the next.

This, however, also stands as the main reason as to why the film never feels anything other than impotent as a political work. It never gets too dangerous or too controversial. It gets most dangerous, when it comes to the inclusion and portrayal of Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers. As Seale, extremely talented Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, is highly forgettable mainly down to the fact that Seale is reduced to a prop in the overall story. During the film, the court is accused of including Seale in the trial in order to scare the jury with a black man; adding a layer of racial injustice to the story. But in reality, it also feels as if Seale’s story line has been added to the film to “tick off” the race box; Fred Hampton is also thrown in there as Seale’s legal counsellor with his untimely death just briefly touched upon. The story of Seale, Hampton and the Panthers deserve more time, more attention and more gravity than given here; an initial opinion of mine that was only made clearer after watching ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’.

Ultimately, ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ is a highly flawed film and as a political work it stands as oddly harmless and undaring considering its timing and topic. However, thanks to another fast paced and sharp script by Aaron Sorkin, inspired performances from its all-star ensemble lead by Baron Cohen and Jeremy Strong and interesting plot it ends up as a highly entertaining courtroom film. A well-looking, satisfying meal, although it does not last for too long and leaves a somewhat questionable taste in the very back of my mouth.

4/5

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

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The Weekend Warrior 10/16/20: SYNCHRONIC, FRENCH EXIT, TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, LOVE AND MONSTERS, HONEST THIEF, THE KID DETECTIVE and More!

After the last couple weeks, I really need a break, which is why I’m writing most of this in transit to Columbus, Ohio to see my mother, sister and all (or some) of the friends that I made during my sabbatical to the city seven years ago for cancer treatment.

On, and look... Variety wrote about the movie theater chains and NATO lobbying Governor Cuomo to reopen movie theaters, showing that there’s been no proof of any cases leading back to movie theaters. (And more from The Hollywood Reporter…) New York leads and the world follows? More like ED leads and the world follows. Been saying this shit for months now and putting up with all sorts of needless abuse for it.

This week’s “Featured Flick” is actually a movie coming to theaters on October 23, but since I’m not sure I’m writing a column next week, I’m gonna review it this week! Cool? The movie is SYNCHRONIC (Well Go USA), and it’s the follow-up to Aaron Moorehead and Justin Benson’s amazing sci-fi film The Endless from a few years back. This ome stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as parademics in New Orleans who have been coming across a series of bodies that have died in gruesome ways, all connected by a designer drug they were all taking.

I’ll just say right from the start that I loved almost everything about this movie from the amazing performances by Mackie and Dornan to the entire look and tone of the movie, which shows the duo taking huge steps forward as filmmakers, particularly Benson as a screenwriter. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what I can say about the movie and its plot without spoiling other’s enjoyment. I will say that it involves a designer drug and time travel and Mackie’s character has something odd about his brain that makes him better suited to figure out what is happening to the victims than others might be. Also, Dornan’s character Dennis has family issues, particularly with his daughter Brianna (Ally Ioannides), who disappears mysteriously, but it’s so nice seeing Katie Aselton as Dennis’ wife, as well as in another movie out this week.

I’ll also say that people who watch this movie will inevitably make comparisons to the work of Alex Garland and maybe even the more-versed ones might see a little of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome in the film’s trippy nature. The thing is that the movie is super-smart, and it’s obvious that Moorehead and Benson must have done a lot of research to make every aspect of it feel authentic. It’s just amazing what this duo can do with a small fraction of the money that Christopher Nolan had to make Tenet, and yet, they can create a complex and unique premise that’s actually easy to understand. Things like the camerawork, the music and sound design all add to the amazing tone and the mood that the duo have created.

I also think it’s Mackie’s best role and performance in many years, maybe even going back to The Hurt Locker, so as a long-time fan, I’m glad he connected with Moorehead/Benson to show that he’s more than capable of leading a movie like this.

Again, Synchronic will be in movie theaters and drive-ins NEXT Friday, October 23, but I want to give you an advance heads up, because Synchronic is likely to be the most original sci-fi or genre film you see this year. If you can’t get to the drive-in and don’t feel comfortable going to a movie theater, then I’m sure it will be on digital soon enough, but you definitely shouldn’t miss it!

Next up is Aaron Sorkin’s THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO SEVEN, streaming on Netflix starting Friday and the movie I was most looking forward to seeing this week. I was such a huge fan of Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10 documentary, which opened Sundance in 2007, especially with how he recreated the court trials using animation and a talented roster of voice actors including Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo and Geoffrey Wright. Sorkin has just as an impressive list of actors for his version, including Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Frank Langella, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and many more.

If you don’t know about the protests outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago – you see, back in those days, the Democrats were the bad guys… how times have changed!! Those protests led to a number of arrests but a few years later, the federal government charged a number of individuals with inciting the riot. The accused include Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II from Aquaman and Watchmen, Abbie Hoffman (Cohen), FBI agent Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch) and two more. The six white guys are defended by Mark Rylance’s William Kunstler, who faces the tough Judge Hoffman (Langella) who is not putting up with any guff from these young revolutionaries.

All of the characters are quickly introduced with a quick-cut opening montage with actual newsreel footage, but then we’re quickly moved to a meeting to the Attorney General (Keaton) with the trial’s prosecutor (Gordon-Levitt). From there, we’re right into the trial about 16 minutes into the movie, although Sorkin frequently cuts back to the actual day of the Chicago protest to recreate what happened as testimony is given. Probably the part that will have the most impact and resonance is the way Seale was mistreated compared to the others, getting so riled up at the judge that the judge orders him chained and gagged. The trial would end up taking place for almost 7 months even though the results were eventually overturned.

This really is perfect material for Sorkin, and maybe if I hadn’t seen Chicago 10 first, I would have been a lot more fascinated by the trial sequences, though Morgen did an equally great job working from the transcripts. Basically, what happened happened. Where Sorkin’s screenplay and film excels is showing what’s going on outside the courtroom, whether it’s the recreations or just conversations taking place between the plaintiffs. As might be expected from Sorkin, the screenplay is great with lots of fast talking, making for a movie that moves at a kinetic pace for its two hours.

If I had to pick a few of the best performances, I’d probably focus on Cohen’s Abbie Hoffman, which is more than just an accent, he and Strong’s Rubin bantering back and forth like a seasoned Vaudeville act; Rylance’s Kunstler is spot-on, and Langella is just great as the crusty judge, the film’s only true antagonist. I also appreciated John Carroll Lynch and in fact, all the performances, although I felt that with so many characters, Sorkin wasn’t able to give Bobby Seale the time his story truly needed. Still, I would be shocked if this isn’t considered a SAG Ensemble frontrunner.

Ultimately, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a fine recreation of a certain moment in history that still feels relevant and timely fifty years later, even if it’s so heavy at times you either need to focus or, like me, watch it on Netflix in two sittings. I still liked Steve McQueen’s movie Mangrove that takes place in a similar era and also culminates in a trial just a little bit better.

Before we get to the rest of this week’s new movies, I have one last review from the New York Film Festival, and it’s the closing night film, FRENCH EXIT, from director Azazel Jacobs and writer Patrick Dewitt, who has adapted his own book. The film stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Frances Price, a Manhattan widow from wealth who discovers she has no more money, just as her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges with longer hair than usual) has decided to marry his girlfriend Susan (Imogen Poots) though he hasn’t told his mother that yet. With no other options, Francis takes her son on a ship to live in Paris for a while at the home of one Mme. Renard (Valarie Mahaffey), an elderly woman who is a genuine fan of Francis and welcomes them as her guests.

This is one of those ensemble character dramedies that I wouldn’t even be able to begin to tell you why you should see it unless you miss seeing Pfeiffer in a semi-decent performance, but one that doesn’t do much as the film itself is so boring and insufferably pretentious most of the time I’m not sure I can even recommend it for that.

Jacobs and Dewitt previous made the movie Teri maybe ten years ago, and I was never really a fan, so I’m not sure why I thought that Dewitt adapting his own book would bear better results. Once Frances and Malcolm get to Paris, there’s just an influx of odd characters who show up, some who have more impact than others. I liked seeing Danielle Macdonald as a psychic medium the duo meet on the ship across the Atlantic who Malcolm bonks. She’s brought back when Frances wants her to conduct a séance to communicate with her late husband who she thinks is now inhabiting an omni-present cat. Like everything else, the relationship between Malcolm and Susan and how that’s affected by her meeting a new guy just never goes anywhere.

For the most part, the whole thing is just dull and uninteresting, and so pretentious it never really leads to anything even remotely memorable. I have no idea why the New York Film Festival would decide to close with this one. (Although the 58th NYFF is over, some of the movies will hit its Virtual Cinema soon, so keep an eye out! For instance, this Friday, FilmLinc begins a Pietro Marcello retrospective as well as showing his latest film Martin Eden in FilmLInc’s Virtual Cinema.)

Liam Neeson stars in Mark Williams’ HONEST THIEF (Open Road), a crime-thriller in which he plays Tom Carter, the uncaught robber behind 12 bank robberies who decides to settle down with Kate (Grey’s Anatomy) Walsh’s Annie Wilkins, who he meets while renting a storage space to hide all the money he’s stolen. After a year of things getting serious with Annie, Tom decides to retire so he calls the FBI and says he’s ready to give back the 9 million, but two crooked FBI agents (one played by Jai Courtenay, the other by Anthony Ramos) decide they’re going to take the money instead. Their plan to steal the money Tom’s trying to return leads to a number of deaths, including putting Annie in the hospital. When that happens, Tom has had enough, and honestly, there’s no one better at getting revenge than Neeson. (Did we mention that Carter is ex-Marine? I mean, of course he is!)

Many will go into Honest Thief expecting the typical Neeson action revenge flick ala Taken or maybe one of his high-concept thrillers, but Honest Thief isn’t nearly that exciting. It starts out fairly slow and dry with no real crime or action elements, although Williams does throw them in from time to time. The whole thing is pretty dry, and it’s a good 54 minutes before we get to the revenge aspect of the story and that’s after a lot of bad decisions being made across the board. Anyone who is still wondering how Jai Courtney has a career won’t be changing that decision by his turn as the villain, and it’s a lot odd when the movie tries to make a sympathetic character out of his partner, played by Ramos.

Regardless, any elements that make Honest Thief unique from other Neeson action movies are quickly tossed aside for the same usual cliches, and the action scenes aren’t even that great. While Honest Thief may not be an awful or unwatchable movie, it’s probably not the action movie you might be expecting from Neeson – more like a bargain basement The Fugitive with one plot decision that almost kills the whole movie.

Delayed a number of times and now dumped to PVOD (with minimal theatrical) is Paramount’s LOVE AND MONSTERS, which is written by the prolific Bryan Duffield (The Babysitter, Spontaneous), directed by Michael Matthews and produced by Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment. In the movie, Dylan O’Brien plays Joel Dawson, a young man surviving the apocalypse with a small community after the government’s plot to blast a couple asteroids heading to earth backfires. Instead, it creates giant, carnivorous monsters out of the earth’s animals who eliminate 95% of the earth’s human population. (We learn all of this through a Zombieland-like animated prequel getting us up to speed.) Before the earth fell into disarray, Joel was in love with Jessica Henwick’s Aimee, but they were separated by the fateful events. Seven years later, they’re reconnected via radio and Joel has sworn to travel the 85 miles across the creature-covered wasteland to reunite with her. Hence, the title “Love and Monsters.” Get it?

I actually didn’t hate this movie, although it’s not really a family film or one meant for young kids, because it’s PG-13 for a reason, including mild violence i.e. people being chomped by monsters, and some sexuality. Dylan O’Brien does a decent job carrying it, but it relies just as much on the other people he meets, particularly Michael Rooker’s Clyde and his young ward Minnow, played by Ariana Greenblatt, the latter who is such a scene-stealer that it’s disappointing they’re only in the movie for a small chunk. They’re probably the funniest part of the movie.

I like giant monsters and these ones are certainly … interesting. They seem to have been toned down a bit maybe to be more kid-friendly, more like the kid-friend Godzilla than the terror we’ve seen in recent incarnations. There are also a number of great action set-pieces, and some good post-Apocalyptic ideas we haven’t seen, especially when Duffield’s dark sense of humor is able to come out and keep things fun.

Still, Love and Monsters is not a kids’ movie, and there’s something about it that might make people wish the filmmaker just went full-on R, because going further towards PG would have made even the best parts quite painful to get through. As it is, Love and Monsters is a suitably fine boy and his dog adventure – oh, did I mention the dog? – that would make a perfectly fine streaming movie.

We’ll get back to some of the other theatrical releases in a bit, but I wanted to get to two movies that were pleasant surprises, maybe because I went into them with absolutely zero expectations.

I wasn’t really sure what to think about Cooper Raiff’s SH#!%HOUSE (IFC Films) at first, maybe because it’s title is a little off-putting and not really particularly representative of what the movie is. Raiff himself plays Alex Malmquist, a fairly new arrival at his college but already missing home and his mother (Amy Landecker) and not really adjusting to the crazy college lifestyle as exemplified by his roommate Sam (Logan Miller). After a party at a frat called “Shithouse” (hence the title), Alex meets and connects with his dorm’s R.A. Maggie (Dylan Gelula) and the two spend the night bonding and hanging out.

Obviously, someone at IFC Films loves these platonic indie two-handers about people meeting and hanging out over the course of a night, because Shithouse is the second such movie after Olympic Dreams earlier in the year. They also must know that I’m a sucker for these kinds of semi-rom-coms, because just like with that other movie, I totally ate up everything Raiff was trying to do and say with his movie. The chemistry between the two leads is undeniable, and maybe it won’t be a surprise that Gelula also appeared in Raiff’s previous movie.

As with any relationship, things do come to an end, and this one crashes and burns in a very sad way for Alex the very next day. Maggie starts to pretend she doesn’t even know him, and she ignores his incessant texts saying how much he enjoyed their night together. Boy, I have been there back in my reckless and romantic days of youth.

At first, I wasn’t that into Raiff as an actor – remember what I’ve said about filmmakers casting themselves? – but Alex definitely grew on me. Gelula is absolutely amazing, and frankly, I can see someone “discovering” her in ten years and becoming a new Parker Posey, Kate Lynn Sheil or other similar indie ingenue.

The combination of the two is what makes Shithouse such a special experience, since their situations are quite relatable and Raiff does a great job with the characterization in his writing to make this quite enjoyable to see how things will resolve themselves.

I also wasn’t quite prepared for how much I’d enjoy Steve Byrne’s THE OPENING ACT (RLJEfilms), maybe because I was unfamiliar with Byrne, and as usual, I didn’t read the description of the movie before sitting down to watch it. If I did, I would have known that Byrne is a stand-up comic and presumably this movie is somewhat based on situations that have happened to him. It stars Jimmy O. Yang from Crazy Rich Asians (a great comic in his own right) as Willy Chu, a young comic who has always dreamed of making it in stand-up but instead, has been stuck trying to get slots at an open mic night, while holding down a day job working at an insurance company. One day, his friend (Ken Jeong) sets him up for an MC gig in Pennsylvania at the Improv where his idol Billy G (Cedric the Entertainer) will be performing, so Willy quits his job to pursue his dream.

Much of Byrne’s movie deals with Billy’s “adventure” in Pennsylvania with the club’s womanizing featured act (played by SNL’s Alex Moffatt) and trying to face the struggles of stand-up in hopes of getting to the next level. There have been better movies about the subject, like Mike Birbiglia’s Sleepwalk with You, but Byrne’s film is a nice addition, particularly because Yang plays such a likeable, benevolent character you want to see him do well even after he crashes and bombs on a Saturday night and is at risk of losing the Improv gig.

It’s obvious that Byrne pulled in a lot of favors from friends to get such a great cast of comics – even getting Whitney Cumming to make a cameo – but the likes of Bill Burr actually take on key roles, like Willy’s boss in that case. Moffatt is particularly hilarious expanding on some of his outrageous SNL characters to play a stand-up who actually does help Willy, even as he puts him in pretty awful situations. Cedric also gives another fantastic performance as Willy’s idol who gives him the cold shoulder at first but eventually comes around and offers him the mentoring that Willy needs.

The Opening Act isn’t anything particularly revelatory, but it is thoroughly entertaining, and a nice little indie that I hope people will discover for themselves, especially those who like (or perform) stand-up.

Edward James Olmos directs THE DEVIL HAS A NAME (Momentum Releasing) starring the great Oscar-nominated David Strathairn as almond farmer Fred Stern, who has been running his orchard for three decades with trusty second Santiago, played by Olmos himself. Things are going well until they notice that some of the trees are rotting. It turns out they’re being poisoned by the water that’s been sullied by crude oil run-off from the nearby Shore Oil rigs. Around the same time, an opportunist named Alex Gardner, played by Haley Joel Osment, offers Fred a very low-ball offer to buy the farm, though Fred suspects something is up, and sure enough, Shore Oil is responsible.

Another movie I didn’t know what to expect other than a few cursory elements is this movie “based on a true story” movie about the little farmer taking on “The Man.” In this case, Shore Oil is represented by Kate Bosworth’s Gigi Cutler, a tough exec. at the corporation who thinks their lawyers (one of them played by Katie Aselton!) can crush this local troublemaker. When Stern’s lawyer (Martin Sheen) sues the oil company for 2 billion, they need to start taking things seriously, bringing in a tough “fixer” played by Pablo Schreiber.

I’m not sure where to begin with this movie that certainly has noble intentions in telling this story but suffers from quite a few issues, mostly coming from the script. I was a little concerned once I knew the premise, because I was not a huge fan of Todd Haynes’ Dark Water from last year, although I did enjoy the Krasinski-Damon-Van Sant ecological venture, Promised Land. This one falls somewhere in between, and probably its biggest issue is that it tries to create some humor out of the erratic behavior of the characters played by Bosworth and Schreiber; both performances are so off-the-rails at times it regularly takes you out of Fred’s story. (Osment is also pretty crazy but at least he fits better into his role.) Strathairn is great and well-cast, and Olmos is equally good, and I imagine that it’s partially because many of their scenes are together, allowing Olmos to direct with his acting. Aselton and Sheen are also decent, especially in the courtroom scenes.

Oh, and did I mention that Alfred Molina plays the Big Boss, who is interrogating Cutler as a needless framing device? Yeah, there’s a lot of characters, and when you hold this up against something like The Trial of Chicago 7, it’s just obvious that the film has too many elements for any filmmaker to be able to juggle at once.

Because of this, The Devil Has A Name is an erratic real-life dramedy that’s too all over the place in terms of tone, it ends up shooting itself in the foot by trying (and failing) to be funny despite the serious subject matter.

Next up is 2 HEARTS (Silver Lion Films/ Freestyle Releasing), another movie based on a true story from the Hool Brothers, who I really wasn’t very familiar with. I assumed this was going to be a faith-based movie, and maybe in some ways it is, but not really. It essentially tells two stories set in different time periods that you assume will somehow be connected. Ooh, boy.

First, there’s Jacob Elordi of Euphoria and The Kissing Booth – neither of which I’ve seen, mind you – who plays Chris Gregory, a college kid who connects in a meet-cute way with Tiera Skovbye’s Sam. Before we get too far into their story, we cut back to what looks like Cuba in the ‘50s and 60s, and meet Jorge Bolivar (Adan Canto), the son of an alcohol magnate, a soccer player who suffers a serious lung issue that puts him in the hospital. Years later, Jorge is travelling to Miami when he meets Radha Mitchell’s Leslie working as a flight attendant.

Both guys are pretty suave smooth-talking pick-up artists, and the movie spends almost an hour cutting between two very corny and cheesy romance stories that really don’t offer much in terms of story. Instead, it keeps following Chris and Sam’s life as they have kids, taking forever to get to the connection between the stories. I was getting pretty bored of the movie, but I felt like I had to stick it out to see what happens.

When you call a movie “2 Hearts,” you kind of expect it to be about a heart transplant of some kind, right? But no, it’s actually about a dual lung transplant that Jorge receives. Want to take a wild guess who the donor is? I certainly don’t want to spoil what happens, but for a movie that spends a good hour setting up the relationships between the two men and their pretty blondes with ups and downs that makes it seem like a Nicholas Sparks movie, it really throws a spanner into the fairy tale with all the melodrama that’s to come. It’s such a whiplash in terms of tone it pretty much destroys any chance of one enjoying the movie for what it is. It also loses a lot without Elordi, since the actors who play his family aren’t very good at all.

I had to actually look up the story to see how much if it was true, only to learn that Jorge was based on Jorge Bacardi who actually received a double lung transplant from one Christopher Gregory, inspiring him to create the Gabriel House of Care. The problem is that the time periods get so messed up by setting one story decades in the past. Using the same actors to play the people over that time with pretty shabby make-up just makes things that much more confusing. The big problem is that it spends so much time avoiding the actual plot and point of making the movie that by the time it gets to it, you just don’t care about the characters anymore.

The whole thing is very by the books and predictable, but ultimately, it’s hard to believe any of it, despite it being based on a true story. If you go into this movie expecting love and romance and all that kind of mushy stuff from the title, you’re likely to be disappointed when the movie finally gets to its point. (In other words, it could have used some giant monsters.)

Here’s another movie that I didn’t really know what to expect going in and that probably should have helped me enjoy it more… if it was anything resembling a good movie. Picked up at the Toronto Film Festival where it premiered last month, Evan Morgan’s THE KID DETECTIVE (Sony) stars Adam Brody as Abe Appelbaum, the “kid detective” of the titles, who as a child was one of those super-smart kids who have the deductive powers to help the people in his community, but as a 32-year-old, he just isn’t taken as seriously any more. When a high school girl named Caroline (Sophie Nélisse) comes to Abe to find out who murdered her boyfriend, Abe finally realizes that he has his first grown-up case, though he’s still obsessed with the disappearance of the mayor’s daughter (and his kid receptionist) Gracie many years earlier.

I’m sure there’s gonna be people out there who watch and appreciate The Kid Detective for what it is, a wry and slightly clever noir pastiche pseudo-comedy, but anyone who has seen Rian Johnson’s first film Brick or the underrated Mystery Team (starring Donald Glover very early in his career) might feel that this doesn’t live up to either. Besides the fact that Brody really hasn’t developed much personality as an actor, the film rolls along with a fairly flat, deadpan tone that just never gets remotely exciting. The humor is subdued and yet it feels like everyone is constantly trying too hard, particularly Morgan, while at the same time not really taking any chances. This is a movie that could have been edgier but instead, it milks its flimsy high-concept premise as long as possible before giving up.

Like Love and Monsters, Sony is releasing The Kid Detective into theaters on Friday, and hopefully parents will check that rating before assuming it’s a kid flick. Although there isn’t so much bad language or anything that wouldn’t warrant a PG… other than the fact that it’s not particularly funny or even entertaining and kids will be super-bored.

I can’t believe there’s still more! Amazon’s “Welcome to the Blumhouse” anthology series continues this week with two more movies in the series of eight, which you can now watch on Prime Video:

Easily my favorite of the four movies I’ve seen is Zu Quirke’s NOCTURNE (Amazon), which follows a pair of twins, Julie (Sidney Sweeney) and Vivian (Madison Iseman), who are both competitive concert pianists at the Lindberg Academy, although Vivian is clearly the better, as she’s heading off to Julliard while Julian is taking a gap year.

Before we meet them, we see a young violist jumping off the balcony to her death for some reason, and we learn that she was the finalist to play a concerto, so now that slot is open and both Julie and her sister desperately want it.

Nocturne is certainly more like the horror movies we expect from Blumhouse, which is both good and bad. The good is that it is indeed quite scary as Quirke’s team uses really eerie lighting effects and other things to create suspense. But there’s also an artiness to what Quirke does that elevates Nocturne above the normal high-concept horror-thriller.

Quirke, who also wrote the film, delivers all the characterization you expect from a good horror film so that you really care about the characters, and she’s put together such a fine cast, particularly Sweeney who has to run a gamut of emotions as Julie. I also like Rodney To as Julie’s tough instructor Wilkins

Again, I won’t say too much more about the actual plot, although if you can imagine a Faustian bargain and how that plays out for those around Julie, you can probably understand why a super-fan of The Omen might dig what Quirke did in this environment.

The fourth movie in the “Welcome to the Blumouse” series is EVIL EYE (Amazon), from Indo-American filmmakers Elan and Rajeev Dassani, a relatively innocuous thriller based around the relationship between Pallavi (Sunita Mani from last week’s Save Yourselves! and GLOW) and her mother Usha, played by Sarita Choudhury. Pallavi is in her late 20s and single and her mother keeps wanting to get her set-up with a nice man, as a good Indian mother is wont to do. When Pallavi meets Sandeep (Omar Maskati), things are going well since he has money and her mother thinks her daughter has hit the jackpot, until she realizes that Sandeep has a dark secret.

Here’s another thriller where it’s really tough to talk about the plot, because obviously the filmmakers want the story to unfold in the specific way it was written. Apparently, this one was once an Audible story, and the first thing I noticed was how amazing Sunita Mani looks from her fairly glammed down roles in other things. I think she’s just wearing make-up and has her styled different but I’m not sure I would have known it was the same actor in Save Yourselves! Because I had to do a double take.

The problem with Evil Eye, and it’s been a problem with some of the other “Welcome to the Blumhouse” movies, is that it isn’t necessarily what I’d consider horror. It really plays a lot more like a romantic drama, other than the fact that Pallavi’s mother has visions and believes in astrology enough to send her daughter trinkets to protect her from the “evil eye.” In fact, the movie just gets weirder and weirder, as it starts introducing supernatural elements, and without giving the big plot twist away, it does expect one to believe in reincarnation.

I wish I could have liked this more, but it really seems like it would be better suited for a show like “The Outer Limits” or “The Twilight Zone,” since the premise is stretched so think for about 30 minutes longer than necessary. I think the filmmakers did perfectly fine with what they had to work with – the two main actresses are just fab – but I think I’d need to see some of their other work to see if the issues I had were just cause the story isn’t that interesting or by their limitations in making it.

(And I promise that I do have a feature on all the filmmakers from the first four “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series coming over at Below the Line, but it’s been a pretty tough piece to write.)

I reviewed Alex Gibney’s new doc Totally Under Control (Neon/Participant), co-directed with Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger, in last week’s column but it’s now available to watch On Demand and then it will be on Hulu starting next Tuesday, October 20. Obviously, everyone wanted to get this out there and make sure people see it before they get too in-deep with the election.

I also reviewed David Byrne’s American Utopia (HBO), directed by Spike Lee, a few weeks back, but it will be on HBO and presumably HBO Max on Sunday night. Not as big an event as Disney+’s Hamilton but still worth watching, especially if you’re a fan of Byrne or his band the Talking Heads, because it actually acts as a nice counterpoint bookend to the late Jonathan Demme’s fantastic Stop Making Sense, one of the best concert documentaries ever made, or at least top 5. I’m bummed I missed Byrne’s show on Broadway, and it doesn’t sound like Broadway will be coming back anytime soon so I guess this HBO documentation is the best any of us can wish for.

Of the movies I didn’t have time to watch this week, the two that I’m hoping to still get to are two docs: Inna Blockhina’s SHE IS THE OCEAN (Blue Fox Entertainment) and Rick Korn’s HARRY CHAPIN: WHEN IN DOUBT, DO SOMETHING (Greenwich). She Is the Ocean explores the lives of nine women who all have a passion for the ocean. The Harry Chapin doc may be more self-explanatory, and I wish I was a bigger fan of Chapin, the famed singer/songwriter/activist, because maybe I would have watched this movie earlier. (But seriously, look at how many movies came out this week, when I was hoping it would be “slower”!) Also, I’m a little bit interested in the K-Pop doc #BlackPinkLightUpTheSky that will air on Netflix, just because, I dunno, I like adorable, young Asian women, so sue me?

Premiering on Disney+ this Friday is Justin Baldoni’s CLOUDS, starring Fin Argus as musician Zach Sobiech, who has only months to live when his cancer starts spreading, but he follows his dream to make an album and becomes a viral music phenomenon. I’m not sure if this is a true story but it certainly sounds a lot like a faith-based film called I Still Believe that hit theaters just before they all shut down due to the pandemic. Coincidence? I think not.

Also this week, the 32nd ANNUAL NEWFEST LGBTQ FILM FESTIVAL begins on Friday, running through October 27 with opening night being the well-regarded Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, but it will be done as a drive-in, so I’m out. Over in Los Angeles, the AFI FEST starts on Thursday and runs through October 22, and that’s also showing a lot of cool festival/awards films that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet like The Father, I’m Your Woman and more. I missed my chance to get press accreditation, so yeah, I guess I’ll be waiting on that.

And then we get to all the movies that I didn’t have time to see or didn’t receive a screener, so here we go. This week’s unfortunate dumping ground:

Lupin III: The First (GKIDS) (This anime film is being released as a Fathom event on Oct. 18 – dubbed, and Oct. 21 – subtitled)

Belly of the Beast (I’ve actually heard good things about Erika Cohn’s doc about illegal sterilizations being conducted in a woman’s prison.)

Don’t Look Back (Gravitas Ventures)

Rom Boys: 40 Years of Rad (101 Films)

The Antidote (Cinetic/Brand New Story)

Monochrome: The Chromism (Tempest)

J.R “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenius (Uncork’d)

Monster Force Zero (WildEye Releasing)

Ghabe (GVN Releasing)

The Accidental President (Intervention)

In Case of Emergency (Kino Lorber)

I’m not sure how much of a column I’m gonna write next week since I won’t have nearly as much time to watch movies or write about them in the coming week, while I’m in Colmbus. There are a couple high profile movies I hope to get to, so we’ll see what happens.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #VOD #Streaming #Synchronic #TrialOfTheChicago7 #FrenchExit #LoveANdMonsters TheKidDetective #Nocturne #2Hearts #Shithout #THeDevilHasAName #TheOpeningAct

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chiseler · 4 years

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Gail Patrick: Malice Aforethought

The ultimate in resting bitch face, Gail Patrick could do more with a slight malicious smile than most actors could with the nastiest lines of dialogue. She was always sizing people up on screen, looking at them as if she could spot every weakness in their character and every humiliation they had ever suffered. Patrick knew instantly where she could stick all her knives, but the funny thing about her is that she seemed too basically cool and sedentary to really do too much damage, like a cat who stretches out and just scratches a canary before going back to sleep in the sun.

A brainy Southern girl, Patrick was born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1911. She graduated from Howard College and did two years of law school at the University of Alabama, saying later that she thought about running for state governor. But in 1932, for what she termed “a lark,” Patrick entered a Paramount Pictures beauty and talent contest and got the fare to Hollywood. The winner of the contest would get to be the “Panther Woman” in the Universal picture Island of Lost Souls (1932), starring Charles Laughton, and surely Patrick would have put a scare into both Laughton and co-star Bela Lugosi, but she didn’t get that part, which went to Kathleen Burke. (“It kind of ruined a career for her because nobody would take her seriously after that,” Patrick offered.)

She was presented with a standard studio contract by Paramount, but the strong-minded Patrick wouldn’t sign until her salary was raised from $50 to $75 a week and part of the contract was taken out. “I also read the fine print and blacked out the clause saying I had to do cheesecake stills,” Patrick said. “In the back of my mind I had this idea I could never go home and practice law if such stills were floating around.” She was groomed and coached until she lost her Southern accent, and then Patrick was ready to steal any scene she was in.

She made her first impact in Mitchell Leisen’s Death Takes a Holiday (1934), where she was filmed in stylish gowns and wore blond hair. Patrick is a distinct screen presence because she cannot help that “bitch” quality of hers from rising to the surface, no matter how hard she smiles or how hard she tries to be appealing in Death Takes a Holiday (much like such sisters in 1930s movie bitchery as Verree Teasdale and Genevieve Tobin). There is always something strained in her attempts at good spirits, as if she were a wicked stepsister just waiting to make some vicious remark about everyone in the cast. “I really put my all into that one,” she said. “It gave me a big career boost.”

She was a rival to Joan Crawford in No More Ladies (1935), which showed that Patrick was ready to rattle the most intimidating figures, taking in Crawford as if she can see the former chorus girl in her from a mile away. She drunkenly confesses to a dalliance with Crawford’s husband Robert Montgomery in a manner that tries for rumpled girlish candor but inevitably reads, as always with Patrick, as sheer malice. “I was hired because I towered over Joan,” she said. “She didn’t get temperamental—she simply expected blind obedience from cast and crew.”

Patrick coolly observed the “nasty” fights on the set of Mississippi (1935) between Bing Crosby and W.C. Fields and did her time in programmers before coming to the part that really set her up, Cornelia Bullock, the big bad sister to Carole Lombard’s daffy socialite Irene in My Man Godfrey (1936). Cornelia is the rich bitch incarnate, flaunting her privilege and power like a spoiled child, but with a wide streak of womanly sadism to make many of her scenes deeply unpleasant. Yet Patrick said that she was so afraid of the camera and nervous that she never saw her own films until she showed a friend My Man Godfrey in 1979. “My fright emerged as haughtiness and I can see where I got my image as a snob, a meanie,” she said. “And it’s the movie that typed me and the one I’m still asked about.”

Gregory La Cava, the director of My Man Godfrey, told Patrick to “suck on lemons and beat up little children” to prepare for her role, and maybe she was just a skeptical, smart girl scared of being in the movies, but that’s finally a little hard to believe. You don’t play Cornelia Bullock in the scathing way Patrick does without at least knowing something about inherent meanness and it uses and effects. Then again, fear has often been known to make people behave badly, and shyness can be seen as unfriendliness. “She had to be bratty, mean, demanding, and no winks to show I wasn’t really like that,” Patrick said of Cornelia.

She followed up Cornelia with her finest bitch performance of all, Linda Shaw, erstwhile roommate to Ginger Rogers’s Jean Maitland in La Cava’s great Stage Door (1937), where she engages in wisecracking duels with Rogers so brutal that it comes as no surprise when Rogers’s Jean ends one of them with the line, “Well, so long, if you ever need a good pallbearer, remember I’m at your service.” Patrick enjoyed working with Rogers in Stage Door because she said they could try scenes different ways, whereas she sniped that with the “Great Kate” Hepburn every scene was done the same way. “She never took direction and always walked around with that haughty air,” Patrick said of Hepburn. “Ginge was everything Great Kate wasn’t. The crews loved her and hated Kate for the airs she put on.”

Patrick was only 26 when she made Stage Door, but she reads as a lot older and more experienced, and so it’s believable when Rogers, who was the same age as Patrick, seems to have youth and freshness on her side as she diffidently snags jaded Linda’s man, the theatrical producer Anthony Powell (Adolphe Menjou). Patrick goes as far with verbal bitchery as it is possible to go in Stage Door, and her snobbery is at its most cutting and armored, too, and yet there are a few moments here when we can see that Linda is just as subject to the vagaries of men and show business as the other girls at the theatrical boarding house she lives at. Linda has a freezing sort of dignity when she realizes that Jean is replacing her with Powell, for the time being, and she has the confidence and lack of illusions that can wait to get him back. This has nothing to do with lack of pride, for Linda has plenty of that where it counts, and then some. It has to do with understanding how the world works and how unfair it can be without ever feeling sorry for yourself.

There’s a brief scene in Stage Door where Patrick relaxes a little for once as Judy (Lucille Ball) talks about the moment when she first wanted to go into show business. Patrick smiles almost easily here, as if her guard is just slightly down briefly, and the effect is touching because there is no other moment on screen when she opens up just a little bit for us. In the end, Linda gets Powell back, and she probably has the guts to keep him until another new blond comes along, and when that game is all finished at least she’ll have the fur coats he bought her to keep her warm on the cold nights ahead. Whatever happens to her, Linda will be all right because she takes nothing seriously and never gets her emotions, if she has any left, involved. That’s one way of getting through life.

Patrick’s most notable role after that was as Cary Grant’s wife Bianca in My Favorite Wife (1940), where the frustration of “the other woman” does not really suit her brand of steely control backed up by a witchy talent for insults and vindictiveness. By the time of Claudia and David (1946), Patrick could see the writing on the wall. “One day, we were sitting around the set and dear, sweet Dorothy McGuire started chattering about her great pleasure in working with such veterans,” Patrick said. “Well, I was seven years her senior, and Mary Astor was only 40 at the time. Mary bristled, but I just kept on with my knitting.”

Patrick, who married four times, had a successful second career as a television producer, where as Gail Patrick Jackson (the last name of her third husband), she put her law background to use as executive producer on the Perry Mason series, which starred Raymond Burr and lasted from 1957-1966. She let her hair go white and was still a handsome and stylish figure around town in this period. Patrick died in 1980 at age 69 in her home in Hollywood, in the arms of her fourth husband. Whenever she turns up in a movie, I think of that old saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit next to me.”

by Dan Callahan

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ryanmeft · 5 years

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MCU Phases 4 and 5 Wishlist

Last night at San Diego Comic Con, Marvel dropped their pants and coated the audience in a thick, rich layer of big-and-small screen announcements. Briefly recapped: across Phases 4 or 5 (not that that means anything), we’re getting Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, the Fantastic Four and Blade. On the streaming front, the previously announced series were all confirmed, and in a move most probably didn’t see coming, Marvel added a series based on their often bizarre What if? Series, which speculates on what might have happened had some element of continuity gone a different way (and which has become a bit moot in the comics in an era where continuity is gleefully mixed and nixed whenever an editor wants a sales boost).

As folks might be aware, I’m not a huge fan of Disney, skipping almost all their movies, but I have a severe weakness for the MCU. There’s a lot of wish lists going around as to what we want to happen in these movies and series, but as you know if you’ve read my blog before, the correct answers are mine. Since you can rest assured these answers are the best, I graciously share them with you now. Remember, I’m never wrong.

Mjolnir Gets Retired

I am totally down with Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster as the God of Thunder. There will be those who call to give her the same powers and weapons Thor had, but why would we want to do that? In the comics, she’s still Jane Foster while Thor is still Thor, and with Chris Hemsworth also in the film, there’s no reason to think that won’t be the case here. Instead of simply “Female Thor”, she needs her own set of traits and skills. Start with giving her a new weapon; a magical spear would be just right. Mjolnir got its greatest moment of glory in Endgame, and from a sheer story perspective, it is time to retire the venerated hammer.

Rebellion in Wakanda

I’m going to be in the minority on this, but: the Dora Milaje have gotten shafted in the MCU thus far. In the best of the comics, they are the king’s guard, but they are also a group of women with independent minds and goals who don’t always agree with the king. In fact, members have rebelled several times. In the movies to date, they exist to devote total fealty to T’Challa, never once seriously questioning anything he does. This is a terrible fate to befall an actor with Danai Gurira’s fire. Instead of existing merely to poke holes in things on behalf of a (male) ruler, it’s time these ass-kicking ladies got to play a more important, and complex, role.

Christoph Waltz as Doom

This idea isn’t mine, but was passed on by a friend who is clearly brilliant. There’s not much to say about this one: the actor who made his reputation playing two very different roles in Quenton Tarantino films is the perfect choice for the literally tin-plated dictator. As for the rest of the cast, Keanu Reeves is the favorite for Reed, but I have another idea in mind for him...

The Master of Time

That said: it’s about time to get Kang involved in this universe. When it became obvious that Endgame was going to involve time travel, I slapped together what I thought was a pretty good post-credits tease that would introduce both him and the Fantastic Four side of the universe. Obviously, nothing like that happened, and there were no Avengers movies or mass team-ups of any kind announced at SDCC. Yet with time travel established, the potential to bring in this reality-warping mega-baddie is always there.

Don’t Undo Iron Man 3

Yes, fans are shooting their shorts over the fact that the real Mandarin will be the villain of the Shang-Chi movie. But those of us who don’t rub the comics on ourselves regularly recognize the truth: Iron Man 3 had a great twist that was one of the few truly creative decisions in a modern blockbuster, and it would be a shame to overturn on the whim of a handful of hardliners. Have a “real” Mandarin, but keep Ben Kingsley’s washed-up, hedonistic actor on the books. Maybe even give him a cameo.

Unrelenting Nightmare

Director Scott Derickson has already said he wants to use Nightmare, a being who feeds off his namesake, in the Doctor Strange sequel, and given that it is apparently multiverse-focused (and that Strange has few interesting villains), this is probably a given. Marvel has been after Keanu Reeves for a long time; most people seem to want him for Reed Richards, but may I humbly suggest we go against the hype and cast him as a dimension-devouring trickster deity instead? As a side note, please, please follow up on Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Baron Mordo. He was the best part of the first film, and it’d be a shame to let him trail off into the ether.

Take Some Risks in Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel was fun. It was not the kind of movie that took risks, however, or blew anyone away, despite amazing box office numbers. CM will be an idol for little girls; it’s time to think outside the box, utilize the oddness of Marvel’s galactic properties, and make her next movie one that can rival the time-hopping chances DC has taken with Wonder Woman. Brie Larson needs more to do than pose heroically and hit things.

Where’s Spider-Man?

More of a question answered than a wish: a lot of people are freaking out because Spider-Man was not mentioned last night, despite a post-credits tease that’s impossible to ignore. Relax: the deal between Marvel and Sony likely just means Sony has to finalize plans and sign off on the next film before Marvel can announce it. Far From Home cracked 800 million at the box office, and the refurbishing of Spidey’s tarnished reputation by Marvel is one big reason Sony’s own dull, uninspired Venom series is now a viable money-maker. It would be the height of stupidity for Sony to pull out of the deal now; expect Spider-Man: Homeboy or whatever it is called to be announced for 2021 before much time passes.

Make What If? Truly Bizarre

As a series, What If? wasn’t always great, but it was always interesting. There are some obvious concepts they could include in the series, and probably on the top of most people’s lists is “What If Iron Man had survived Endgame?” Old Man Tony would be absolutely delicious, but we can get stranger than that. This series should be a chance to explore concepts that would never fly in a massive, internationally-marketed blockbuster movie. Think stuff like “What If Loki had been Thor?” or “What If Peggy Carter had been Captain America?” Get wild up in this.

Make Loki a Reverse Doctor Who

Loki became a far less evil, far more complex character by the time he was dispatched in Infinity War. The Loki that will star in the series, however, is the one from Avengers, before all that character development. Audiences didn’t truly and completely fall in love with him until he went from evil god of chaos to a more ambivalent trickster figure, so pulling off sympathy for this older Loki across an entire series will be difficult. The obvious answer is to make him a sort of reverse Doctor: instead of an eternally-helpful alien who influences everyone he meets for the better, he’s an alien out for himself who is gradually influenced by those he meets to be (a little) better.

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justincaseitmatters · 5 years

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Rewind: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Dr. Strangelove after 50 Years

Originally Published in KCActive.com in January 2014. On January 29, 1964, the world discovered something that Bronx-born director Stanley Kubrick had known for a few years: that the only appropriate reaction to the arms race was a dirty joke. In the five decades that have passed since then, countries that once frightened the world have fallen, alliances and rivalries have reversed, technologies have changed and Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb has become more enlightening, infuriating and, yes, hilarious with time. The Chess Master I almost feel sorry for anyone who is forced to discover this movie in a manner that's different from the way I did at age 11. For some reason, Kansas City's KCMO (now KCTV) broadcast the movie for a 10:30 p.m. showing, probably on a Saturday night. My mother, my younger brother and I congregated around the used black-and-white TV in my bedroom, knowing only that the film in question starred our favorite comedian Peter Sellers, from the Pink Panther movies, and that it might be important because the local paper said it was. I was delighted that my bedroom had turned into a mini-theater and that we wouldn't miss any beautiful color images. Gilbert Taylor's cinematography and Ken Adam's grand sets look just fine in monochrome. Other than the fact that the movie was in black-and-white, we knew nothing about the assault that was coming our way. For most adult viewers, Dr. Strangelove states its devilishly comic intents up front. The movie's notorious opening credits by Pablo Ferro feature a phallic arm fueling a plane in mid-air as a soft instrumental track of "Try a Little Tenderness" plays in the background. As the geeky son of a Baptist deacon, these amorous aircraft completely escaped my notice.

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My mother curiously remained silent, but soon the three of us were so thoroughly entertained that we stopped caring that Kubrick and co-screenwriter Terry Southern (the mind behind the kinky novels Candy, Blue Movie and The Magic Christian) were about to turn all three of us into "deviated pre-verts."

It's not surprising to learn that Kubrick once hustled chess in New York as a young man because he reveals his comic intentions gradually. During the the run up to General Jack D. Ripper's unauthorized nuclear assault upon the Soviet Union, my family and and I thought we were watching a straight nuclear war drama. It wasn't until General Ripper made the following declaration at 24 minutes into the film that we discovered that Kubrick was taking the movie into a direction all his own:

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

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Hearing deep-voiced actor Sterling Hayden utter the word "fluids" without a hint of levity in his voice sent all three of us into hysterics. From here on we knew something was up and that the footage we saw previously was laced with comic venom. We finally noticed Ripper's name and that the pilot of one of Ripper's B52s is Maj. T.J. "King" Kong (played by former rodeo clown Slim Pickens). All Too Real Dr. Strangelove is loaded with characters afflicted with gag names, and sometimes these absurd monikers aren't obvious on an initial viewing. The Soviet Ambassador is Alexi Desadesky (British actor Peter Bull), the President of the United States is Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), and his top strategist is a former Nazi known as Dr. Strangelove (Sellers, again). While Kubrick and Southern came up with a cornucopia of silly names with sexual connotations, the scenario in Dr. Strangelove is uncomfortably realistic. As more information from the Cold War has become publicly available, the scenario Kubrick, Southern and a Welsh Royal Air Force officer Peter George (from George's 1958 novel Two Hours to Doom a.k.a. Red Alert) cooked up was far from outlandish. Throughout history wars have been started for causes as inexplicable as fluids and water fluoridation, which General Ripper believes has made him impotent. Mental illness and just plain foolishness can strike at anytime At the beginning of Dr. Strangelove, a disclaimer informs the viewers that the U.S. Air Force has safeguards to prevent the deadly events in the film from occurring. Not really. Around the time that George was writing his thriller about facing nuclear annihilation, Daniel Ellsberg, the future leaker of The Pentagon Papers, discovered that Washington's policy toward who could launch a nuclear attack and when was a mess. In theory, only the president had authorization. Ellsberg, a recent Harvard PhD grad from working for the RAND Corporation, recalled in his 2002 book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers:

I learned, for example, the secret that contrary to all public declarations, President Eisenhower had delegated to major theater commanders the authority to initial nuclear attacks under certain circumstances, such as outage of communications with Washington--an almost daily occurrence in those days--or presidential incapacitation (twice suffered by President Eisenhower). This delegation was unknown to President Kennedy's assistant for national security, McGeorge Bundy--and thus to the president--in early 1961, when I briefed him on the issue.

In other words, Gen. Ripper and his ilk had already been given a sort of green light. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, only whims of fate seem to have prevented nuclear first strikes. According to David E. Hoffman's The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy, on September 26, 1983, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov received a warning on his instruments informing him the Americans had launched a missile strike on his country. His satellites told him that five missiles were on their way to Mother Russia, but there were no visual sightings to match the alarms wailing at his base. Working simply on instinct, he correctly informed his superiors that no attack was taking place and that the warning system was malfunctioning. It's a good thing he did. Doing so prevented an unprovoked Soviet first strike. Petrov's hunch saved countless lives. Sadly, he had only minutes or seconds to make his fateful decision. The Killing Joke Unfortunately, decisions like Petrov's were all too often made at the last minute and in a state of panic. This is one of the reasons Dr. Strangelove is so entertaining and why satire might be a more effective way to point out the horrors of nuclear war. George's novel is a dark thriller, and Kubrick and George initially set out to make a straightforward adaptation of the book. During pre-production, however, Kubrick noticed that some of the situations described in the book, like the President informing the Soviets how to shoot down his own planes, seemed weirdly comic. George was disappointed by Kubrick's change of heart but later wrote a novelization of the film that even included gags that Kubrick didn't film or eventually cut from the movie (like a coda where space aliens wonder how the planet they've discovered called Earth is now a radioactive graveyard). George's later writing focused on the grim potential of nuclear weapons. Sadly, his concern for the subject may have been a factor when he chose to kill himself in 1966. Strangely, in the finished movie, the humor seems to emphasize how fragile a world with nuclear weapons really is. When word of Gen. Ripper's assault reaches the Pentagon, the news arrives, not to a commander ready to deal with the crisis, but to Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) cavorting with his bikini-clad mistress (Tracy Reed). Actually, he's in the bathroom when the urgent call comes.

Similarly, the Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissoff (who, curiously, is never seen or heard in the film) is not at his office in the Kremlin toiling to make his nation a worker's paradise. So where is he when the Soviets need his attention the most? "You would never reached him at that number," says Ambassador Desadesky. "Our Premier is a man of the people, but he is also a man, if you follow my meaning."

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I should probably add that he's also drunk. Disasters, whether natural or man made, rarely happen at moments that are convenient for us mortals. Kubrick and Southern spent a great amount of time figuring out where leaders might be and wondered what they might eat or drink during the crisis. That explains the improvised buffet table in the Pentagon's War Room. They also knew that leaders are human beings and that they are as prone to mistakes and panicking as anyone else. In most of the dramas that preceded or followed Dr. Strangelove, world leaders appear as conscientious or calm despite the heavy stakes involved. President Muffley, however, is understandably nervous and awkward in explaining the crisis to Premier Kissoff. Sellers improvised much of his dialogue, and the call between the two leaders is hysterically funny because it's impossible to think of a polite or an effective way to relay the grim message at hand.

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Kubrick's willingness to embrace panic eventually influenced more mainstream nuclear thrillers. In an interview I conducted with director Phil Alden Robinson for NitrateOnline.com over his 2002 adaptation of the late Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears, he readily acknowledged how Kubrick's comedy affected his own, more serious movie:

Kubrick is the best who ever lived. I have to believe that's what goes on behind closed doors. Once in a while, the President's emotions must get the best of him. Clancy once said, "If you put the leaders of a country in a room and tell them the decisions they make might lead to blowing up the world, only a sociopath would not have an emotional reaction." The most reasonable people in the world, by virtue of their reason, are going to be emotional and distraught and kind of at wit's end at some point.

Why I Still Love the Bomb As I've grown older Dr. Strangelove has become less of a movie to more and more of an old friend. Yes, it's odd that this cynical, fatalistic movie has such a fond spot in my heart. It's no spoiler to reveal that all of the human machinations in the movie fail to stop a nuclear Armageddon. It's also hard to think of a more clever or even nourishing film. Every time I come back to I learn new things. I spot gags that I missed when I saw the movie earlier. Kubrick consulted over 50 books during the making of Dr. Strangelove, and his attention to detail only shows up on repeated viewings. A friend of mine politely told me that Kubrick's movies like Lolita, A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey are an acquired taste, but those of us who have picked up an appetite continuously love coming back to his films, waiting for new treasures hidden in their frames. One aspect that does hit me from watching the movie again and again is that Kubrick, contrary to what his detractors have contended, actually could create sympathetic and completely human characters. Kubrick skillfully manipulates the audience into liking the crew on Maj. Kong's B52. When a Russian missile stalks the plane, Kubrick wants viewers to feel for the crew. Unlike their commander, Gen. Ripper, their intents are not tainted by his madness. For the sake of the story, it would be best if the missile sent them to a fiery grave. Nonetheless, watching the crew trying to stay in the air is nail biting. Unlike his make believe characters, Kubrick understands that real people are the casualties of war. Gen. Turgidson is little better than Gen. Ripper because he has no sense of proportion or consequence. He suggests that proceeding with Gen. Ripper's strike would be worth it, even if millions die. "I didn't say we wouldn't get our hair mussed," he says. Curiously, time has actually made Dr. Strangelove funnier. When I've discussed the movie with younger people, they've told me that the reasons we and the Soviets looked at each other with dread now seem remote and ridiculous. They're fully aware that the world is still a dangerous place, but they understandably think that fluoridation is not good reason to risk the lives of troops. Kubrick was only 32 when he made Dr. Strangelove, but he wound up making something that continues to enrich our lives long after his death in 1999. Through his love song to the bomb, he's revealed how far we as human beings have to grow to become responsible stewards of the technology we have. It's doubtful he could have conveyed this message so eloquently with a straight face.

#dr strangelove #Stanley Kubrick #Dan Lybarger #KCActive.com

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phroyd · 5 years

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We lost one of the Great Film Makers yesterday. Her soul will live on In Cinema! Rest In Peace, Agnes! - Phroyd

Agnès Varda, a groundbreaking French filmmaker who was closely associated with the New Wave — although her reimagining of filmmaking conventions actually predated the work of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and others identified with that movement — died on Friday morning at her home in Paris. She was 90.

Her death, from breast cancer, was confirmed by a spokeswoman for her production company, Ciné-Tamaris.

In recent years, Ms. Varda had focused her directorial skills on nonfiction work that used her life and career as a foundation for philosophical ruminations and visual playfulness. “The Gleaners and I,” a 2000 documentary in which she used the themes of collecting, harvesting and recycling to reflect on her own work, is considered by some to be her masterpiece.

But it was not her last film to receive widespread acclaim. In 2017, at the age of 89, Ms. Varda partnered with the French photographer and muralist known as JR on “Faces Places,” a road movie that featured the two of them roaming rural France, meeting the locals, celebrating them with enormous portraits and forming their own fast friendship. Among its many honors was an Academy Award nomination for best documentary feature. (It did not win, but that year Ms. Varda was given an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement.)

It was her early dramatic films that helped establish Ms. Varda as both an emblematic feminist and a cinematic firebrand — among them “Cléo From 5 to 7” (1962), in which a pop singer spends a fretful two hours awaiting the result of a cancer examination, and “Le Bonheur” (1965), about a young husband’s blithely choreographed extramarital affair.

Ms. Varda established herself as a maverick cineaste well before such milestones of the New Wave as Mr. Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” (1959) and Mr. Godard’s “Breathless” (1960). Her “La Pointe Courte” (1955), which juxtaposed the strife of an unhappy couple with the struggles of a French fishing village, anticipated by several years the narrative and visual rule-breaking of directors like Mr. Truffaut, Mr. Godard and Alain Resnais, who edited “La Pointe Courte” and would introduce Ms. Varda to a number of the New Wave principals in Paris.

These included Mr. Truffaut, Mr. Godard, Claude Chabrol and Éric Rohmer, all of whom had gotten their start at the critic André Bazin’s magazine Cahiers du Cinema, and who became known as the Right Bank group. The more politicized and liberal Left Bank group would come to include Mr. Resnais, Chris Marker and Ms. Varda herself.

Arlette Varda was born on May 30, 1928, in Ixelles, Belgium, the daughter of a Greek father and a French mother. She left Belgium with her family in 1940 for Sète, France, where she spent her teenage years. At 18, she changed her name to Agnès.

She studied art history at the École du Louvre and photography at the École des Beaux-Arts before working as a photographer at the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris.

“I just didn’t see films when I was young,” she said in a 2009 interview. “I was stupid and naïve. Maybe I wouldn’t have made films if I had seen lots of others; maybe it would have stopped me.

“I started totally free and crazy and innocent,” she continued. “Now I’ve seen many films, and many beautiful films. And I try to keep a certain level of quality of my films. I don’t do commercials, I don’t do films pre-prepared by other people, I don’t do star system. So I do my own little thing.”

Her “thing” often involved straddling the line between what was commonly accepted as fiction and nonfiction, and defying the boundaries of gender.

“She was very clear about her feeling that the New Wave was a man’s club and that as a woman it was hard for producers to back her, even after she made ‘Cléo’ in 1962,” T. Jefferson Kline, a professor of French at Boston University and the editor of “Agnès Varda: Interviews” (2013), said in an interview for this obituary. “She obviously was not pleased that as a woman filmmaker she had so much trouble getting produced. She went to Los Angeles with her husband, and she said when she came back to France it was like she didn’t exist.”

Ms. Varda was married to the director Jacques Demy (“Lola,” “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) from 1962 until his death in 1990. From 1968 to 1970 they lived in Hollywood, where Mr. Demy made “Model Shop” for Columbia Pictures and Ms. Varda made “Lions Love,” which married a meditative late-’60s Los Angeles aesthetic to the New York counterculture. (The cast included the Warhol “superstar” Viva; Gerome Ragni and James Rado, the writers of the book for the musical “Hair”; and the underground filmmaker Shirley Clarke.) During that same period, she shot the short documentary “Black Panthers” (1968), which included an interview with the incarcerated Panther leader Huey Newton; commissioned by French television, it was suppressed at the time.

It was also during that period that she befriended Jim Morrison, the frontman of the Doors, who visited her and Mr. Demy in France; according to Stephen Davis’s “Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend” (2004), she was one of only five mourners at Mr. Morrison’s funeral in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris in 1971. That same year she became one of the 343 women to sign the “Manifesto of the 343,” a French petition acknowledging that they had had abortions and thus making themselves vulnerable to prosecution.

In 1972, the birth of her son, Mathieu Demy, now an actor, prompted Ms. Varda to sideline her career. He survives her, as does the costume designer Rosalie Varda Demy, Ms. Varda’s daughter from a previous relationship, who was adopted by Jacques Demy.

“Despite my joy,” Ms. Varda told the actress Mireille Amiel in a 1975 interview, “I couldn’t help resenting the brakes put on my work and my travels.” So she had an electric line of about 300 feet for her camera and microphone run from her house, and with this “umbilical cord” she managed to interview the shopkeepers and her other neighbors on the Rue Daguerre. The result was “Daguerréotypes” (1976).

In 1977 she made what she called her “feminist musical,” and one of her better-known films, “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t,” which also seemed inspired by personal circumstance.

“It’s the story of two 15-year-old girls, their lives and their ideas,” she told Ms. Amiel. “They have to face this key problem: Do they want to have children or not? They each fall in love and encounter the contradictions — work/image, ideas/love, etc.”

One of Ms. Varda’s more controversial films, because of its casting, was “Kung-Fu Master!” (1988), a fictional work about an adult woman — played by the actress Jane Birkin, a friend of Ms. Varda’s — who falls in love with a teenage boy, played by Ms. Varda’s son. The title — it was changed in France to “Le Petit Amour” — referred to the young character’s favorite arcade game. The film was shot more or less simultaneously with “Jane B. par Agnes V.,” another of Ms. Varda’s border crossings between fact and fiction, which she called “an imaginary biopic.”

After Jacques Demy’s death, Ms. Varda made three films as a tribute: the biographical drama “Jacquot de Nantes” (1991) and the documentaries “Les Demoiselles Ont Eu 25 Ans” (1993), about the 25th anniversary of Mr. Demy’s “The Young Girls of Rochefort,” and “L’Univers de Jacques Demy” (1995).

Ms. Varda was then relatively inactive until 1999, when, armed for the first time with a digital camera, she set about making “Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse” (“The Gleaners and I”), which resurrected an artistic career now well accustomed to under appreciation and resuscitation.

“She was a person of immense talent, but also enormously thoughtful,” said Mr. Kline of Boston University. “When you look at some of the films you might think they were more spontaneous than thought out. A film like ‘Cléo,’ for instance, you might have said, ‘O.K., she just follows Cléo around Paris,’ but the film is extremely beautifully imagined and thought out beforehand.”

In “Vagabond,” an 1985 film in which Sandrine Bonnaire plays a woman who is found dead and whose life is recounted, often in documentary style, “the traveling shots in the film are always ending, and each subsequent shot beginning, on a common visual cue,” Mr. Kline said. “It makes you look at film in a completely different way.”

Alison Smith, author of the critical study “Agnès Varda” (1998), called Ms. Varda “a poet of objects and how we use them.” In an interview for this obituary, she added, “Varda as an artist intrigued, and intrigues, me by the constant freshness and curiosity which she brings to her inquiries into the everyday world and how we relate to it, particularly how she uses the detailed fabric of life.”

Richard Peña, who as director of the New York Film Festival helped introduce “Gleaners” to an American audience, praised that film and Ms. Varda’s “The Beaches of Agnès” (2008) as “touchstones for a new generation of nonfiction filmmakers.”

Ms. Varda is represented at the Museum of Modern Art by photographs, films, videos and a three-screen installation titled “The Triptych of Noirmoutier.” “A decision to change direction and move into installation art when over 80 is, by any standards, remarkable,” Ms. Smith said. “But her energy was awe-inspiring.”

Phroyd

#france #agnes varda #rip

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kristenswig · 6 years

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well....it’s over........

Best Picture (predicting 9)

Green Book

A Star Is Born

Roma

BlacKkKlansman

The Favourite

Black Panther

Vice

Bohemian Rhapsody

If Beale Street Could Talk

First Man Alt: Crazy Rich Asians I hear you but are there enough stans?: Cold War Surprise!: A Quiet Place No one actually watched it guys: Leave No Trace Thanks for playing!: Mary Poppins Returns

Best Director

Alfonso Cuarón - Roma

Spike Lee - BlacKkKlansman

Bradley Cooper - A Star Is Born

Peter Farrelly - Green Book

Yorgos Lanthimos - The Favourite Alt: Adam McKay - Vice Both of their movies are better than the ones they won Oscars for so what’s happening here????????: Barry Jenkins - If Beale Street Could Talk & Damien Chazelle - First Man I still don’t buy it - Pawel Pawlikowski - Cold War SHE DESERVES - Lynne Ramsay - You Were Never Really Here

Best Actress

Glenn Close - The Wife

Olivia Colman - The Favourite

Lady Gaga - A Star Is Born

Melissa McCarthy - Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Yalitza Aparicio - Roma Alt: Emily Blunt - Mary Poppins Returns Does she have Meryl Streep level power yet?: Viola Davis - Widows Did they WATCH IT??: Toni Collette - Hereditary

Best Actor

Christian Bale - Vice

Bradley Cooper - A Star Is Born

Viggo Mortensen - Green Book

Rami Malek - Bohemian Rhapsody

John David Washington - BlacKkKlansman You did your best critics: Ethan Hawke - First Reformed Surprise!: Idk Willem Dafoe - At Eternity’s Gate?? If they care about actually good biopic performances that don’t involve yelling in heavy makeup: Ryan Gosling - First Man

Supporting Actress

Rachel Weisz - The Favourite (most likely to be nominated not most likely to win)

Emma Stone - The Favourite

Amy Adams - Vice

Regina King - If Beale Street Could Talk

Claire Foy - First Man Alt: The Clown from It: Mary Queen of Scots Hovering: Nicole Kidman - Boy Erased

Supporting Actor

Mahershala Ali - Green Book

Richard E. Grant - Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Adam Driver - BlacKkKlansman

Sam Elliott - A Star Is Born

Tammany Hall Crème Brûlée - Beautiful Bussy Alt: Sam Rockwell - Vice Don’t even think about it: Michael B. Jordan - Black Panther

Adapted Screenplay

BlacKkKlansman

If Beale Street Could Talk

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

A Star Is Born

First Man Alt: Black Panther Surprise!: Leave No Trace

Original Screenplay

Green Book

The Favourite

Roma

Vice

Eighth Grade OH WELL: First Reformed They absolutely would: A Quiet Place

Cinematography

Roma

The Favourite

First Man

Cold War

A Star Is Born Alt: If Beale Street Could Talk Why: Bohemian Rhapsody

Costume Design

The Favourite

Black Panther

Mary Queen of Scots

Mary Poppins Returns

Bohemian Rhapsody Alt: Crazy Rich Asians Who?: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms There will be backlash from that win: Harry Potter 576

Film Editing

First Man

Vice

A Star Is Born

Roma

BlacKkKlansman Alt: Green Book Would not be surprised: Black Panther Still wouldn’t be surprised: The Favourite This category is very hard to predict: Bohemian Rhapsody $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$: Mission Impossible

Makeup and Hair

Vice

Black Panther

Border (never doubt the Swedes!) Alt: Bohemian Rhapsody Wigs: Mary Queen of Scots I think we’re ALL she: Suspiria The other one: Stan and Ollie

Production Design

Black Panther

The Favourite

Mary Poppins Returns

First Man

Roma #StopStuartCraig: Fantastic Beasts Other: Mary Queen of Scots

*ANNIHILATION NOISE*

First Man

If Beale Street Could Talk

Isle of Dogs

Black Panther

A Quiet Place Alt: Mary Poppins Returns This apparently had a score: BlacKkKlansman

Abolish this category 2020

Noise from A Star Is Born

I turned Black Panther off the second the credits hit

That one from Mary Poppins

That other one from Mary Poppins

Academy Award Nominee Troye Sivan Alt: The one from that movie that you all said Jennifer Aniston was gonna win an Oscar for a year ago sdkaljfdhlskdjh Surprise: “Nor does the word Freedom your honor”

Sound Editing

First Man

Black Panther

A Quiet Place

Mission Impossible

Ready Player One Alt: Roma Unnecessary if you ask me!: A Star Is Born

Sound Mixing

First Man

A Star Is Born

Black Panther

A Quiet Place

Bohemian Rhapsody Alt: Roma It’s a MUSICAL: Mary Poppins Returns

Visual Effects

Black Panther (but what about the lovely Annihilation?)

Avengers (this isn’t Annihilation either)

Ready Player One (nope still not Annihilation)

Mary Poppins Returns (Jennifer Jason Leigh literally turned into an orb of light but go off I guess)

Solo (wrong movie with aliens!) No aliens on the moon!: First Man We deserve to be annihilated: Welcome to Marwen

Animated Feature

Amy Pascal’s wig

Incredibles 2

Isle of Dogs

Mirai

Ralph Breaks the Internet Alt: Ruben Brandt, Collector Surprise!: Early Man and literally any of the other ones

Documentary

Free Solo

Won’t You Be My Neighbor

Minding the Gap

Three Identical Strangers

RBG Alt: Shirkers Surprise!: Hale County This Morning, This Evening

Foreign Language Film

Roma

Cold War

Shoplifters

Capernaum

Never Look Away I TRIED: Burning Attention spans may be short: The Guilty

#literally predicting First Man for 8 categories but not best picture and only one of them feels like a stretch

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redspiderling · 6 years

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I don't think Scarlett has had enough of Disney, MCU to put up with them. She loves BW and it's something different than other roles. BUT she finally deserves to be paid as a movie star she is, getting the reward, also playing character for that long and it's her solo movie. Now, Disney is more generous in their deals Chadwick Boseman got 2m for his solo movie and Evans with Hemsworth got 500-700k for their first solo movies, now 15m each for their movies. She will be producing her solo movie .

This is what I mean when I say Disney is a bad payer:

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, got 15 million dollars back in 2004 for Walking Tall, a movie I can’t even remember, which had a total budget of 46 million dollars and made like, 56 million in the box office (MGM production).

Chadwich Boseman got 2 million, for Black Panther, which had a total budget of 200 million dollars and made a gazillion in the box office.

Jennifer Lawrence got 15 million for the total disaster that was Red Sparrow, whose budget was, wait for it, 69 million dollars (TSG, Chernin Entertainment production).

Captain America: the First Avenger has an estimated budget of $140–216.7 million, and yet Chris Evans made 500-700k.

Evans was close to nobody back when he made the first Captain America, which makes not getting the movie star pay reasonable, but still, you see what I mean when I say Disney isn’t really known as a good payer for actors.

Scarlett may sure like being Natasha, but I don’t know, it seems to me that she’s tired of the politics that come with being on Disney’s beck and call. Aren’t all of them? RDJ wanted to retire ages ago, Evans says he’s done with acting in general.

She did say she would only agree to make a Black Widow film only if it was done properly and that was years ago. At this point I don’t know who was trying to convince who to get this project done, but the fact that she’s so involved in the negotiations for the film makes me think that yes, she likes the script -hopefully- and that yes, there’s a chance it’s going to be good, given the fact that they got an excellent female director on board etc. Unless they actually offered her enough money to the point where she said “to hell with it, I’m making this last one and I’m done with the lot of you”, which is exactly what Daniel Craig said about making this last James Bond movie for 25 million dollars.

Oh, and interestingly, what made Scarlett’s salary skyrocket wasn’t actually the MCU. It was Lucy, a mediocre action flick with a budget of 30 million dollars that made463.4 million. Who do you think earned that money? The director? The cinematographer? The nobody main character? It was Scarlett’s name on the title. And she didn’t even have to get her character raped on screen multiple times to amuse sick men and set feminism back 100 years like Jennifer Lawrence did in the Red Sparrow.

It’s a well known fact of Hollywood, the bigger names on your movies, the bigger your earnings, the more you have to pay them. Disney doesn’t follow that rule because it can say “screw you I’m Disney, they’ll watch it anyway”.

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that-shamrock-vibe · 6 years

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Movie Review: Glass

Disclaimer: Alright so I am posting this review soon after seeing the movie, I have considered whether or not to do separate reviews or just one straight up review, but I am doing two because I wanted two so I can talk exposition in this one and then the actual movie in the spoiler review.

Background:

So I usually start off these reviews with my general or initial reaction, but because this is the final part of a surprise 19 year-long trilogy and I have never talked about the first two movies, I wanted to give my insight to both Unbreakable and Split.

Until Split came out, I knew nothing of Unbreakable. M. Night Shyamalan has always been a director whose movies I’ve been deterred from based on what people say about his movies in general. I have seen The Sixth Sense and I believe that is it and the only reason I’ve seen that is because it was on during English classes at school. But after the internet went crazy with fanboys who liked Unbreakable and thus cottoned on to that superb twist at the end of Split with Bruce Willis’ David Dunn appearing in a diner and Mr. Glass being mentioned, dubbing that twist the greatest Shyamalan twist since The Sixth Sense which is the movie that directly preceded Unbreakable and incidentally all three movies involved Bruce Willis, I became at least savvy to what the movie was.

I thought Unbreakable was a good movie, my verdict of these movies in chronological order goes good, excellent then great. I rarely like or see Bruce Willis in anything but for me he wasn’t the star of the movie, that was Samuel L. Jackson as Mr. Glass. But I enjoyed the whole cast, Willis was good, Spencer Trent Clark was a standout for me as he is here. The movie was a great apparent origin story which turned out to be a good first act in Shyamalan’s trilogy.

Incidentally, this past week is the first time I have seen both Unbreakable and Split. I was interested in Split when it was advertised, I just never got around to seeing it because I was at university and at the time trying to take interest in my psychology course.

Seeing Split this week, it is the hallmark of why I love psychology. I really enjoyed this movie and I do believe it’s not a great thing to do so because I enjoy it for the fact that I love the psychological horror angle rather than the movie overall but I can’t help it. James McAvoy, like Samuel L. Jackson, is an actor I will watch a film for and enjoy their parts no matter what I think of the movie. I just loved the tension, the “alters”, the way James McAvoy acted each one out from comedic to horrific, even Casey was great. All these movies have good supporting players.

General Reaction:

So I was geared up ready to enjoy this final chapter in, what has been dubbed the Eastline #177 trilogy which I feel is as stupid a trilogy name as the Cornetto trilogy but I digress. Maybe because I haven’t been burned multiple Shyamalan movies I haven’t become more wary, but I was prepared for something to go wrong in this movie...and oh boy did something go wrong!

As well acted and structured as the first half of this movie is, it falls apart as equally badly in the second half and I know the moment it does for me which I will go into in my spoiler review. But much like the majority of the DCEU, Glass fails to stick its landing with as good of a third-act as the rest of the movie, a reason why I will continue to say Aquaman is a better movie than Black Panther despite Black Panther being my favourite movie of last year because not only is it the only DCEU movie to stick its landing but Black Panther does not.

As a newcomer to Shyamalan’s method, I believe I have discovered his problem. Shyamalan is an ideas man but his problem is he lets his mind get away from him and doesn’t know how to follow through on these ideas. As such he never knows how to end a story or follow-through on previous teased plot points. There are multiple seeds dropped throughout both Unbreakable and Split that are either never fully realized in Glass or aren’t teased fully so the payoff isn’t as good.

Also, Shyamalan’s now famous plot twists (there are multiple) both set up something that could have been teased in a post-credits scene but there are none and also reveals something that needed more exposition either in a previous movie or this one.

I still am saying this is a worth-while movie to see as both closure for the trilogy and also for the characters, but also it something that needs to be seen because for better or worse it is a "water cooler” movie. Everybody will be talking about this movie as my screen was when they were leaving the cinema, some were talking about the good, some were talking about the bad but everyone was talking about the movie.

My reasoning for having faith in this movie and trilogy is because I love comic-book movies and, for all his faults, M. Night has created a comic-book movie trilogy that is not in the universes of DC or Marvel, that isn’t based on decades of mythos and purely relies on dissecting the psychology of comic-book readers and structures. That to me puts these movies on a type of pedestal that while I do not believe they are spectacular in the story-telling department, but for what they try to achieve I hold them in high regard.

Cast:

Much like the other two movies, the standout characters are three main characters, But the order of brilliance does go McAvoy, then Jackson somewhere around the middle and then Willis unfortunately is at the bottom of that spectrum because, as underdeveloped as he was in his origin story, he is not that much more developed here. McAvoy and Jackson both remain at the brilliant levels they were at in the movies they were in before if not plussing themselves in places.

I am sure Sarah Paulson’s character Dr. Ellie Staple was created as an in-movie representation of M Night’s mind, despite the fact that M. Night himself appears in this movie playing the same guy he played in Split and I am guessing Unbreakable as the movie does try to link the two characters...not a spoiler really because it is more a cameo.

The returning trio of supporting characters are as brilliant as they were before, for me Spencer Trent Clark as Dunn’s son Joseph is as good here as he was then but he has definitely matured as an actor.

There aren’t really many more characters of interest other than minor characters but they’re all okay for the roles they were assigned to.

Recommendation:

So yeah, Glass is going to disappoint a lot of people, especially those highly anticipating the conclusion to this story. However, this is definitely a movie to see even if you end up hating it because among the rubble that is M. Night’s mind, there are some gems to be found here.

#glass #unbreakable #split #m. night shyamalan #james mcavoy #bruce willis #samuel l jackson

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oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch · 6 years

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“Widows” Movie Review

Widows is the latest entry in an increasingly impressive catalogue from both director Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave) and writer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects). The film stars Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, and Elizabeth Debicki as a group of three women who become widowed when their husbands are killed after an attempted heist goes horribly wrong. Now left to face the consequences of their husbands’ criminal world, the widows are backed into a corner when the man their husbands stole from comes to collect. Using a notebook and a set of blueprints left by her husband Harry (played by Liam Neeson), Veronica (Davis) and the other widows must pull off their own heist in order to pay off a debt with a time bomb attached to it. With an all-star cast that also includes Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, Brian Tyree Henry, Robert Duvall, Jacki Weaver, and Jon Bernthal, Widows sets out to answer the question: can Steve McQueen pull off a mainstream hit?

The answer? Resoundingly so, and better than most. Widows is not just one of the best movies of the year, it’s one of the greatest heist movies ever committed to film. There’s so much to unpack about this movie that I hadn’t even thought about when I was watching it because I was just so blown away by the quality of the art on screen. This film includes some of the best show-don’t-tell commentary on police brutality, racism, sexism, trauma, domestic violence, political corruption, and gentrification that I’ve ever seen, and it’s all just under the surface, waiting to be discovered the more one considers the layering of Steve McQueen’s thriller. That might get lost on some viewers (including me until this morning) who get so wrapped up in the plot machinations of the entire proceeding, how artfully crafted those machinations are, and how quickly the pacing moves that you don’t even have time to unpack it all, but it eventually seeps its way into your head like a seed that just needed to sit for a few hours before deciding to spring up from the ground.

And that’s the thing about making this a Steve McQueen picture: this man takes a premise that sounds just kind of okay to sit through under a less experienced eye, and turns B movie entertainment into a canvas on which to paint grade A art. The cinematography (here brought beautifully to screen by Sean Bobbitt) alone would land this film an Oscar nomination, and yet McQueen never settles for just a pretty looking film. Every shot has a point, every frame an idea, and only a director like this can pull off a film like that. He drops you right into the middle of the action, but not before reminding you what the point of this movie really is. The film opens on a shot of Liam Neeson and Viola Davis sharing a kiss in bed together, reminding us all that this film is not just a heist picture, it’s a picture of grief, confusion, ticking clocks, trauma, and the ultra-complex world of dealing with loss in a criminal enterprise. And it reminds you of how dangerous that world is by the next shot which features one of the most impressive action sequences in heist film history: the back of a van racing across the streets of Chicago, trying to escape police. Ultimately, it’s a movie about the ripple effect of consequences faced when someone close to you leads this kind of life.

Steve McQueen has layered this film with so much to ponder that it’s hard to know if one will even have time to consider it all by the time one goes in for a repeat viewing. In fact, a repeat viewing may be required in order to spend enough time with just the first layer that one feels comfortable moving on to the second. Widows establishes him as not just an arthouse voice for the Academy to love, but a bona fide expert in the craft who’s ready to swing for the larger fences and hit his mark every single time. He’s now right up there with Alfonso Cuarón and Denis Villeneuve as one of the most exciting directors working today.

I could praise Steve McQueen’s direction of this film until the end of time, but I also want to give due credit to writer Gillian Flynn for crafting yet another incredible script for McQueen to work from. Flynn is a master at tension and twists, and no less than twice does she pull off some of the best twists in heist storytelling I’ve seen on screen. Between Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, and now Widows, Flynn is quickly becoming not just one of screen’s greatest writers, but one of the most thrilling writers to watch in any medium. She is a master craftsman, especially when it comes to characterization through action, and her pacing is as frenetic as being on any actual heist.

Perhaps this goes without saying given the pedigree involved by just having this talented of a cast, but every performance in this film is top notch. Everyone fits exactly where they’re supposed to go, and the chemistry between them works out perfectly. One doesn’t often hear chemistry between actors mentioned without a romantic or comedic context (often both), likely because people just assume you don’t need it to be as strong outside of those contexts, but it is nonetheless vital to the survival of any film, especially in the heist subgenre, and all these performers pull it off spectacularly. Viola Davis, the commander-in-chief of any film she’s in, once again pulls off here an astounding power only an actress of the highest caliber can conjure, and is perfectly paralleled by Liam Neeson, proving that even with minimal screen-time, he can out-act almost anyone (just not Viola Davis – it’s a pretty evenly matched performance). Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Jacki Weaver, Jon Bernthal, Brian Tyree Henry, and (hey, look who’s back) Robert Duvall are all fantastic in however large or small a part they play in the film as well, but if we talked about all of them at length, this review would be 10 pages long, and even I don’t want that.

Michelle Rodriguez does play the same character she plays in most things, so I wouldn’t say it’s too much of a stretch for her, but because the writing of her character is so good due to Gillian Flynn’s expert abilities, she fits perfectly in with the rest of the ensemble and is quite entertaining to watch. But the true standouts in this film are supporting actress and actor Elizabeth Debicki and Daniel Kaluuya. Debicki is often cast as just “one of the pretty people,” in things like Guardians of the Galaxy and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., but here gets to show off that not only does she have real acting chops most American audiences haven’t seen yet, those chops are some of the best they’ll see in 2018, and it’s a shame that because it’s not necessarily a showier role, she likely won’t get that Oscar nomination her performance is absolutely deserving of.

There is an actor in this movie, however, who’s familiar with the Academy Awards, former nominee Daniel Kaluuya. Kaluuya has burst onto the scene with brilliant performances in Get Out (for which he was nominated for Best Actor) and the largest smash hit of the year, Black Panther, but now he’s been allowed to fully explore his villainous side, and it is terrifying. Kaluuya plays a sort of enforcer and though I won’t spoil for who or for what purposes, the way he sets out to accomplish what he needs to do in order to achieve his goals is some of the most harrowing villainy in all of 2018. He is truly a fear-inducing presence – just seeing the screencaps of him in this movie make my skin continue to crawl. It’s a master performance from one of the singular most talented new actors on scene today, and if any performance in this movie (aside from Viola Davis) were to get Oscar recognition, it would be this one.

I haven’t even talked at length about how beautiful this movie looks, but I won’t here now; you really should just see it for yourself. Widows was everything I wanted it to be and more – a thrilling heist movie, a gorgeous chorus of brilliant cinematography and performances, a masterclass in direction and screenwriting, a layered exploration of crime and consequence, and a resounding testament to the talents of one of the most exciting directors to burst onto the scene within the decade. It’s an incredibly kinetic ride with some of the best pacing, action, and exploration of narrative themes in heist film history, and to boot, one of the best movies of the year.

I’m giving “Widows” a 9.6/10

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fromdirectorlanawachowski · 6 years

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Honest and Unmerciful Infinity War Thoughts

TL;DR: it was absurdly bad and marvel should be ashamed of putting this out.

I’m going to preface this by saying I freely admit I’ve had no love for the MCU ever since Iron Man 3. Their casting leaves a lot to be desired, their writing leaves a lot to be desired, their directors choices leaves a lot to be desired. Their story elements are picked up and cast aside almost immediately, like a four year old trying to play with all his Hot Wheels at once.

That said, after Homecoming, Ragnarok, and Black Panther, I felt like the series was on its way back to, if not greatness, then certainly a point where I could enjoy it again, rather than see the glaring holes where a better story could have been told by better hands.

And then Infinity War happened.

Right away the opening was a shambles. Completely renders the hope spot ending of Ragnarok moot by killing off the Asgardians, save Thor. A casual reference is made later to “Thanos killed half my people and my brother”, but unless he took prisoners, I don’t think you can survive your space ship being blown up.

Also Heimdall went out like a bitch. We’ve known for years now that they had no idea what to do with the guy who could see everything, but pinning him down so he can be stabbed five minutes in was callous.

Loki’s death was a long time coming. I enjoyed that. I’m grateful.

The Children of Thanos mumble half their lines, but they also exposit half the plot, which is an unfortunate combination. They’re also the pinnacle of locking out the casual moviegoer. If you don’t know who these people are from the comics, you won’t be told. You’ll spend two and a half hours wondering where these people came from and why we haven’t seen them sooner

Thanos ends the opening two gems up, so tension is immediately drained from the rest of the movie. We know every fight is going to be a curb stomp battle with him winning.

Another element from Ragnarok cast aside: Hulk is able to apparently turn back into Bruce, which he does immediately after falling into the Sanctum.

Wong was the best character and he was in it for five minutes (everyone else was in it for five minutes too, but his were the most memorable). I was still laughing at “I have 200 rupees so…. A buck fifty” on the car ride home.

As is par for the course with Marvel lately, no reference is made to any local heroes who might be able to help. Marvel pumps millions into its Netflix shows only to pretend they don’t exist. If I was working on them, to say I’d be insulted is an understatement.

Tony’s new nanotech suit looks like it’s made of cheap plastic, like it was a replica Iron Man suit you’d see at your local comic con.

They knew no one would see Dr. Strange, so they spent a good amount of time forcing the fact that Strange had the Time Stone into your head.

Thanos’ goons escape with Strange’s unconscious body on their flying Ringolo, with Tony in hot pursuit and Peter stuck to the side. (Peter’s sole purpose in this movie, by the way, is to parrot pop culture references because the writers can’t write women or teenagers.)

Wanda and Vision (don’t even get me started on that relationship) are hiding out in Scotland, having crazy romance and giving the audience mood whiplash since we just saw New York under fire. After they get beaten up by another pair of Thanos’ goons (or possibly the same pair, none of them are especially distinct), Steve, Nat, and Sam swoop in and rescue them, jetting off for “home”.

Which is the Avengers facility in New York, where Rhodey’s only real purpose in this movie is to remind everyone about the Accords so that Steve can march in and tell Ross the Accords don’t matter, they’ll do what’s right when the going gets tough. If he’d had the balls to do that in Civil War, we wouldn’t have had the infamous Tesco Parking Lot Fight.

The Guardians pick up Thor and we get five minutes of jokes about Rocket that got old in the first GoTG movie, and jokes about Thor that got old in the first Avengers movie.

Back on the Ringolo, Peter makes another pop culture reference and they blast the dead elf looking goon out into space and get control of the ship. They’re bound for Titan. Is it a new planet? Is it Saturn’s moon? Who knows? The plot sure doesn’t.

Gamora’s tragic backstory is expanded on incredibly briefly. I don’t think Mrs Gamora’s mom ever told her not to talk to giant purple strangers committing mass murder.

Gamora makes Quill promise to kill her, in a bit of foreshadowing shaped not unlike a brick to the face. Drax does Drax things. Much as I love him, using Drax to defuse a tense scene between Quill and Gamora is old now. Please find another use for him.

Through the Reality Stone and Benicio Del Toro in a bad wig, Thanos captures Gamora and surprise! Quill couldn’t kill her.

Was this torture scene with Nebula really necessary? Or did someone at Marvel go “I don’t think they know how much we hate women, lets have Thanos torture Nebula and then reveal to Gamora that he knew the truth all along”?

Thor, Groot, and Rocket’s adventure to Nidavellir would have been better if they didn’t give the great Peter Dinklage and Thor the ungodly exchange of

“You can’t take the full blast of the star, you’ll be killed!” “You mean I might die!?” “.....yes, that’s what ‘you’ll be killed’ means.”

Also Red Skull is here, but he’s not played by Hugo Weaving and whoever they hired to replace him can’t do an accent, so the end result is less “Oh hey it’s that guy!” and more “Is this a new person?”

Gamora’s death was cruel and unnecessary and had been telegraphed from the moment we got her tragic backstory.

The Guardians, Tony, Strange, and Peter meet up on Titan (again, Saturn’s moon or what? Who knows.). Because no one is capable of talking to each other in this movie, they fight until Quill, Tony, and Peter realize they’re all human.

Quill isn’t from Earth, he’s from Missouri, because he’s an idiot now.

Thanos appears and it’s motivation time. After ten years, surely we have something great lined up. Is it Mistress Death? Is it to unite the universe under his control? A little good old fashioned megalomania? No it’s…. Overpopulation. He wants to save the universe… from overpopulation. I will henceforth be referring to him as Evil Al Gore.

The combined Guardvengers have Evil Al Gore subdued and the gauntlet is off. I REPEAT, the gauntlet is OFF. Then Nebula realizes Gamora is dead and Quill loses it, distracting Mantis from keeping him subdued and letting him get the gauntlet back on.

The battle, nay, the WAR, was literally won until they injected a little Man Pain into the script.

Strange decides to surrender because the script told him to, and surrenders the Time Stone just like that.

In Wakanda, Shuri (god bless her) is going to try and get the stone out of Vision without killing Vision while the rest of the Stevevengers plus Bucky, T’Challa, and the Wakandans try and hold off Evil Al Gore’s goons and their army of… alien attack dogs?

Shuri, after two lines in the movie, dives off screen literally never to be seen again. A tragic waste of the best character they’ve given us in at least five years.

Wanda agrees to destroy the stone in Vision’s head, and even succeeds, until Evil Al Gore, rewinds time and reassembles it. Voila, he has all six stones, like we knew would happen two minutes into the movie.

Thor beats him up but neglected to go for anywhere that might actually stop him, so Evil Al Gore clicks his fingers and vanishes and people start to disintegrate.

They try for a little tugging at the heartstrings with Peter vanishing, but all he’s done all movie is spout pop culture at me in a borderline insulting parody of teenagers, so I’m a little glad to see him go.

Evil Al Gore retires to his retirement planet to watch the sun set, but not before a vision of baby Gamore asks him what it cost. “Everything”, apparently.

Points of note:

The movie is so overstuffed with characters that everyone is barely in it. Characters literally trip over each other for screentime and lines.

There are seldom more than five main characters in a scene at once

Thanos is so overpowered right from the start that no fight scene involving him is tense at all.

What the fuck was that villain motivation

The plot has no cohesion. Things happen because the plot mandates them, not because they make sense.

The effects are good if it’s cg elements interacting with cg elements. Once a live actor or prop is introduced, it falls apart. It’s painfully clear the budget went to the cast. Just look at Bruce in the Hulkbuster at the end

The fact Marvel has no central story team is glaringly obvious.

Nobody in this movie is in character.

Overall? 2/10. Marvel really thought that was an acceptable movie to put out after ten years.

#infinity war #infinity war spoilers #infinity war critical #don't try to tell me i'm wrong #just accept marvel has you by the purse strings and go

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