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Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Because I love Star Wars so much, it is impossible for me to write a coherent review of the film. This franchise will always be an opening day event for me, and I will always go more than once, like when I saw both Rogue One and Episode VII three times in theaters. I saw this movie only twice and truthfully that might have been too many times. It has now been more than six months since this film was released so I am sure my review is quite late, but I had to put my thoughts out there.  

To simply say this movie was “not good” is not enough, so I will try and provide a thorough break down of things that I liked and didn’t like. I hope at the end that I feel better about the movie, and maybe I will even be able to come to grips with the fact that I bought a movie that I didn’t enjoy.  I will add one more point; I have not, nor will I sign a petition to have this movie removed the canon of Star Wars. At this point it is what it is. Maybe it will get better with age.

Things I didn’t like:

Humor and General Hux

I complained about this a little bit when I wrote about Episode VII, and now this has gone from a minor complaint to a major one. Why the hell is Disney turning General Hux into a member of the Three Stooges? I was bothered by this right at the start of the film, and it only got worse as the film progressed. The opening scene involves Poe Dameron prank calling Hux just to screw with him, and this provides Poe with the time that he needs to destroy every laser cannon on board the dreadnought, ultimately leading to the ship’s destruction. At one point during the prank call, a junior officer says, “I believe he’s tooling with you, Sir.” What the hell is Disney doing to Star Wars?! These movies have always been serious space operas. Yes, there has been humor but it was always in the clever writing, not some sort of slap stick garbage better left for bad comedies.

After this failure Snoke decides to use the force to slam Hux around the bridge of his Star Destroyer. Don’t worry, the slap stickiness isn’t over; near the end of the movie Hux finds himself slammed into a wall after he disagrees with Kylo Ren.  I know that some people find this type of humor to be funny, and depending on the film, I am one of those people, but it doesn’t really belong in a Star Wars movie. Additionally, even if it did belong, it shouldn’t be directed at General Hux. Hux is one of the leaders of the first order, he is responsible for entire military, he is a representation of the whole “Evil” organization, and instead he is the butt of jokes. Go back and watch the original trilogy. All of the officers of the Empire are serious, and this helps to establish the Empire as a serious, intimidating organization. At this point there is nothing about the First Order that seems evil.

Beyond the humor, Hux is always ranting and raving, giving terrible speeches, and at this point he is more of a caricature of a bad guy than actually bad. Even Admiral Ozzel would think that this guy is incompetent, and according to Darth Vader, Ozzel is, “As clumsy as he is stupid.”   How I am supposed to take him or the First Order seriously? Star Wars is meant to be a serious film, and instead General Hux, one of the principle villains is best compared to Wylie Coyote.  This is a bold thing to say, but at this point I hate this character more than I hate Jar Jar Binks.

Big Ships

First, we had Star Killer Base, which was a bigger, shittier version of the Death Star. Side Tangent: So, it’s built into a planet and uses the power of the sun to shoot beams into space to blow up planets. What happens when the energy is all used up? Is Star Killer Base useless? Seems like a poor investment, but I digress.  Then to start this movie there is a new Star Destroyer type, the Dreadnought, which is, “basically a fleet killer,” according to Poe Dameron. But it is able to be destroyed by one bomber? Then you have Snoke’s giant ass ship, which is wrecked by jumping a ship into hyperspace right through the ship. (I thought that this was cool, but it begs the questions, why wouldn’t the rebels just do this to every ship killer the First Order builds?) At this point I am really sick of seeing another giant ass ship. It’s just too much, and at this point it’s useless because they all get destroyed the second they show up.

24 Hours

This entire movie takes place over the space of 24 hours, and it is not a good thing. All of the other films have taken place over weeks or months of time. This gives them a better spacing and allows the story and the characters to develop better. To start Episode VI, Han Solo is a smuggler who doesn’t care about anyone, but by the end of the film he risks his life to help the Rebel cause. This drastic of a transformation wouldn’t make much sense over the course of 24 hours, but over the course of several weeks, of course its possible. In Episode V, Luke goes from an untrained user of the force to holding his own in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. This type of advancement takes time.

How are characters suppose to grow and develop over the course of 24 hours? How is Rey supposed to develop her force abilities in such a short amount of time? As Disney continues to rush the timelines, Rey’s growth in her Force abilities seem more ridiculous and out of balance with the rest of the stories.  

Additionally, the travel time is all screwed up in these new Disney films. Characters and ships get from one planet to the next almost instantaneously. I know Disney is going for “action-packed,” but instead this quick jumping makes the story feel rushed. Because I am a huge nerd I always think about the battle tactics. If the rebel ships can jump instantaneously from one point to another, why would they ever stick it out and fight the First Order? In story line of Episode VIII, the First Order has some sort of hyperspace tracking device, but this is just a band-aid for this story and does nothing to explain space travel. The instant jumping also eliminates some of the dialogue between characters. One of the more underrated parts of A New Hope is the light saber training scene on-board the Millennium Falcon. Luke, Han, and Obi-wan talk about their views on the force and you get to know the characters better, but instant arrivals and departures ruin any chance for scenes like this.

Admiral Ackbar is dead?

The Resistance cruiser takes a massive hit to the bridge and everyone is ejected into space and dies, except of course for Leia. During the after battle meeting aboard the cruiser, a nameless officer says that all of the Resistance command was lost, including Admiral Ackbar. Wait…. What just happened? Ackbar is dead, just like that?

To most people this might not be a big deal. Ackbar’s most famous contribution to the saga thus far has been his famous line, “It’s a trap,” which has been turned into a meme and used over and over again. But to Star Wars fans he is immensely important as the main military leader of the Rebel Alliance whose strategies shape the battle between the Empire and the Rebels. So why do they choose to kill him off, and in passing no less? I really don’t have an answer for this and it worries me how easily Disney choose to kill him.

 I really could go on with another five or six points but I think that you get the point, there were a lot of things in this movie that I didn’t like.  

 Things everyone is complaining about that didn’t really bother me:

Leia zooming across space using the Force

I went and saw this movie with four friends, and we all rode together to the movies. One the way home, everyone was discussing how stupid it was that Leia, an untrained force user, was able to fly thousands of meters across space and arrive safely in the star cruiser, mostly unharmed. I wasn’t bothered by it then, and I am still not bothered by it now.

The Force is a mysterious thing. It connects everything and grants the user nearly uncontrolled powers. I have read about Jedi using the force to blast Star Destroyers out the sky, absorbing thousands of laser bolts without any harm, and surviving impossible odds against powerful enemies. Why is it so unbelievable to shield one’s self in a protective bubble and then traveling across space to safety? That seems believable enough to me, as far as the Force is concerned.

Who is Snoke?

 After The Force Awakens was released, the internet was consumed with two questions, the first of which was, who is Snoke? There was a lot of speculation, but I avoided all of it. The articles were nothing more that internet gossip to fill the time between movies. I figured that I would find out the answer in the course of time, but so far this question has yet to be answered. Snoke died aboard his giant ass ship, and the question remains unanswered, but at this point it seems irrelevant considering he’s dead.

But is this really any different than the Emperor prior to the prequel trilogy? All the original movies tell us is that he is Emperor, and that with the help of Darth Vader, he hunted down and destroyed the Jedi Order. No one really asked who he was or where he came from, and I am fine with the answer remaining a mystery. At least for now.

I have a suggestion that I think makes for a cool discussion. The Star Wars movies have always been about the battle between the Sith and the Jedi. After the Emperor and Vader were killed, it seemed that finally the Sith had been defeated. Why can’t they stay dead? I think it would be interesting if Snoke was part of different sect of Darkside force users, and the template for this has already been set up. Neither Snoke or Kylo Ren uses the “Darth” prefix, which means “Dark Lord of the Sith”. Ren is also called “the Leader of the Knights of Ren”, so wouldn’t it be cool if this was the seeds of new order that could battle the Jedi going forward? Or maybe even battle the Sith.

   Things I liked:

The big fight in Snoke’s lair

This fight was excellent as it pitted two light saber wielders against “the Knights of Ren,” all using a variety of different lightsaber type weapons. Currently we have only seen a single bladed lightsaber and Maul’s double-bladed saber. This is the first time that we have seen something a little bit more unique in relation to the design of the weapons.

Another thing that I really enjoyed was the style of fight. The fights in the prequel trilogy involved a lot of jumping and flipping, and most of the battles were so fast paced that it became difficult to follow. I also didn’t think this change made the battles any more thrilling. I have always preferred the more slow-paced fights in the original trilogy, which seemed more sword-like and provided a different pace to the fights. All of the fights in VII and VIII have been similar to that of the original trilogy.

The mystery of Rey’s family

Much like the mystery of Snoke, this question was debated all over the internet. Some people said that Rey was the daughter of Luke. Other people assumed that she was Kylo’s sister. There were also crazier theories but all of the theories had one thing in common, they linked Rey to other already established characters in the universe. But Disney did something different, Rey is no one. She is Rey, the daughter of two drunks who play no part in the wider universe.

Some people are assuming that Kylo Ren was lying when he reveled Rey’s lineage, but I hope that’s not true. I want her to be a completely new character with no connection to the rest of the Star Wars Universe. It provides a different angle for the story. It doesn’t matter that her parents weren’t important. It also removes the Star Wars movies from the grips of the Skywalker family, and while you would think that this would bother a Star Wars fan, it doesn’t. It seems strange that one family would have such a dramatic effect on the entire events of a galaxy. This brings a new player onto the board.

Benicio Del Toro

Benicio Del Toro is a great actor, and he completely steals the show in the Usual Suspects. Since I first saw that movie, I have enjoyed the oddity that he brings to his roles. He also has a certain gravitas when he steps into a film that I can’t look away from him whenever he is acting.  His role in The Last Jedi is no less odd and captivating. He plays a codebreaker with the alias DJ (Don’t Join) and is recruited when Finn and Rose end up in a prison cell while trying to recruit a different code breaker. Everything about his character is mysterious, and we don’t know where he is from or who he really is.  His character talks with a slight stutter which some people found annoying, but it is all in keeping with the things that Del Toro generally brings to a role, oddity.

The other thing that his character DJ possesses is a different grasp on reality than the other characters. The First Order is made up of the bad guys that want to subjugate the Galaxy, and The Resistance is made up of the good guys who protect the little people and fight for freedom. But existence isn’t made up of only good guys and bad guys, some people live in the gray, and DJ is one of those characters. He has a pair of really good lines that he says to Finn while trying to educate him about his view of the galaxy. The first, “Good guys, bad guys, made-up words…” is a fair point from a guy who is just looking to score a few credits and make his way in the galaxy. His second important line is my favorite in the movie, and it’s nothing but a single word. After DJ betrays Finn and Rose to the First Order this exchange takes place:

DJ - "Oh, t-t-t-t-take it easy, Big F. They blow you up today, you will blow them up tomorrow. It's j-just business."

Finn - "You're wrong!"

DJ - "Maybe."

Honestly it’s perfect. Generally, we are used to “gray characters” ultimately seeing the virtue of the “good guys” and helping in them in their quest but not with DJ. Maybe he chose the wrong side, even he is willing to see that. But that doesn’t seem to matter to him, he’s just onto the next thing. There’s a certain realness to him that makes me really enjoy his character. I do hope that he shows up again in a future movie, and I hope that he remains true to his roots.

 Overall Feelings

After having some time to ruminate on this movie I have decided that, at present, I don’t much enjoy it. Maybe my feelings will change, and maybe the movie will age well and can become something that I enjoy. But currently I would have to say that this is one of my least favorite Star Wars movies. I hope that Disney can right the ship in IX, but I feel they may be too far down a path, and the best I am hoping for is mediocrity from the upcoming film.  

Ryan

[echobasegazette]

Stranger Things

I haven’t ever written about a TV show before, mainly because I don’t watch much non-sports TV. I really just watch movies and reruns when I turn on the TV because I can’t seem to ever remember to watch shows I like when they air. But recently I have been watching TV shows, on a strictly binge-watch basis, on Netflix or HBO. Like most people, when I can’t find something to watch, I browse the “you might like this” on the Netflix homepage, and a recent addition to that category was Stranger Things. I still don’t know why I decided to watch it; maybe it was because of the ticking timer that showed up when I first clicked on the show, “4 hours until the release of season 2,” or maybe it was some of the hype I’d heard from people I know. But once I started the series, I couldn’t stop. I plowed through all 18 episodes in seven days, and when it finished, I couldn’t help but think that the final episode was absolutely perfect.

For those who haven’t seen the show I will give you some quick points to peak your interest and then suggest that you stop reading until you’ve finished the series.

Super Quick Review

The show takes place in the mid-80s, in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. There are four kids who are playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement when the show starts. After the conclusion of their mission/quest they all head home. One of the kids, Will, is attacked on the way home by a creature from another dimension called the Upside Down. Meanwhile there is a secret facility in town run by the United States government, and as you would expect, they are up to all sorts of no good. This show is advertised as scary, but it’s more of a thriller and suspenseful, very similar in feel and “scare” level to Super 8 by J.J. Abrams.

Now if you haven’t seen the show, I would advise you to stop here since everything going forward is full of spoilers.

This show is really freaking good so I am not going to write a review on the show itself. What I am going to do is talk about a few things that I have been thinking about since I finished watching. Some of the following points have come from reading other articles online, and some are just my own perceptions and reflections.

Why do people care about Barb Holland and Bob Newby?

It took me seven days to finish this series, and while watching it I refrained from reading anything online about the show. The main reason that I do this is so the ideas of authors don’t infect my own.  So, when I finished the show I went online and started reading articles and reviews about the show and people seemed to really like these two characters, and I have no idea why.

As soon as Barb was captured, I knew she was dead. They had to start killing characters to create the perception of threat to the main characters, and she was the perfect fit. Online there started to become a #justiceforbarb following on social media, but why? She appears to be a good person and a good friend to main character Nancy Wheeler, but her biggest contribution was being dragged to party she didn’t want to go to and trying to cock-block her friend. Do I think her parents should have been told of her death so that they didn’t sell their house trying to pay to find their daughter? Yes, of course. But someone had to die in that first season, and she is easily the best option.

Bob Newby is different than Barb; he wasn’t a throw-away character who had to die just to create the potential of a threat. Bob is a main character who dies because he made too many mistakes. First, he convinced Will Byers to tell his dream demons to go away. Sure, that’s sound advice if you are having run of the mill nightmares, but its shitty advice if you are being stalked by an interdimensional power known as the shadow monster. Second, Bob nominates himself for a suicide mission because he is really the only one who is capable of operating the computers. But once he’s finished he leaves his gun on the table before heading to the exit. Rookie mistake Bob, when you are being chased by aliens, zombies, talking toys, or inter-dimensional Demi-Dogs, you never forget your gun.

The third and final/fatal mistake Bob makes is he doesn’t complete the catch before looking up field. This might not make sense to anyone who doesn’t watch football but sometimes a WR will be about to catch a pass and then he will turn to look up field, taking his eyes off the ball leading to a dropped pass. So, make the catch and then turn up field. Bob makes the same mistake, metaphorically. He has just escaped a maze of horrors and slammed the door in the face of a Demi-Dog, he is within 30 feet of safety and he looks up and celebrates the moment. In the next instant the demi-dog crashes through the door and eats him. Bob died because he didn’t stay focused on his objective; he was too busy trying to be “Bob Newby, Superhero”.

What was the deal with Eleven’s standalone episode in Season 2?

Eleven has been stuck in a cabin for 350+ days, and Hopper has been driving her crazy because he never shows up on time. She is pissed off at Mike because she saw him chatting up Max, and so she decides it’s time to go visit her mother. While she is there, she sees a vision of another girl, Eight/Kali, and takes off to Chicago to meet up with her. Kali is the leader of a gang which robs people and kills “bad people”, and she convinces Eleven to join for a short time.

I hated this entire episode; everything about it was completely horrible. Eleven is “good guy”, sure she was a little impulsive, but she was getting training at the hands of Chief Hopper. She was on the right path. Then she meets up with Kali and her gang of losers. I was so happy when Eleven finally decided to head back to Indiana to help her friends.

My other complaint was that this episode, “The Lost Sister”, existed outside the rest of the story timeline. Every other episode jumps around between the different characters so that time passes evenly for the cast. But not this episode it’s just an entire episode of bad decisions by a 13-year-old with superpowers. It would have been better if this storyline was split between several episodes throughout the middle of season two. But really, I still don’t think I would have enjoyed the story line.

Why did Dr. Brenner want to be called by Papa by the experiment kids?

Dr. Brenner is the main human villain in the first season, and he runs the Hawkins Energy lab building. One of his duties at this covert CIA-type laboratory is training the captured children in the use of their powers. He is also in charge of keeping the experiments at the Hawkins facility a secret for the local community. In his normal duties, he has to experiment on children and kill anyone who finds out the secret nature of the facility, so basically his job sucks. Even if he donated part of his salary to charity he would still be a “bad guy” best compared to Joesf Mengele, the Doctor at Aushwitz who experimented on children. But the creepiest thing about this guy is that the children call him “Papa”. Why? The kids are isolated from the rest of the world, he could tell them to call him anything. But instead he has created this weird father relationship with the children. He should probably be investigated by the Officers of the Special Victims Unit because something weird is going on here.

Why isn’t Nancy creeped out by Jonathan Byers?

Early in the first season Jonathan Byers is walking through the woods looking for his brother Will when he stumbles on Steve Harrington’s house. There is a party going on at Steve’s house, so Jonathan pulls out his camera and starts taking pictures of the frivolities. While taking picture he captures a photograph of Nancy taking off her clothes in Steve’s room.

After developing his photos Jonathan is walking through the school parking lot and happens upon Nancy, Steve, and his goonish friend. Steve and the goon take his photos and find the revealing photo of Nancy; they proceed to rip up the photos and smash his camera. At this point Nancy feels bad for Jonathan, which is understandable given that her “friends” have just bullied the poor kid. But she ends up becoming friends with Jonathan and later dates him. Why isn’t she creeped out by the fact that he took these photos? I know he gives her some lame excuse about capturing people as they actually are, but it’s still completely creepy. I just don’t understand why this isn’t a huge red flag and major turnoff.

Who is the MVP of the first two seasons of Stranger Things 2?

Stranger Things has now completed its first two seasons, 18 episodes of content, and there is a lot going on. But my favorite thing to think about is who is the biggest hero of the show. Who is the MVP?

There are certainly a lot of quality options. The two most obvious choices are Eleven and Chief Jim Hopper. Eleven is a 12/13-year-old with some X-men like powers. She took on the Demogorgon and kicked its ass, then she threw down with some demi-dogs and closed a massive portal to the Upside down with her mind. There were some rough patches along the way, like shoplifting and joining up with a crew of losers, but she always shows up when the bread needs to buttered.

Chief Jim Hopper is just a local police chief, but he can really kick some ass. In fact, I think he punches out every person at Hawkins lab.  He has no powers except an awesome beard and a willingness to battle interdimensional beings, even though it’s way out of his jurisdiction. Heck he even looks out for Eleven when she has no place to live.

With any MVP race there has to be some dark horse candidates and here are those four options. Joyce Byers is Will and Jonathan’s (why doesn’t he go by John?) mother. She doesn’t give up on Will even when everyone thinks he is dead and that she is crazy. But her ex does throw her off for an episode. In season two she really steps up her game as she helps Hopper solve the maze that Will has drawn. Her and Bob team up to locate the missing Chief Hopper, and finally, she teams up with Nancy and Jonathan and gives heat to the shadow monsters to save her son.  

The trio of Mike, Dustin, and Lucas would also make a solid choice. Sure, they make some mistakes, they often need to be rescued by other characters, and they fight amongst themselves. But they go toe to toe with a scary ass monster with nothing but a slingshot. The also use their knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons to explain everything that’s happening to the rest of the characters. They do have some rocky moments but they remain steadfast in their desire to help their friend.

Neither Jonathan nor Nancy has a strong case by themselves, but together they are a pretty sweet team. The buy some bear traps and other tools in an effort to distract the Demogorgon. They help Murray the reporter bust open the secret on the Hawkins facility, kicking those bastards out of town. They even manage to help out Barb’s parents avoid losing their home and all their money in a desperate search for their daughter. And with the help of Joyce, they manage to save Will from the clutches of the shadow monster.

Billy Hargrove is a complete asshole and would never have a chance at the MVP, but his mullet is freaking awesome. Every time Billy does something awesome, smoking while lifting weights, seducing Nancy’s mom, playing shirtless basketball, that’s the power of his mullet. But even his mullet couldn’t save him from getting his ass kicked by his sister.

If you’ve seen the show you know none of those people have a chance. The real MVP is Steve Harrington; he even has a sweet nickname perfect for the MVP of the show, King Steve.  Steve is the only character who really changes throughout the events of the show. He starts out as a douche who is just hooking up with Nancy to get another notch in his belt. Next, he morphs into bat wielding defeater of the Demogorgon. Steve then becomes a good boyfriend, ready to take the next step with Nancy Wheeler, even putting up with a depressing dinner of KFC with Barb’s parents. Don’t worry he’s not done. Next, he gets his heart crushed but comes back as super-babysitter, equipped again with nail embedded bat. Steve closes out the show dispensing lady advice to Dustin and even drives him to the dance. Steve and his breathtaking Farrah Fawcett hair is your undisputed MVP of the first two seasons of the Stranger Things.

 The Duffy brothers are set to make a third season and there are rumors of five seasons in total. Hopefully they start filming soon because I am really excited for the next part of the show. Plus, the kids are all set to hit puberty and we don’t 20+ year old high school students in future seasons. Lets just hope that future seasons don’t ruin the absolute perfection of that final episode of season 2.

Big O

[echobasegazette]

Thor: Ragnarok

The Marvel Universe is a tricky place where they just keep making more and more movies, year after year. The only way to have a full understanding of what is happening is to watch all of the movies, revolving around all of the characters so you don’t miss bits and pieces of each of the stories. I am all in on Captain America, the whole man out of time aspect is really well executed, and he is the Marvel character that I most relate to. Iron Man movies are always entertaining, and normal dudes wearing expensive suits always seem more plausible. Everyone wants to be Iron Man. The Guardians of the Galaxy films are freaking hilarious, and the music in them really brings an extra dimension to the story. There has only been one Spiderman, Ant-man, and Dr. Strange movie, so I will save judgment on those for now.

Thor has always been the one series that I haven’t been able to fully commit to. I will admit to owning both films, and I saw them in theaters so my money is committed, but my consciousness just isn’t. The first movie was to put it, bad. It really didn’t have much action and the love story felt forced and unbelievable. I also don’t believe that Natalie Portman would ever be single, and it would be Thor that would be after her, not the other way around. The second movie was much better but I am not sure how much I enjoy the “magic” that comes with the world of Asgard. Additionally, I find the whole nine realms things to be confusing, and it hasn’t really been explained in good enough detail to understand its purpose.

Despite my misgivings about the Thor movies, I still had every intention of seeing it as soon as possible. And I came away pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the film.

Review (No Spoilers)

It has been two years since the events of Age of Ultron. Thor is now single, because only an idiot would blow their chance with Natalie, and he has been running around the Galaxy, searching for the Infinity Stones and other treasures. To start the movie, Thor is battling with Surtur, some sort of fire demon who has plans to destroy Asgard, which would bring about Ragnarok (the end of Asgard). Thor kicks this guy’s ass and his entire army’s, but during the battle, Surtur reveals that Odin is no longer on Asgard. The audience already knows that Loki is masquerading as Odin and ruling in his place.

Thor heads straight to Asgard and discovers that Heimdall is no longer the bridge guy and has been replaced with an M-16 toting idiot named Skurge (Karl Urban). Skurge leads Thor to Loki in disguise as Odin. Funny side note: Odin (Loki in disguise) is watching a play about the greatness of Loki, and Matt Damon has a cameo as one of the actors. Thor quickly exposes Loki and demands the location of Odin, which happens to be a rest home in New York, which has been destroyed.  Where the heck is Odin? Dr. Strange shows up and helps the duo find their missing father, and Odin dies. How could I reveal that? Well, it takes place so early in the movie I thought it wasn’t really a spoiler.

Now shit gets real. Odin has a daughter, Thor’s older sister, and she is a total bad ass named Hela (Cate Blanchett). Odin had been keeping her imprisoned, but now that he is dead she is free to take over Asgard. She shows up and throws down with Thor and Loki. She basically kicks the crap out of them, and they wind up stuck on a garbage planet far away from Asgard with no way to get back. She also crushes Thor’s hammer with her bare hand, so now Thor is completely without his key weapon.

Review (with some spoilers)

This is by far the best of the three Thor films. It also doubled as something of a Hulk film because of how much he appears in the movie. He doesn’t show up until the half way point, but he becomes a main character going forward. The garbage planet that Thor lands on has some sort of gladiatorial games run by a guy named Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum). Grandmaster is the brother of the Collector (Benicio Del Toro) from the Guardians series, and his champion is the Hulk. We also meet up with another Asgardian on Garbage planet, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). She is a former Asgardian warrior who was a member of the Valkyrior before they were defeated by Hela. Now she drinks a lot and works for the Grandmaster capturing slaves for the gladiatorial games. I really enjoyed all of the scenes involving Goldblum; he manages to the toe the line between sadistic, playful, crazy, and fun. I really hope that the Marvel brings both Goldblum and the Del Toro together in a movie; I really think it would make for some cool scenes.

Thor 3 also has a Hulk story which has been a little lacking since he no longer gets standalone films. At the end of Ultron, Hulk made the decision not to return to the Avengers and flew away on a Quinn Jet. Somehow, he ended up on Garbage planet. The fascinating thing is that Hulk has not turned back into Bruce Banner in 2 years. He has been keeping himself in Hulk form, and he even mentions a few times that he doesn’t like Banner. This seems to imply that there are two different personalities; the Hulk and Bruce. I would even venture to say that at some point the two are going to be split up which sometimes happens in the comics. So, get ready for a super powered Hulk that is no longer limited by the Banner personality. But how they are going to do the separation? It will probably some sort of weird magic thing.

One other thing that is worth mentioning; the entire Thor universe gets destroyed. All of his friends our killed. Asgard goes down in flames…. literally. And all of the Asgardians board a ship and head for Earth. This is a strange move for the Marvel Universe. So far, the evil empire known as Disney has avoided killing off well known characters, but not in this film. This makes speculation for the upcoming Avengers movie very interesting. Who’s going to die next? Ironman and Captain America seem most plausible. Cap could just be replaced with Bucky, and anyone could put on a suit and take over for Ironman. But I will leave the speculation to others.

Overall, this is a really solid movie and probably one of my current Marvel favorites. Still not better than the Winter Solider, but very good. This film also serves as a major setup up for Avengers 3 so, this is something of a must see.

Who will like this film?

If you are into the Marvel Universe then you should probably check this out.

Does anyone know if there are people who only watch parts of the series and skip out on other movies? If you do skip out on movies, are you reading the synopsis or are just winging it and hoping that you can put it together when the movies you want to watch come out?

Overall

7.9/10

Big O

[echobasegazette]

Dunkirk

If you missed the previews for Dunkirk, you should be ashamed of yourself, because they were freaking incredible. Not that I needed any fancy marketing to convince me to see Christopher Nolan’s latest project, a war movie on the Battle of Dunkirk. Now if you don’t know anything about Dunkirk I set the stage for this very important world history event with one sentence. Nearly 400,000 British and French soldiers were evacuated from the beaches of France as the German army barred down on the embattled soldiers, trapping them on the shores.  Now, I tend to really like movies about history, especially World War II, and since Christopher Nolan might be one of the better directors alive, I definitely wanted to see this opening weekend. I’ve had some time to collect my thoughts about the film and have reviewed it below.

BUT WAIT! Before I start the review, I would like to talk about Christopher Nolan really quick. He is a really good director, and despite being only 46 years old, he has made a string of great movies: The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, The Prestige, and Memento. Now here is the something that is a little crazy, according to the IMDB ratings, Christopher Nolan has directed six of the top 100 movies of all time! No other director has more than four movies in the top 100, and at this mid-point of his career, he has two more than them! Now that will most likely change with new up and coming directors, but it is still pretty impressive. As a side note, Dunkirk is currently in the top 100 which would give Nolan seven films in the top 100.  

 Quick Synopsis (Without Spoilers)

Dunkirk was a famous battle of the Second World War where the French and British troops had been defeated by the German army. They were forced all the way to the Atlantic Coast, troops crowded onto the beaches of the coastal city of Dunkirk. The British were trying to evacuate as many troops as they could but their progress was being slowed as the Luftwaffe attacked any ships on the English Channel.  Nolan decided to tell this story from three different narratives during the final days of the battle of Dunkirk as soldiers were losing all hope that they would find a way back home.

The first storyline and point of view, is from a solider named Tommy who is trapped on the “Mole”, which is the historical name for area that was controlled by the allies during the Dunkirk evacuation. Tommy’s timeline takes place over the course of a week as he runs around the city and the beaches doing anything he can to escape the oncoming assault by the German Army.

The second narrative focuses on civilians taking part in the battle from the sea. The British are in crisis-mode, and they are having major issues evacuating the men on the beach. There is only one dock on the beach that will allow large ships to pick up passengers and the waters are too shallow for the large ships to pull directly up to the beach. In order to try rescuing as many soldiers as possible, the British have decided to commandeer private civilian boats to assist the troops. Mr. Dawson, his son Peter and their teenage deckhand George head out to sea to help rescue the soldiers trapped on the beach. Their story line unfolds over the course of a day.

The final narrative focuses on British pilots and their battle in the Air. Three spitfire pilots Farrier, Collins and their squad leader are crossing the English Channel to provide air support for the troops waiting at Dunkirk. Due to fuel concerns the trio only has about 40 minutes to dogfight with the enemy before they must return to England. Their story takes place over the course of an hour leading up to the culmination of events at Dunkirk.

Review

I honestly am not sure if I actually like this film, the two things that bothered me most was the timeline setup and the dialog. But maybe seeing it a few more times would change my mind.  However, I was on the edge of my seat throughout the entire movie because this film does an excellent job of keeping the viewer engaged the entire time. Nolan uses the sound of a ticking clock to keep the viewer aware of the pressing of time, “Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Tick Tock,” creating an anxiety and an understanding that time is a factor and these men have to get off this beach.

Nolan secures quite the interesting cast of actors for this epic war film. The main character Tommy was played by Fionn Whitehead, who is something of an unknown actor, but he does a solid job in his role as “Terrified infantry Grunt” who needs to escape the beach.  Harry Styles (from One Direction) shows up as Alex, another Army private who meets up with Tommy along the way. Styles actually does a solid job, and after a while you start to forget that he is a famous member of a British boy band. Tom Hardy plays the main fighter pilot and spends nearly the entire movie in a cockpit, shooting down bombers and dogfighting with Luftwaffe pilots. There are several other actors in this film who you will recognize and all do a fine job.

The one thing that is really different about this film is the timeline. Each of the three stories are being shown but because the elapsed time of each is so different the stories don’t line up and it can make it difficult to follow exactly what’s happening in the story. Additionally, the time lines are only introduced with small type at the beginning of each story, “One Hour”, “One Day”, and “One Week.” It is often difficult to tell where these stories overlap because of all the moving pieces. The timeline really just makes the stories difficult to follow, and I can’t really see the benefit… maybe repeat viewing will provide an answer.

Another issue I have with this film was in understanding exactly what the characters were saying. When I am at home, I watch all movies and serious TV shows with subtitles. Some people find this annoying, but after a while the words and the movie start to blend together, and they become really helpful when you miss things or can’t understand someone because the character is mumbling. If you don’t use subtitles, trust me this is the way to watch movies. When I go to the theater there are usually a few points in each movie where I think, “Damn I didn’t quite get that.” But with this movie it was more like half the film. I just couldn’t get a grasp on what was being said, partially because of the loud background sounds of the attacks on the beach and also because of the short, quick dialogue, all with British accents.

Who will like this film?

If you like war films or are a history buff, then this is probably for you. But you should be aware of the disjointed timeline because it may give you a better grasp on the film.

Overall

7.4/10

 The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

Star Wars: A New Adventure

Two new Star Wars movies have been released since the last time that I wrote an article on my all-time favorite franchise, and I’ve decided that it is finally time to take a long hard look at the newest entries to the franchise and see if they really hold water.  

Several people have asked me why I never did a review on the two new films, and for those wondering here is the answer: I did not feel that I could provide an unbiased review of any film in this franchise because I just love it too much! In any review I’d write, I would either fawn all over the film or pick at things that the average viewer wouldn’t have noticed. And if I read a review that was overly picky, I know it would color my judgment of an otherwise watchable movie. So, I have saved my praise and condemnations for this article, where I can profess my love for the new films and pick them apart.

For those of you who haven’t seen these movies, I will warn you that you will find spoilers, but I will properly label each section, so if you’ve only seen one of the two films you can still read half of the article. Additionally, if you haven’t seen one or both of these two films, go see them now.

This is my official Star Wars Ranking: (First to worst)

1.       Empire Strikes Back

2.       Star Wars (A New Hope)

3.       Rogue One

4.       Return of the Jedi

5.       The Force Awakens

6.       Revenge of the Sith

7.       Attack of the Clones

8.       The Phantom Menace

Star Wars: Episode 7 – The Force Awakens

I of course saw this film as a midnight release (well it was at 10pm on a Thursday but I’m going to call it a midnight release). My four-man group arrived at the movie theater two hours early to ensure that we would get good seats, and we ended up being the first four people inside. I remember having a combination of both high and low expectations; low because the prequels were bad and high because the trailers looked great. I was pretty sure that J.J. Abrams (who is a huge fan of the franchise) wouldn’t mess it up after his successful Star Trek films. Overall, I thought The Force Awakens was a solid, watchable film that had lot of solid aspects.

Things I liked:

·         The lightsaber fights – the scenes felt like traditional Star Wars lightsaber scenes. The flipping and fast action of the prequels was pretty cool but it felt too frantic and almost draining to watch.

·         The movie had light-hearted humor that was a lot more natural than in the prequels.

·         Tension – I was actually worried about the fate of the characters, whether they’d live or die, and what would happen to them in the future. The prequels lacked this same tension because the fate of the characters was already predetermined.

·         I really liked the new characters. Rey is a multi-faceted character, and her parentage promises to be the next big Star Wars reveal. Finn also has potential and held my interest throughout the film, even though it looks like he will be starting Episode VIII in a coma. I also enjoyed Poe Dameron, the newer version of Wedge Antilles (Wedge is an X-Wing pilot that is in all three movies and a major character in the expended universe and it would be cool for Disney to bring him and Lando into the new movies) and I hope they really develop this character.

·         The sets for The Force Awakens were grittier and darker than prequels. Episodes I, II and III seemed too perfect and neat, almost less “real” when compared with the atmosphere of the new films.

Things I didn’t like:

Derivative

This is the best way to describe the plot of the Episode VII: If I saw Star Wars: A New hope, as an 11-year-old and then imagined what my Star Wars adventure would be like, it would be the plot of The Force Awakens. I’m stranded on a deserted planet, and I steal the Millennium Falcon to escape. Along the way I shoot down some TIE Fighters and bump into Han Solo, who offers to make me his second mate. Together we travel to a seedy bar where we meet some crazy looking aliens and get tangled up with the Empire. I learn about the Force and wield a lightsaber against a poor man’s Darth Vader. Afterwards I travel to a new world to start my force training with the ultimate, Luke Skywalker. So yes, the movie was good but it was basically a remake of Episode IV, without being a remake.

New Planets & Aliens

When Disney purchased Lucas Arts, one of the first things they did was remove the Expanded Universe (EU) from the Star Wars cannon. For those of you who aren’t Star Wars nerds, the EU made up the stories and characters that were created in the Star Wars books, comic books, and video games. Disney essentially eliminated these stories and made all of them irrelevant. I completely understand why they did this, and if you just paid $4.2 billion for a franchise, you probably wouldn’t want to be bound by the countless stories that already existed either. But why do they have to create entirely new planets and aliens too? Can’t they at least use some of the old ones that Star Wars fans are familiar with?

Humor

While some of the scenes in the movie possessed a natural humor that played well with the story line, other scenes seemed to force humor when there wasn’t really a need for it. One of the scenes that I felt was really well done involved Han Solo and Finn. Upon landing on Star Killer Base, Han asks Finn about the “plan”, and Finn responds, “We’ll use the Force.” Han Solo, now angry to find out that Finn made up the plan says, “That’s not how the Force works.” For me this scene was perfect, it had the quick relatable humor that seemed and the dialog seemed to flow naturally. One of the scenes I didn’t like was when the new rebels are discussing the plan to blow up Star Killer base and Han says, “There is got to be a way to blow it up, there always is.” To me this seemed like forced humor and really removed the seriousness of the situation.

Lightspeed

In the Star Wars books, lightspeed had specific rules. You couldn’t go into lightspeed if you were inside of a star or planet’s gravity well, and you couldn’t jump to lightspeed from inside of a star ships hanger bay. But apparently in this film, those rules no longer apply. This kind of has an effect on how space battles might be fought. Wouldn’t the rebels just run away any time they couldn’t win, and wouldn’t the First Order do the same thing? I am probably a huge nerd for even caring about this, and I am sure the Star Wars movies will always still have space battles, but I must admit that I was annoyed about this because it contradicted a cool quote from Han Solo in a New Hope, “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops boy, without precise calculations we could fly right through a super nova or too close to a black hole and that would injure something real quick.”

Star Killer Base

Star Killer Base is really lame and was probably one of things that bothered me most.  It’s essentially a planet killing weapon that’s built into a planet and uses the power of a star, draining that star in the process? So, what happens when the star is completely drained? Is Star Killer now useless? Does it even have the ability to move? A lot of details are never really explained, and let’s be serious, it’s a complete rip off of the Death Star.

 Star Wars: Rogue One

I am not old enough to have seen the original trilogy in theaters, but I was around when the prequel trilogy was released, and waiting three years for the next installment is not a fun wait. Disney decided to fix this problem when they bought the franchise with a plan to release new Episodes every two years with standalone stories in between. This means that every year for the foreseeable future, we get to experience a new Star Wars adventure!  But exactly what stories were they going to tell? The first one that was released was the story of how the rebels got their hands on the Death Star plans, essentially serving as a prequel to A New Hope.

I will admit that I really enjoyed this movie and thought that it was a much better film than The Force Awakens. As I said earlier the thing that I liked most about the original trilogy was the grittiness, and this film had it in spades.  Rogue One was also much better with the comic relief than Episode VII, and overall felt like a more natural flowing storyline. Because I liked this film more, I’ll switch it up and quickly list the points I didn’t like and expand on my favorite parts.

Things I didn’t like:

·         The use of lightspeed is just as bothersome in this movie as it was in The Force Awakens

·         More new aliens, including that crazy Bor Gullet thing that reads your thoughts – creepy!

·         I am not sure if I like or don’t like that the new movies put a small label in the corner every time a new planet is introduced…I will get back to you on this one.

·         There was no opening scene story crawl? What the hell?! This is one of the things that make Star Wars movies, Star Wars movies. Why did they get rid of it?

·         The Guardians of the Whills. For those who aren’t crazy fans, the Whills were part of the original concept of the Force. Lucas got rid of this aspect early in the development of Episode IV, and they haven’t appeared in any of the other films…until now. I wish they would have just kept them out of the story.

·         As I stated earlier, I don’t like that Disney is creating new planets, and the worst of all is Jedha. According to Rogue One, Jedha is a major planet for the Jedi but it doesn’t show up until this movie? It just doesn’t make sense and isn’t necessary.

Things I liked:

Old Characters Return

One of the main villains of this film is Grand Moff Tarkin, who is played by Peter Cushing in both this film and A New Hope. Peter Cushing died in 1994, and because this film takes place directly before A New Hope it wouldn’t have really worked to have a different actor play this character. Disney recreated him using digital technology, and for the most part this was generally well done. The voice worked sounded great and most of the time his character looked very realistic.

On top of bringing back Grand Moff Tarkin, they also brought back some of the more obscure characters. During the final space battle, the rebels show up to battle in X-Wings and Y-Wings to take on the Empire, and Disney used the pilots from A New Hope. If you look closely, you will recognize the pilots of the Red and Gold Squadron. However, the same technique was used for a final scene involving Princess Leia, and that felt too cheesy. Leia was only really used to show that the next scene would be the opening of A New Hope and they didn’t really need to show her face to get that message across.

Space Battle

The final space battle was freaking awesome! There were Rebel capitol ships duking it out with Star Destroyers. TIE fighters, X-Wings and Y-Wings were dogfighting for control of the sky. Finally, Vader and the Devastator show up to mop up the pesky rebels. Scenes like this are one of the reasons I love Star Wars films, and there have really only been two major space battles shown on screen before: the final battle in Return of the Jedi, which is epic, and the opening battle of Revenge of the Sith, which was lame because you knew there was no chance that Anakin or Obi-Wan were going to die. Hopefully future movies will have even more epic space battles!

SPOILER: Everyone Died!

Rogue One did a nice job of developing a new cast of characters for this film. Jyn Erso is the daughter of an Imperial Science officer, Cassian Andor is the Rebel Intelligence officer who is forced to do things he doesn’t like for the sake of the Rebel cause, and Saw Gerrera is a disillusioned Rebel Leader who has lost his way in his war with the Empire. Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus are guardians of the Whills who join the rebel cause, and they even added some comic relief with the presence of a rebel owned Imperial Droid, K-2SO.

Halfway through the movie I started to wonder, what is going to happen to these characters? Is Disney really going to kill everyone? None of the characters are in IV, V or VI so there really isn’t anything that they could do except kill them. But would they really spend $265 million developing characters just to kill them off? Are they going to keep them alive and develop a whole new series with these characters appearing in movies set around the original trilogy? Well I didn’t have to wonder about this for very long. By the end of the film every one of these characters was dead, and as much as I enjoyed getting to know them, it was the right way to end the movie.

Female Leads

This is really more of a “like” for both movies because they both have strong, lead female characters. The original trilogy only really has one female character, Princess Leia, and most other women are just in the background. The prequels included a few more women, but again, none of them were leads while Padme was a supporting character at best. But having no female leads won’t work in the new post 2010 world, so the new movies fixed this!  Both films have females in leading roles which helps make the film more appealing to the masses and makes the films easier to watch with girlfriends and wives.

 Overall, I am generally excited about the new direction of the Star Wars world. There are a lot of things to like in these new movies with expanded and parallel storylines and new actors and actresses. Disney has also avoided adding a Jar Jar Binks character who all Star Wars fans love to hate. There are still a handful of things that I don’t like, but I am willing to suffer through them so that I can continue enjoying the franchise that I love.  Luckily, Disney hasn’t shit the bed yet.

The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

Split

In my opinion, M. Night Shyamalan has been struggling lately. Three of his last five, The Happening, Last Airbender and After Earth, were simply not good.  They were so bad that most people didn’t bother to see them.  Generally, I would not consider myself to be an M. Night fan, but I love Signs and still remember seeing it in theaters. I was blown away by the film.  

When I first saw the previews for his newest film, Split, I had mixed emotions; the previews looked captivating, but would it actually be any good? With each new trailer I became more excited and finally decided that I was going to give it a chance and see it in theaters. And honestly, I would be lying if I said the presence of James McAvoy didn’t sway my decision because I really enjoy his turn as Professor Charles Xavier.

Quick Synopsis (No Spoilers)

Casey Cooke (Ana Taylor-Joy) is attending the birthday party of her classmate Claire, and after the party is over, her ride home doesn’t show. Claire’s father offers to give Casey a ride home, along with another classmate named Marcia. It seems Marcia and Claire both dislike Casey but invited her to the part because she is in their class. They both think that Casey is weird and comment that she is often times suspended from class for poor behavior.  All three of the girls get in the car as Claire’s father loads the gifts into the trunk. Casey gets in the passenger side while the two other girls chat happily in the back seat. When the driver’s side door opens, Casey looks up and sees a different man get in the car; one that is not Claire’s father and one she does not recognize. She informs the man that he must be in the wrong car but immediately can sense something is wrong. When she glances at the side view mirror, she notices that Claire’s father is lying on the ground.  Once the man realizes she has picked up on what happened, he uses as a sprayable substance to incapacitate all three women, rendering them unconscious before driving them away.  

The girls wake up in a small room with no windows, three cots and an attached bathroom. They try to find a way out but quickly realize they are trapped inside the unknown location. Their captor comes to check-in on them and reveals his name is Dennis (James McAvoy). Dennis leaves the girls alone and they begin to discuss new ways in which they can escape. Sometime later, they hear a women talking outside of the room and feel this is their chance to break free.  The girls start banging on the door and screaming for help, but when the door finally opens, “Dennis” is standing there in women’s clothing.

As the film progresses, we find out that “Dennis” is actually Kevin Wedell Crumb, a man who has multiple personality disorder with 23 known personalities and one who is a mystery, the dangerous “Beast”.

Review

As a whole, this was a very entertaining movie, although, I must admit that it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be. There were a handful of intense moments that made you jump, and the storyline overall was thrilling but lucky for me, it wasn’t a terrifying kind of scary, which I don’t really enjoy. McAvoy does an excellent job in this film, regularly playing three entirely different characters with different mannerisms, voices and personalities. The differences between them luckily allow for some comic relief from the grim aspects of the rest of the story. Ana Taylor-Joy (Casey) is the only one of the three girls who really does any acting, and she is basically somber and stoic up until the end of the film when the action really starts. The other two girls simply act as scary movie props in their time on screen.  

Similar to McAvoy’s character, Kevin, the movie is really separated into three different settings. The first focuses on the basement where the girls are kept, but the other two add another dimension to this film. The second story line follows Kevin Wendell Crumb back and forth to his phycologist’s appointments. These scenes reveal background on the main villain and insight to why he is acting the way he is. By the end of the film, it’s almost hard to dislike him because his story and mental illness are so tragic. The third setting involves flash backs of Casey’s upbringing and explain why she is somewhat of a trouble maker. These scenes started off normal and seemed out of place at first, but by the end of the film they had gone to a really dark place, explaining a lot about why this character acted the way she did in such a stressful situation.

This movie is definitely worth seeing, especially with its upcoming DVD release. It feels reminiscent of earlier films by M. Night Shyamalan and engages you in the characters and story from beginning to end. Spoiler alert: at the end of the film, fans of M. Night Shyamalan will be in for a real treat. People are sitting in a diner and watching the breaking news coverage of the events in the movie and some people begin to discuss how similar this story is to that of another famous Shyamalan character by the name of Mr. Glass. With a special appearance by Bruce Willis himself, many fans are left hopeful that this is a hint at future crossovers between the two characters. While I have to admit, I haven’t seen Unbreakable, I know I need to check it out and am looking forward to seeing how the two stories are connected.

Who will like this film?

I wouldn’t classify this as a scary movie but instead as a thriller for people who don’t really like scary movies. If you liked Sixth Sense and Signs, you will probably like this film as well, even though it’s not quite as good as those.

 Overall

7.5/10

[echobasegazette]

The Superhero Email Chain

A little while back, I exchanged some emails with my buddy Ian regarding the most recent superhero films. Originally I was going to post this article right before the first of the new films came out, but I got distracted. About two weeks ago, I found the file and decided that even though all of the films have been released, you can still find out what Ian and I thought about them before they were released. Here is the superhero email chain in all its glory.  

 Ian: Alright I am just going to give you my thoughts on all of the upcoming superhero films and put them in order with less likely to likely to flop.

1.       Captain America: Civil War- This movie is the least likely to fail. Simply put Marvel has already got a major foundation. They are too big to fail at this point with any of the major avenger characters (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk).

2.       X-men: Age of Apocalypse- I also think this is movie will not fail. Fox/Marvel has done a great job with advertising most of their movies and for the most part, they haven’t had any flops. I’m not saying they’ve all been good, but I do believe they are on the correct path. As long as they introduce some new characters and show them off a little I do not see how this movie could be a flop.

3.       Deadpool- I rated this one third because I am little bit torn about this film. Ryan Reynolds, in my opinion, is not necessarily meant to play a "Badass" superhero (he bombed with Green Lantern). Although his body of work is solid I am not sure he can pull this off. HOWEVER, Deadpool is not your typical superhero and Ryan may just be the perfect actor for the roll. Also we got a sneak peek of him kind of playing Deadpool in X-men Origins (Weapon XI). Due to his ability to talk and be cocky/annoying I think he may just pull Deadpool off. With that being said I am still on the fence with this film but ultimately, I do NOT think this will flop.

4.       Suicide Squad & Batman V.S Superman. – I think that these two are the most to flop and the main reason is due to the credibility of DC. I have not been blown away by any DC movies other than The Dark Knight trilogy. Don't get me wrong the trailers look incredible but I am still not sold.  

Questions

Will I eat my words with my statements about DC? Which movie in your case will be most likely to flop?  Which movie will most likely be a HIT?

 Ryan: I generally I agree with what you've said although I have some follow ups for you on each of the movies.

Captain America: I think Disney/Marvel has found the secret to superhero movie success and as long as people don’t get sick of the genre they will be successful. Personally I love Captain America. I think Chris Evans is awesome and the movies are great. I still think Winter Soldier was better than Avengers 1 and way better than the second Avengers film.  So I'm seeing this opening weekend, I'd be shocked if this failed.

X-men: Days of futures past was an awesome movie. And finally they have decided to bring out Apocalypse as a movie super villain; yes I am excited for this movie. My memories of Apocalypse are from the Saturday cartoons and it always brought all of the mutants together for epic battles so this should be great.

Deadpool: I like Ryan Reynolds and think this should be a good movie, he did a fine job in X-men Origins. But this could turn out to be a bad film. Maybe we are reaching the over-saturation point. Are there too many comic book movies?

Suicide Squad:  I hope this is good. I very badly want this to be good. It’s a different type of movie. It has Anti-heroes being heroes, that’s cool. Please be a good movie. Important side note: What was the last good Will Smith Action movie?

Batman vs. Superman: I think this is a stupid movie concept. I know they face off in comic books and Batman always wins, but it seems stupid that Superman would lose. Part of me wants this movie to do well. Batman is my favorite Superhero and I like Ben Affleck and think he’s a good actor. But Superman sucks. He’s sooooo good at everything, how is he going to lose to Batman? The guy's only power is money. I know the plan is to build off of this movie and start a Justice League Franchise (too many superhero movies???) but why would Superman actually need the Justice League? Superman's sidekick should just be a normal guy who shows up and takes away kryptonite from the villains, that’s the only thing he needs help with. All that being said I liked Man of Steel but I am worried this movie is not going to be good. When my mother saw the preview she said, "That’s dumb. How can Batman fight Superman?" For a superhero movie to do well you need non-fanboys to see it, and I don’t see that happening with either DC movie.

Here is what I want to know:

How is DC going to build a Justice league? They’ve already bombed with Green Lantern. Are they going to bring out Aquaman? Is Wonder Women going to get her own movies? What would the ideal..... Ignore those questions, here is the real question. Do people really care about the Justice League? Is anyone excited about these movies? Do you care?

What is the plan with X-Men? They have screwed up the timeline of the movies and they have jumped all over the place, and they beat Wolverine like a dead horse. What X-men need to get standalone movies? Or what story line do you want to see?

I don’t like Superman, do you?

 Ian: The last good Will Smith movie was I am legend btw lol. People, do care about the justice league for a couple reasons.

1.       For the most part everyone knows Batman and Superman... they might be the most popular superheroes in either universe (DC or Marvel).

2.       Generations- I know that my mom loves DC way more than marvel so in her book I can almost guarantee that she is excited for them.

3.       I think people (non-nerds) don't even know the difference between Marvel and DC. They classify superheroes as one big group. Personally I am more a marvel fan but I would love to see Justice League be successful just to see how another superhero conglomerate will play out.

 XMEN- I will admit to being biased towards X-men, they are my favorite!! I love them unconditionally and would love to see a lot more movies. But they need a Gambit movie.  I think there are plans but the actor is that guy from step up (Channing Tatum)........ damn that sucks. They definitely need to stop and go in a different direction. Personally, I think there best move is to constantly introduce new characters because seeing new abilities is awesome. I agree with you on Superman. To me he is to powerful and it doesn’t seem possible that he could be defeated. People talk about Hulk vs Superman as a good battle but I would think Superman would win that fight too.

What about Ant-man vs Superman? He takes a tiny piece of kryptonite and sticks it inside his brain…BOOM done!!!

Who do you think should get their movie or story line? How could we beat Superman? What is the difference between Wonder Women and Super Girl?

 Ryan: Okay, Let start with the easiest question Wonder Women vs. Super Girl: Wonder Women is the leader of the Amazons and her powers are super strength, the lasso of truth, and bracelets that deflect bullets. I think she also has an invisible plane, not sure if this counts as a power.  Super Girl is Superman's cousin and depending on the source she’s either as strong, or slightly stronger than Superman.  At some point Wonder Women was given the power of flight which then confuses people.

I love the X-men movies as well and Gambit was always my second favorite (Wolverine is #1). And so far they've only had Gambit in one movie, the Wolverine Origins movie. The part was played by Taylor Kitsch, and I thought he did a pretty good job. At the time, I was hoping they'd start having Gambit in more movies. But so far, no Gambit anywhere, he’s still only been in one film. And now I find out they are going to have Channing Tatum play Gambit. WTF? I am not excited about that. Nothing against Tatum, but I do not see him as a good fit for Gambit.

The one X-man who should be getting their own show is Bobby Drake the Iceman. Iceman is cool as hell, he should be next.  Channing Tatum? Yuck, that just ruined my day. Who should they cast as Gambit? Who would be a better option?

I hope they don’t go with a Cyclops movie; I’ve always hated that guy.

Superman could defeat every other hero out there including the Hulk that’s why he’s so lame. Why would anyone try and fight him?

I do like your Ant-Man idea, have you seen the new Ant-man movie?

Here’s how you beat Superman.... kryptonite!  If you don’t have it, then you don’t bother.

Do you think Wonder Women should get her own movie? Is Aquaman next? What other thoughts do you have about the DC universe Justice League?

Just based on the movies, what is the coolest X-men power? Which power would you choose? And which X-man has the lamest power?

 Ian: To start I did not know that about Wonder Women and that is a very good point! I would say the Taylor Kitsch should play gambit, not Channing Tatum. Wonder Women should get her own movie as long as they stick with Gol Gadot, she is smoking HOT. Aquaman would be interesting, but how would they do it and would it be cheesy?

The main reason that I would want to see Justice League is to see Marvel vs DC.... probably never happen but what if???

Who are the stupidest X-men?  How about the guy with the spikes that come out of his head?!? Dumb! How would that even be useful?

Also I think toad was a little stupid as well. His powers were a frog tongue and jumping, lame! Angel, the guy with the wings is somewhat lame. Sure flying would be cool but what else can he do?

Badass powers- Wolverine’s ability to heal is cool but when he gets metal claws he becomes awesome. What about Gambit and his kinetic energy!??!?!? AWESOME, anything becomes a weapon... and I love the idea of throwing playing cards.  Emma Frost’s diamond skin is really cool it’s basically impenetrable. I wouldn't mind having that depending on how it works.

Same question to you, just based on the movies, what is the coolest X-men power? Which power would you choose? And which X-men have the lamest power?  And if you could be one superhero who would it be and why based on style and being a badass. Here’s the ultimate superhero question, who would be your pick to save the world?

 Ryan: The DC universe worries me, Superman is lame and so is everyone else except Batman. But I will give DC a chance and see how it turns out. Aquaman is by far the worst I have no idea how that’s going to work out. They are of course going to have to bring Green Lantern back again, which might be hard with one movie bomb under his belt already. I think they should go with John Stewart who was the guy from the Justice league Cartoon.

So I do have some questions about a few powers: What’s the deal with Magneto? He appears to have unlimited abilities as long as it has to do with metal. They never even really talk about if it has to be magnetic. He just always has control over it. He also has some crazy control over what he can do with it. In the most recent movie he was able to bend and flex metal to the point that it infected circuits and allowed him to control robots. How would that even work?

Wolverine's healing powers just seem to have no bounds. The dude can heal himself regardless of the injuries. It’s so insane, he’s basically immortal.

I feel Gambit would be a really cool movie guy. Why haven't they had him in every film? And Taylor would have been a solid choice. Just wait Channing will awesome and this whole chain will look stupid because we both doubted him.

I am going to blow your mind: The worst X-man is Cyclops. While his powers are okay and probably pretty effective, there is just something about him that I hate. He's the worst, he dates the coolest lady mutant, everyone thinks he’s the leader, and I just don’t get it because he’s such a freaking loser. Go away Cyclops no one likes you.

The worst power was that guy with the spikes. I checked and he is listed as a Kid Omega, but the comic book version doesn’t have any spike powers he instead has cognitive and telepathic abilities. So that appears to have been a movie creation. Don't forget about the kid from the second movie who had the power to change the channels on the TV without getting up. Which is either the worst power or best, I’d have to think about.

If I could pick any hero the answer would be Batman. It’s not even really close. Batman is freaking awesome. Wolverine and Gambit would be 2nd and 3rd.

Batman can do it all. He is the most badass hero. He has the ultimate villain in the Joker. His gadgets are awesome. Its batman! He is also the hero to whom we all could hypothetically strive to be, he doesn’t have any “powers” he just has gadgets and he’s smart. This is also the reason that I hate the Justice league. It takes the most realistic superhero, and puts him into a weird ass world with Superman and Green lantern, guys with powers from other planets.

Out of all the superhero movies which are your favorites so far?

 Ian: Magneto apparently is a BEAST; you seem to be correct in that his ability is endless. To me he would be one hell of a guy to try to defeat. If you have too much iron in your body he will kill you from the inside.  I cannot really explain the control over robots unless they were 90% made out of metal. On top of all that how smart is the guy... he can control 10 robots while still talking and having an in depth conversation. I think it is safe to say he is a GENIUS.

Wolverine- I think his powers are pretty unreal however from what I have heard if his head is cut CLEAR off then he will not come back. IS his SPINE MADE OUT OF THAT ONE METAL?

Gambit- I have no clue why he has not been in more movies. And I agree that maybe we will have to shut our mouths and Channing will be great haha.

Cyclops- You d0 have a good point, he is kind of a preppy prick. Like a quarterback. I agree his powers are OK.... however they seem unpredictable and hard to control... almost to the point of pointlessness.

 What are my favorite superhero movies? Here is the list:

Guardians of the galaxy- Story was GREAT and I love Chris Pratt in that role. He does a great job. While the characters theoretically may be weak compared with other superheroes they are pretty cool.

League or Extraordinary Gentleman- Older DC comics movie however I thought it was great and I love those scary fairy taillish people and I loved it when I was younger, the movie the idea everything.

X-Men Last Stand- Three words: SO MANY XMEN!!

It’s hard for me to come up with some more- all the Avengers movies and Marvel characters are good in their own ways.

What are your favorite superhero movies?

 Ryan: Okay, I'd like to talk about a couple of movies that are underrated or not talked about at all.

Spider-Man 3- The first two movies are really awesome and they for sure screwed up the third one, mainly because they tried to do too much. They should have made it Venom vs. Spidy movie. Instead they added in Sandman (who the hell is this guy anyways) and there was too much going on with Harry Osbourne, three villains is just too much. But this is actually a pretty okay film, it’s better than its reputation.

The Amazing Spider-man- I think this series is actually pretty good. They killed Peter Parker's love interest too soon, which made everyone mad. And now they are scrapping this and trying again with a new guy? Too much Spider-man, personally I'm starting to get sick of him.

Mystery Men- This is goofy 90's spoof movie, but it has an awesome cast headlined by Ben Stiller and Geoffrey Rush. If you haven’t seen this movie, you should.

The Hulk movie with Edward Norten - I like Mark Rufflo as the hulk, but Edward Norten did a damn good job when he took over the flaming wreck that Eric Bana left behind. It’s not that people don’t like this movie, most people didn’t watch it because the first was so bad.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen- I agree with you, I like this film.

Batman (1989)/Batman Returns- These have been lost to time because of the Dark Knight trilogy. This is current conversation:

-"Heath Ledger is the best joker ever."

- "Have you ever seen Jack Nicholson in Batman (1989), he was really good."

- "No."

-"Then how can you say that?"

-"Heath Ledger is the best joker ever."

People should check these two movies out, they are pretty good. Plus I like Kim Basinger.

Here is my current top 5.

1.       Captain America 2

2.       Guardians of the Galaxy

3.       Dark Knight

4.       X-men Days of future past

5.       Mystery Men

 Ian: I totally agree with the Spiderman comment and just getting to much of him right now. I think it’s definitely Sony trying to make a money grab. However, I will say I do like the new actor that they have playing spider man. Mainly because he looks and acts how I imagine Peter Parker would act.

Mystery Men!!! So funny I actually had to scroll down to see if I talked about mystery men as one of my top ones. I was honestly going to put in on there because it is so goofy and way out of the norm.

The first Hulk movie was bad and I do think that this turned away fans even though the second movie was better. I almost wish they would re-do it and go more into his story because I find him really interesting.

I do laugh at all the people that talk about the joker. I would say that 75% don't even know that Jack Nicholson played the joker. And that part in the restaurant when he paints everything, it’s a classic joker move.

 Ryan: Well I think it’s safe to say that we are both like superheroes way too much. But this year of superhero movies should be interesting to say the least.

The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

Disney Rewind: Beauty and the Beast

With a live-action Beauty and the Beast film set to be released in March of 2017, it seems like an appropriate time to take a look at the original animated film.  Disney Rewind is a grouping of articles that center around the classic Disney films that I watched as a kid. When you watch movies as a child, it is very easy to overlook or miss funny and interesting things. Now that I am an adult (well…kind of), I find it enjoyable to watch these movies again and try to discover fun things. I like to look for major plot holes, adult jokes, terrible things hidden in the disguise of a children’s movie, characters behaving unrealistically or stupidly because they are in a children’s movie. While these things often change my perception of the film, I still enjoy them and just like picking at them for amusement.  

Beauty and the Beast is the heavyweight champion of what I consider to be the “Disney Animated Golden Era.” For me this Golden Era is represented by four main films: Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). Then there are 4 films that I consider to be on the fringe of the Golden Era; Pocahontas (1995), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), and Tarzan (1999). In my opinion, Beauty and the Beast is the best film of this group of eight; it might even be safe to consider it to be one of the greatest animated films ever. It was the first of its kind to be nominated at the Oscars for Best Picture, and despite its greatness, there is still fun to be had when watching this movie.

Opening Monolog

The opening monolog of B&B explains the precarious situation that Prince Adam (the beast’s actual name) finds himself in.  First, an old lady shows up at Prince Adam’s castle and needs a place to stay, so she pays him with a single rose. Adam responds with a cliché, “Get away, you’re old and ugly,” and she in turn responds, saying, “Hey, be nice, I could be a super-hot witch just messing with you, so be careful.” He tells her to get lost again and she turns out the be a beautiful enchantress that curses him. He is given the rose and told that it will bloom until his 21st birthday, at which point he will be trapped as a beastly creature. The only way to break the spell is for someone fall in love with him. What’s interesting is that he spends ten years trapped as the beast. So, was he eleven when he first answered the door? If the answer is yes, then the story doesn’t really make sense. What kind of pre-teen answers the door and yells at strangers? And where are his parents?

The more plausible explanation is that time was also suspended by the sorceress and that he was twenty years old when he turned into a beast and didn’t age during those ten years. It would also explain why Chip (the tea cup) is only five years old after the spell is broken.

Belle and the Townspeople

When we first meet Belle, the sun is rising and she is walking through her small town on her way to the bookstore. The townsfolk and Belle sing a song which ends with her meeting our principal villain, Gaston; however, I would like to focus on the song before we get to our “expectorating” villain. The song being sung is called “Belle,” and while I always believed it to be the townsfolk singing about Belle, it’s actually a mutual bitch fest about how they don’t like each other (and how Gaston is going to marry her regardless of what she thinks because Gaston doesn’t care what she thinks). In fact, I would say that the townspeople are the less critical group. Belle refers to them as little people in a “poor provincial town,” and the townspeople respond by calling her “strange, funny, and with a dreamy far off look.” When you really listen to the song Belle comes off as a pretentious brat.

Gaston

Gaston might be the most hilarious animated Disney villain ever due to how full of himself he is. Gaston has his own song that lists the things he is better at than everyone else, including: being slick, being quick, matching wits, having a thick neck, being manlier, having a swell cleft in his chin, fighting, biting, dousing lights, expectorating (spitting), being burly and brawny, shooting, tromping around wearing boots, and persecuting harmless crackpots.  My favorite is of course, no one tromps around wearing boots like Gaston. How would one quantify how good you are at tromping around wearing boots? Maybe it has something to do with #swag? Gaston also has his very own hype man, Le Fou, who has a definite man crush on his friend.  

On the other hand, Gaston might also be the most relatable Disney villain. At his core, he is nothing more than a muscle-bound bro who is in love with himself and would maybe attempt to kiss and/or marry women against their will. Everyone in the town is seemingly totally fine with this behavior, even Belle and her father, Maurice. He suggests that Belle spend more time with him, and when her dad is out one afternoon, she lets him into her house, knowing that he is an ego-centric maniac. Why doesn’t Belle just pretend not to be home when Gaston comes knocking at her door? Gaston is more than just a singular person; his villainy is a representation of people we meet in everyday life. Compared to the other more fantastical Disney villains, like a goateed sorcerer with a penchant for snake staffs, a lion prince hell bent on usurping his brother’s throne, an octopus lady who likes to turn mermaids into seaweed people as a hobby, or even the somewhat historically accurate Englishman who hates “savages” and wants to find all the gold in Virginia to impress King George, he has the most relatable personality. All of those people are villains, but you probably wouldn’t run into them at the gym or local tavern like you would Gaston.

Stockholm Syndrome

This one is too easy and a bit clichéd at this point. Yes, the Beast held Belle captive so that he could spend time with her in the hopes of falling in love and reversing the curse, but she isn’t exactly imprisoned. The Beast lets her stay in a nice bedroom, gives her a library filled with books, and the only rule is that she’s supposed to stay out of the West Wing. Once she inevitably breaks that rule, Belle runs away, forcing the Beast to save her life. Belle could have left him to die when he became incapacitated, but she chooses to help him. At this point, there is no indication that she is forced to stay, and in fact chooses to. Near the end, she asks if she can leave and the Beast finally lets her go. So, is she really “held prisoner”? Let’s instead talk about something more fun.

The Beast lets Belle leave, and the folly of poor communication and commitment issues

So Belle and Beast have been getting along great, having spent the last few months throwing snow balls, reading books, and learning manners. They decide to have a romantic dinner at the opposite end of a 40-foot-long table (bet that conversation was engaging), and then they dance the night away wearing suits and gold dresses. The Beast then takes Belle up to his bedroom and shows her an enchanted mirror that will show you whatever you desire. Belle sees her father lying in a ditch and dying of cold so she asks Beast if she can leave to help and he obliges. After she leaves, the Beast is so depressed that he plans to spend his last few nights before the rose dies depressed sitting in his room. At one point, he even let Gaston shoot him because he is so sad. Finally, Belle yells at him to fight back, but his sadness nearly costs him his life.

This whole problem would have been avoided with simple communication. Belle could have told Beast that she’d come right back, and he could have offered to go with her, maybe help her bring her father back to the castle, since that’s where he was going anyways. The Beast could have also tried this line out, “Hey Belle, I know this is going to sound strange but I’m really a Prince that looks like a beast because I was an asshole. The only thing that can break the spell is if I fall in love and someone falls in love with me. I love you, do you love me? I should also tell you that if we don’t find out in the next 24 hours then I will be trapped this way forever. So, what do you think?” I mean it’s not a perfect line, and it comes off a little bit desperate, but at least it lets Belle know what’s going on. She’s completely in the dark, no one tells her anything, and a little bit of communication would have gone a long way.

Three Extra Points

So, Prince Adam gets the news that he is going to be stuck as a beast until he can learn to love another person, but in 10 years the change will become permanent. What does he do for those 10 years? He sits in his house and mopes about it! What is his problem? Why doesn’t he get out there and try and meet some local ladies? He needs to go out on dates, not just sit around an enchanted house for 10 years. Sure, he is a hideous beast (I would say he is more scary than hideous), but shouldn’t he at least put forth some effort? He should have come up with a pick-up line, “I may be a beast but if you are my special lady I’ll turn into a handsome prince with sick pad.” I would think a few women would have gone out on at least one date.

No one ever really addresses the Beast by any name. Belle refers to him as Beast but only once at the end of the film. Gaston mocks him and calls him Beast because of his appearance, and his servants refer to him as master. Why don’t the writers just use his name? Did they do this on purpose? It is only in Disney material that he is ever referred to as Prince Adam. The monolog calls him Prince, and everyone else refers to him as Beast or Master.

Why don’t the villagers know about the enchanted or castle? Or why aren’t they at least aware of the fact that Prince Adam’s castle use to be active and now isn’t? The castle isn’t that far away. They are able to get there just by walking through the woods so it couldn’t have been more than a three-hour walk (although the villagers sing the whole way so maybe it’s even closer). You think that the local businesses would have noticed that servants weren’t coming by to purchase food and other goods.

Beauty and the Beast is of course an excellent film and despite the fact that I’m being overly critical, I still really enjoy the movie. The dialog is very well written, and in any comparison to its fellow Disney Animated films, its songs are incredibly good. There is also a lot of witty banter, especially between Lumière and Cogsworth throughout the film.

Hopefully I was able to point out a few things you hadn’t noticed before. Maybe you will go home and re-watch the movie, or maybe you will end up watching it with your kids and take notice of some of the above points. But hopefully you won’t allow your age to affect your movie choices, because kid’s films can still be enjoyable for adults.

The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

The Girl on the Train

It has been a while since I went to the movie theater, and I was starting to have withdrawals.  So, a couple weekends ago, I decided to hit up the local cinema for a double movie weekend starting with The Girl on the Train.

Every preview that I saw for The Girl on the Train made it seem like the next Gone Girl, and after missing that movie in theaters, I was bound and determined not to miss this one. Both of these films are based on books and are often times compared to each other for their similar thriller, mystery storylines. I have not read either book, but after seeing Gone Girl I was blown away and thought it was one of the best movies I had seen in a long time. I tried to temper my assumptions for The Girl on the Train so I wouldn't be disappointed by unreasonable expectations.

Quick Synopsis (without spoilers)

Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) is an alcoholic divorcee whose husband cheated on her with their real-estate agent.  Every day she takes the train to and from New York City, traveling past her old house and lamenting about the present state of her life. All the while she is "inconspicuously" consuming as much vodka as possible.   During her travels, she begins to fixate on a couple that lives three doors down from her old home; a couple that is young, in love and reminiscent of the life she once thought she had. She sees them enjoying coffee outside and engaging in amorist activities, and after two years becomes obsessed with this “perfect couple” and the details of the life they must lead.

The perfect couple of Megan and Scott Hipwell is played by Haley Bennett and Luke Evans. Megan works as a nanny for Tom Watson (Justin Theroux), who happens to be Rachel's ex-husband, and Anna Boyd (Rebecca Ferguson), the real estate agent he had an affair with. Though Megan Hipwell appears to have an idyllic life, she attends therapy sessions with Dr. Kamal Abdic (Edgar Ramirez) to deal with her insecurities and traumatic past.

One day, while on the train, Rachel sees Megan kissing and embracing another man and instantly becomes aggravated and disappointed.  She travels into the city and proceeds to get wasted and rants about smashing the women’s head as punishment for her adulterous activities. Rachel finally boards the train back towards her home and along the way decides to get off of at her old stop, just down the road from the Hipwell’s home.

The next morning Rachel wakes up in her bedroom, her head covered in blood and vomit all over her bedroom, with no recollection of the events from the night before. When she turns on the news on her TV, she discovers that Megan Hipwell is missing.

Review

Overall, The Girl on the Train was a solid yet but quite great film.  I would classify it as engaging, and it keeps you interested and entertained, but in the end, you will probably say, “Ehh, it was only pretty good”. If I had to make a complaint about this film, it would be that it tried to be a little bit too smart, and there were excessive amounts of flashback scenes revolving around Megan and Rachel. Rachael’s flashbacks were centered on her trying to recover her drunken memories, and as she slowly uncovers more details, it allows her and the viewer to gain a better understanding about what happened in her and Tom's marriage.  Megan’s flashback slowly reveal more information about her character and what type of life she lead before meeting Scott, while at the same time revealing clues as to what might have happened to her. I didn’t mind the flashbacks, but at times it was too much.

The cast is solid but not spectacular. The only major people I missed in the synopsis were Allison Janney who plays the police detective investigating Megan's disappearance and Laura Prepon who plays Rachael’s roommate and only friend. The one member of the cast who, in my opinion, really stood out was Luke Evans. You may remember him as Bard from the Hobbit trilogy or as bad guy on 7 Fast 7 Furious.  He did an outstanding job as Megan Hipwell’s controlling (maybe abusive) husband and was really believable. He is set to appear as Gaston on in the upcoming Disney remake of Beauty and the Beast, and I must admit that after this film I kind of am very excited about that casting choice.

Who will like this film?

I think that this movie has a lot of general appeal. If you are not into the murder-mystery/thriller/who-done-it genre, then you might want to stay away from this, but overall it is a good film that is watchable and entertaining. I would also say that it makes a decent date-night movie.

Overall

6.8/10

[echobasegazette]

Independence Day: Resurgence, and a look at the original film

The original Independence Day was released on July 2nd 1996, and while I don’t remember the specific date that I saw this movie, I can remember going opening weekend with my uncle, while I was visiting my grandparents in upstate Michigan. Why do I remember these details? Because Independence Day was the first film that I can recall begging my parents to see on opening weekend. And, for me, the movie did not disappoint - I loved it!  It even occupied the #1 spot on my “Best movies” list (I am sure a lot of people were dying to know what a 10 year old’s favorite movie was) for quite some time.

When news started leaking out about a sequel, I must admit that I was very excited. All of the previews made Resurgence look like a sure hit, and I was determined to see this movie, even after early reviews pegged it as falling short of expectations.

Well let me tell you the reviews were right. Independence Day: Resurgence is a bad movie. I was originally going to write a review on the film, but I will save myself the time and just write a quick review followed by a more interesting article about ID4 (1996).

Review

I can’t quite put my finger on where this film went off the rails. The story starts in the present day where Earth has banded together and spent the last 20 years using alien technology to prepare for a future assault. The characters talk about how there were some aliens that fought on the ground, and there is even a prison where aliens are being held. Some of this stuff is a little bit interesting, and I wish they would have spent more time talking about it.

Captain Hiller (Will Smith) is dead and his adoptive son is a pilot and head of an elite squadron from different nations. He is also friends with the former President’s daughter Patricia Whitmore. Liam Hemsworth (I honestly don’t care or remember his character’s name, and didn’t bother to look it up) was a former candidate for the squadron, but he was kicked out after a he collided with Hiller during training. Now he works on the moon and drives tugs…. or something. He is engaged to Whitmore, and she wants Hemsworth and Hiller to become friends again...who cares.

Side Note: I actually like Hemsworth and generally enjoyed him in the Hunger Games. But after this film I must ask the following question: Is Liam Hemsworth a terrible actor or are his lines so bad that he either mailed it in, or wasn’t able to make it work? I leave this question for you to answer.

At some point a good alien shows up but the Earth Defense League (I don’t think this is what they call themselves but this movie was so bad I didn’t feel putting in the time that they clearly didn’t when the created this movie) shoots it down before it can explain that it is here to help. Then the real Aliens show up and start destroying cities. Hiller’s mother, the former stripper and current head nurse of a large hospital (played by Vivica A. Fox), dies as a hospital collapses during the destruction.

Jeff Goldblum's character starts talking about how there is a queen alien and they must kill her to win. Near the end of the film, she emerges from her ship as large as Godzilla, and starts attacking Area 51. Finally she is killed and the good alien tells all the humans that she (the alien is really a computer but I decided to refer to it as “her” because the robot voice is female) will help them defeat the rest of the aliens. Great (is there an anti-exclamation point? I would really like to use it here to show my complete lack of interest).

My review is as follows: By the end of the film I really didn’t care if the humans defeated the Aliens. If I had to pinpoint the problem, I would say that too much “stuff” was jammed into this movie. This created a lack of development and spacing, which left me not caring about the ultimate fate of the characters.  

Overall

4.4/10

A Semi Incoherent Take on the First Film

If you really want to know exactly how bad ID42 was, I will tell you. It was so bad that it left me questioning the quality of the original film. Was I too young to really understand what was happening? Was ID4 bad and I didn’t even realize it because I was 10? Or was ID42 another example of a bad sequel? So after buying the film on Blu-ray and re-watching it I have come up with the following points.

Problems with ID4

Stereotyping

The original film is full of movie stereotypes, there is so many that I found it easier to create a list.

·               There is a single mom stripper who only does it because the money is good and as she says, “My baby is worth it.”

·               There is a weaselly Secretary of Defense who is the former director of the CIA. Guess what? He keeps the knowledge of the aliens a secret, it was need to know, and he waits to tell everyone until it’s almost too late. The secret alien research center is kept at Area 51, perfect!

·               Captain Hiller is a brash young Air force pilot who saves the Earth by flying an Alien space craft.

·               Jeff Goldblum is a cable repair man who isn’t living up to expectations despite being really smart.  But he uses his Apple laptop to uncover a secret code which he uses to save the world.

·               Bill Pullman plays president Whitmore, who provides a rousing speech and also flies an F-18 during the final attack.

·               Randy Quid plays the drunken Vietnam veteran who was captured by the aliens years ago and suffers from PTSD. He sobers up the day of the final battle and sacrifices his life to save everyone else.

·               Judd Hirsch plays Goldblum’s father, and he provides comic relief and stereotypical Hebrew phrases. Despite not talking to God since the death of his wife, he reconnects with his faith right before the final battle and prayers with a group of scared citizens.

If I kept going I might never finish this article. Just trust me, there a lot of stereotypes.

That shouldn’t have worked

David Levinson (Goldblum) works as a cable repairman and uses a Macintosh PowerBook laptop.  This computer is the best computer ever and it is able to do remarkable things. Dave is able to use it to discover a hidden code inside Earth’s defense satellites which tells him of the exact time of the attack. So does Dave hack into the satellites? Is he able to discover the code via cable satellites? This is never really explained, and it’s not even the most remarkable thing about this computer. In the final mission, Cpt. Hiller and Dave take an alien space craft up to the “Mothership” and upload a virus into their system which disables the shields of all the other alien craft. Does the Mac software work with the alien software, or has Dave hacked into their system? You would think that an advanced Alien civilization would have virus software. And even if it worked, how would Dave be able to tell what program is responsible for the shields? Maybe I’m thinking about it too much, but it looks like Roland Emmerich (director) took some liberties and just hoped no one would notice.

Another big problem in this movie is the crashed Alien ship from the 1950’s. In the movie there is some discussion about when it crashed and the 1950’s is said several times, so let’s say 1950, the ship is 46 years old (in 1996). Dr. Okun, who is played by Brent Spiner from Star Trek, the head of research fills in some of the gaps about the ship. Since it crashed in the 50’s, the team at Area 51 has been repairing it. They haven’t been able to fly it because humans can’t replicate the necessary kind of power.  Finally, the ship “turned on” in the last 24 hours coinciding with the arrival of the Aliens. At the end of the film, the ship is fitted with a missile launcher and flies to the “mother ship”. It uploads the virus shoots its missile and gets Hiller and Levinson back to earth safely.

Here are the questions that I have:

1.       How do they know it even works? SecDef asks this question and they “remove the clamps” and the ship floats. But how did they know what to repair and how are they able to determine that components work? They can’t read alien language, and the ship didn’t have power for nearly 46 years so they wouldn’t have even known what was broken.

2.       Does anyone on the planet know how to fly that ship? Wait? SecDef asks this question as well. Hiller proclaims that he can. What the heck, the fate of the planet is on the line might as well let him try. But are there pass codes, special key cards, or fancy start up procedures that will be required to turn on the ship? Nope, anyone can fly these things.  The aliens are really lax about their security.

3.       So all of those questions aside, how does the ship manage to dock with the “Mothership”? Are there any call signs that they use or special docking bay checks to make sure pesky non-alien aliens don’t sneak in? Nope. Wouldn’t you think the ship would have an ID number, and the operator would say, “Holy shit that ship has been missing for 46 years, lets send a team with some food over to that ship”? Nope. The pair docks, closes their windows, and no one bothers to check on them. This is the part that bothers me the most.

Conclusion

Independence Day has a simple plot, Aliens show up and blow stuff up. Humans try to stop them. Aliens bad. Humans good. The following quote should illustrate the simplicity of the plot.  

President Whitmore: I know there is much we can learn from each other, if we can negotiate a truce. We can find a way to co-exist. Can there be a peace between us?

Dr. Okun/Alien: Peace?.... No peace...

Whitmore: What is it you want us to do?

Dr. Okun/Alien: Die... Die...

The movie also is filled with the aforementioned plot holes that you could drive a “Mothership” through. Finally, ever single character is a stereotype.

But the movie was created to be a summer blockbuster not to win an Oscar, so maybe the simple plot is okay. The plot holes are annoying but the simplicity of the film is what makes it easier for everyone to understand and enjoy. I would also bet that the stereotypical cast is there so that the audience feels comfortable and “knows” all of the characters because we have encountered them in countless books, TV shows, movies, and even video games.

The final question that you have to ask yourself, is this movie enjoyable? Yes. The movie is generally funny and does a good job of mixing humor into serious moments. And while the plot is basic, the dialog is generally well written.  The lines make sense and flow well together. The movie also does a good job making you care about the characters and you hope that they succeed in defeating the aliens.  It also passes one other test, if I am flipping through channels and this movie is on I will also watch. These are the places where the sequel failed, but Independence Day (1996) was a good movie and we shouldn’t questions its summer blockbusterness because of the failure of its sequel.

The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

LA Confidential (1997)

There are quite a few people who are reading this article that have never heard of this movie, and let me tell you that is a damn shame, because this is a good movie. Why are popular or good movies often forgotten by time? While doing some research for this article I stumbled across three main reasons that this happens. These movies become outdated, they were overhyped initially and never really good, and lastly they are overshadowed by more popular movies during the time of their release. Let me digress for just a moment to talk about these three problems.

Outdated

This problem is twofold: First, technology evolves and movies that used too many special effects end up looking campy and terrible as time passes. Secondly, some movies end up stuck because dates in the movies pass by and the movies' timeline become irrelevant.  A great example of the first problem is the movie Superman from 1978. This movie receives solid reviews on both IMDB and Rottentomatoes, but if you try to watch it today, the terrible special effects don't even compare to modern films, making it simply unbearable. An example of the second problem is the movie 2012, from ironically 2009. For those who haven’t seen this movie, it’s about the world ending in 2012 and John Cusack saving his family from eminent death. But now that 2012 has come and gone, and we were all still here, there really isn’t much of a point to watching this movie anymore. Thank God it earned $800 million in theaters.

Overhyped

This group of movies is populated with summer blockbusters that weren’t all that great and only did well because of massive marketing and hype (Yeah 2012 could probably fall in this category as well). It’s also a place for sequels. For example, Cobra (1986) made $160 million, San Andreas-$431 million, Terminator Genisys-$407 million, Transformers 4-$1.1 BILLION. All four of these films are pretty bad and hard to watch, although Cobra is probably the worst. While I know it made the least amount of money of this group, keep in mind it's from 1986. The movie only cost $25 million to make, which means the studio more than sextupled (yes I had to look up this term) their money. So these movies were wildly popular, generally shitty, and thankfully forgotten. (Yes I own 2 of the four films, 3 if you count 2012; you are now free to mock me.)

Overshadowed

This last category is where some really good forgotten films end up. Let’s say that you are a really good movie, you have a solid cast of actors, and a good story. You do really well in theaters and earn $127 million on a budget of $35 million. But two months after your release date, another film comes out that earns $1.86 billion and later goes on to capture 11 Oscars.  If this happens, the first movie ends becoming a forgotten film.

So how does that last story relate to LA Confidential? Well, LA was released in September of 1997, and two months later Titanic was released. I think you can figure out the rest.

Quick Synopsis

LA Confidential is the story of three Los Angeles police officers in the early 1950s. Lt. Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) is a by the books police officer with dreams of becoming a homicide detective.  Bud White (Russell Crowe) is a good cop with serious anger management issues. He is the toughest guy on the force and he will beat the shit out of anyone who abuses women or children. Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is dirty cop who works narcotics and only looks out for himself. Most of his busts come from tips he receives from Sid Hudgens (Danny Divito), the editor of Hush Hush magazine. With every tip he gets a cool $50 and his picture in the magazine.

After Micky Cohen gets busted for tax evasion, the LAPD moves to shut down all of the organized crime in the city. Along the way the three police officers begin to investigate a homicide at the Nite Owl, which resulted in the death of Bud’s former partner.  As the mystery around the Nite Owl begins to unravel, the three officers begin to suspect that the murder may have been committed by someone inside of the LAPD.

Review

Sometime in college I discovered that I had a thing for Kim Basinger, which is too bad because she’s almost 65, so when I came upon this movie on her IMDB page I figured it was worth looking into. Further research uncovered that she won an Oscar playing a hooker, so immediately buying the film on Amazon seemed like the right thing to do.  

The thing that makes this film really good is the acting performances, all of which are set around the transformation of the four main characters. Guy Pearce does a solid job as the straight laced police officer.  Early in the film he rats on several of his officers because he feels that there is no place on the force for men who don’t follow the rules. Over the course of the film his world view becomes shaken, and he begins to adopt some of the tactics he earlier disliked. Kevin Spacey’s character is the stereotypical, egotistical dirty cop. But after his deeds lead to the death of a young actor, his egotism quickly turns to self-loathing. His character finally finds redemption while working with Lt. Exley to solve the Nite Owl murders.  Russell Crowe’s character Bud White starts off as a “mindless brute” that’s only really good at beating the hell out of people. Throughout the movie he falls in love with a hooker that he met while following up on the Nite Owl murders, Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger).  This relationship begins to mellow him out and he finally begins to see the puzzle surrounding the murders.  Basinger wears white for most of the movie which is probably meant to be ironic. In the beginning of the film she seems content with her role in life, but after encountering Bud White she begins to soften. She even shares with him her dream of leaving LA and moving to Arizona.

Another thing that I enjoyed about this film is the 1950's cop movie stereotypes. This movie exists in the same genre as Chinatown (1973), which if you haven’t seen you should because it is Jack Nicholson at his absolute best, so many similar themes exist. There are corrupt politicians, prostitutes, and cops being slightly racist because it’s the 1950's. The movie is also set in LA there so there is the added bonus of Hollywood and the allure of movie stars. There are a lot of shoot outs; old-school police interviews which often involving Russell Crowe pummeling a suspect until he confesses (Don’t worry the Miranda rights case won’t happen until 1966, so you have the right to confess while getting your ass kicked). There is even some evidence planting along the way. I know all of this stuff is stereotypical of this genre, but I must admit that I really do enjoy it (my feelings about police violence are the same as they are about ninja assassins: I like them in movies but not in real life). This was honestly a great film and if the 138 minute run time doesn’t scare you off then you are in for a good time.

Who will like this film?

Everyone should enjoy this film because it is solid all around.

Overall

8.0/10

The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

San Andreas

San Andreas was released last May just before summer started. I saw previews for this film and had taken note of the general lack of a story and abundance of destruction, usually the hallmarks of a summer blockbuster. This movie didn’t seem worth the $10+ so I figured I would wait until it showed up on HBO; luckily for you, that time has arrived.

Just to warn you right away, this movie was not good. In fact, it bordered on terrible. Maybe if you were 15 and used it as a date movie, it would be okay to make-out to in the back row. But don’t worry, you wouldn’t miss anything. I don’t know if teenagers still do this, but it would have been a good movie for my 15 year old self to go and see.

Quick Synopsis (Spoiler Free)

Chief Ray Gaines (The Rock) is a Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter rescue pilot. The opening scene shows a young women drive off the side of a cliff. Ray and the other three rescue team members fly out to try and save her. When they arrive on the scene, the young women’s car is lodged between two cliffs, and it’s going to fall at any moment. Gaines does a risky maneuver, which damages his helicopter but allows him to get into position to make the rescue. For some reason the other three guys struggled to rescue this girl first, so Gaines has to put the helicopter on auto-pilot to rescue the trapped women himself...just as you would expect from any Dwayne Johnson character.

After the completion of the mission Gaines is back to reality dealing with his family and has to take his daughter's bike over to his estranged wife’s boyfriend’s house. Gaines and his wife Emma (Clara Guigino) have recently split up following the death of their youngest daughter. In the midst of all of the family drama, Emma serves him divorce papers, and Gaines becomes visibly upset when he finds out his wife and daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario), will be moving into the boyfriend’s house.  It’s never clear where they were living beforehand, although one can assume this new house is a pretty sweet upgrade. Daniel Riddick, Emma’s boyfriend, is a rich building developer and has used his money to secure his own private jet and pretty sweet former bachelor pad.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in California, Dr. Lawrence Hayes (Paul Giamatti), a seismologist, is working on a new way to predict earthquakes.  Hayes and his assistant are doing research at the Hoover Dam when an earthquake hits. The quake destroys the Dam but Hayes is able to still collect the necessary data and sits down with a reporter as soon as he returns to the office. This information he has will help save the entire western half of the United States if people listen to him.

A few scenes later, Gaines returns to work and is told to take his damaged helicopter to get fixed. Blake and her mom's bf, Daniel Riddick, hop a private jet to San Francisco, where she will be going to college. They make a stop at Daniel's office where he has to take care of some unspecified business, and while waiting for him, Blake meets two British brothers waiting in the lobby. Ben Taylor (Hugo Johnstone) is there for an interview with Daniel's firm, and for some reason he brought his younger brother with. Back in LA, Emma has lunch plans with her Daniel’s sister so they can get to know each other and bond; the sister does not like Emma and thinks she is a gold digger. The stage is clearly set, just waiting for disaster to strike.

 Review (With spoilers but you won’t care because this movie is predictable)

The first earthquake hits Los Angles, and Gaines receives a call from his wife that she is in trouble. He files his helicopter and rescues her from the roof of a crumbling building but doesn’t rescue, or even pay attention to, anyone else. Another quake then hits San Francisco, so Gaines and Emma decide they need to fly straight there to rescue his daughter.  I assume that when this movie ended Ray Gaines was fired because he didn’t help anyone else and then took off for San Francisco. On the way there, his helicopter crashes, because he never got it fixed, so he steals a truck while stereotypically looters are taking advantage of a destroyed city. Eventually, his path is blocked by a giant fissure, so he gets a plane from an old couple who may or may not actually own the plane. Don’t worry, his journey isn’t complete. Upon arriving in San Francisco, Gaines and Emma parachute out of the plane and land inside AT&T park. Oh no! Now a tsunami is about to hit the city! I guess the couple needs to find a boat to steal and make their way to their daughter. They of course drive the boat straight at the tsunami to get to the top of the wave and make it out alive even though most of the other boats attempting the same thing do not. They then head back into the now flooded city to look for their daughter. Just to recap, Gaines steals four different vehicles (I’m counting his helicopter, which he diverted from his intended destination) in an effort to save two people. While two entire cities are in ruins, don’t you think he is going to have to explain his actions when the dust settles? Gaines’ story is more like a side mission of Grand Theft Auto than a believable story.

Once the second earthquake hits, Blake gets trapped with Daniel Riddick in the underground parking structure of his building. He runs off to "get help," leaving her alone in a crushed car with huge cement chunks falling all around her. But done worry, the good looking Brit, with the way too white teeth, comes to her rescue. Ben and his brother manage to rescue Blake from the twisted rubble and then set out through the ruins of the City by the Bay. Blake knows everything about surviving in a city after an earthquake, because her father taught her… or something.  She knows that old school plug phones get their power from the phone lines, which allows her to contact her parents. She's also so much smarter than everyone else heading west out of the city that she leads the two boys east towards higher ground. With her super smart skills and ideas, they all get trapped in a slowly flooding building while waiting for the Rock to rescue them. Ben and Blake also fall in love during all of this...or something.

Dr. Lawrence, who is back at Cal Tech giving his interview on predicting this earthquake, is also trapped. The power goes down at the school, so he has no way to warn the citizens about the secret earthquake cheat codes he discovered. Working with Serena the News Reporter, and his students; this rag tag team manages to broadcast a warning to the California coast that saves thousands of lives. How do we know its thousands? Because a news show broadcasts this headline at the conclusion of the movie, “Early detection warning saves thousands." The combined population of these two cities is 17 million people, and few thousand were saved? That doesn’t even include the assumed devastation along the fault line. Good job team, you’ve got to feel good about that early detection software.

All things considered this is a bad movie. It’s easy to predict and the story is lame, but at the same it’s also funny. Not funny like a comedy, but funny because the movie is so awful and the lines are so bad. Everything you think will happen, does, and it's just as bad as you could imagine. It surprises me how many people went to see this movie, but can you really argue with the success of $473 million? The one redeeming part of this movie is that Kylie Minogue makes a cameo as Daniel Riddick’s very angry looking sister. But even that wasn't enough to save this.

Who will like this film?

I don’t know. If you would like to see a more nonsensical version of 2012, this might be a good option.

Overall

5.2/10  

The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

The Hunger Games: The Universal Saga

On March 22nd the final installment of the Hunger Games will be released on Blu-Ray/DVD, and it will finally bring an end to the movie/book saga that has played out over the past few years.  I can’t really remember another series like the Hunger Games, and while I generally stick to films, this series forces me to want to talk about the books along with the movies.   This certainly isn't the first book to be turned into a film series, but for the first time I struggled to find anyone I personally knew that hadn't read the books or watched all of the movies. Crazy enough for me, my father even jumped on the bandwagon which turned The Hunger Games into a family event. It was something that we could all relate to and talk about, and that made this series somewhat unique for me. We tried to encourage my mother to read the books but she said, “Anytime I read it feels like work.”  If you haven't watched the movies or read the books, I am happy that you have woken from your eight-year-long coma, and you should probably go check out the Hunger games, it was pretty big the last couple of years.

You could certainly make the argument for a number of other series: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight, Divergent, or Maze Runner. I could certainly understand the argument for any of these other series, except for Twilight, which of course was awful. But I still feel that the Hunger Games appealed to a wider audience.

Initially my sister was the one who got me involved in the series, sometime between the release of the last book in 2010 and prior to the first movie coming out. She started pestering me to read the books, and I finally gave in and worked my way through them. It didn’t take very long to read because they are books written for young adults, and the story lines are very fast paced. It was an easy read, but I couldn't put it down until I knew how it ended.  At some point I want to read the books again to get a post movie perspective, but I have yet to find the time (plus I can’t find my copy of Catching Fire, I know you took it Kate!). Lionsgate smartly set the movies for Thanksgiving Day releases with the first movie coming out in 2012.  For the last four years the Hunger Games became part of our Thanksgiving tradition, just as important as mashed potatoes, as we planned our dinner around popcorn and an early show time. But now that the series is officially finished (please don’t try to write a bad sequel or prequel) it’s time to break it down.

Important side note: This is all my personal perspective, and as we get deeper I am sure that some of you will disagree with my opinions. But I also hope that my perspective will change some of your opinions or at least make you look at things a little differently. Most of this article will be on the movies but I have included pieces from the books as well. Everything from here on out is a spoiler so unless you live under a rock, may the odds be ever in your favor!

 Books

The first book, titled the Hunger Games, was the best of the book trilogy, and I would give it an A-. Catching Fire was the second of the series and second best of the books, and I would give it a 7.2 out of 10. The third book was hands down my least favorite. It felt rushed like it was tumbling and there was nothing Suzanne Collins could do to slow it down which is why I would give it two stars out of five.

 Movies

The first movie was pretty good; it really turned a teen book into more of an adult movie. The filmmakers did a good job of adding the Haymitch perspective which showed a side of the story that wasn’t provided in the book. They also did an amazing job casting Elizabeth Banks as Effie. I hated her character throughout the entire book series, but she was able to turn the character into some much needed comedic relief in the films. She totally flipped my perception of this character. I would rate this movie as a 7.4/10.

The second movie was the best of the foursome. It brought to life several of my favorite characters, the former Hunger Games victors. I also thought this film gave the best performance and portrayal of Caesar Flickerman, who just like Effie, became a critical source of comedy. I rated this film as a 7.9/10.

Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2 should only be talked about together. You could argue that they represent a studio money grab, “Let’s add a few things and stretch the third book into two films. We can double our money,” and most likely, that was a huge factor in that decision. But I also agree with the decision to split the third book up for timing reasons. It allowed the story to incorporate Effie into the movies, which allowed the directors to create an odd little love story between her and Haymitch.  The increased length also made President Coin’s development from district administrator to evil overload so much less forced, but it did make the first movie painfully slow, 6.9/10.

The second movie had a better pace, and several scenes worked better on screen than they did in the book. The first of these scenes is the graphic and emotional death of Finnick Odair. Another scene that was much improved from the book was when Primrose dies. In the book, both of these story lines were really rushed, and I was confused about what was even happening. The movie seemed to slow them down, and they made more sense watching them unfold. The end also seemed much happier in the movie than it ever did in the book.  I’d rate Part 2 as a 7.2/10.

Books vs. Movies

My current opinion is that the movies are better than the books, mainly because the third book was so bad, but maybe if I get around to reading them again, I will have a different opinion....but probably not.

 Please Shut UP!

I don’t quite know the reason why this happened but the Hunger Games movies had the worst crowds that I have ever come across. Maybe this was because it was a series geared towards teens, so it attracted a more childish group than a Quentin Tarantino movie would, but I have to say, the other people in the theaters would not shut up. Not only were they constantly talking throughout the movies, but they also committed an even bigger movie-going-sin: laughing at inappropriate times.  Whenever this happens it completely ruins the “movie moment” and takes away from the feelings and reactions you have to what is playing out on the screen.

There were a few scenes in particular that caused the most problems, and those were the love scenes.  I’m not going to pretend like The Hunger Games was filled with the most inspiring scenes or that these even compare to other scenes in the movies, but they were not bad enough to be laughing at and were pivotal parts of the characters' stories. In the first movie, the love scenes were meant to be terrible and feel forced, mainly because Katniss was faking them. She was supposed to be faking them. The rest of the scenes were also supposed to be awkward; these two characters are trapped in a forced romantic situation, and they are falling in love at the same time, all while their love story unfolded for the viewers. It’s such a strange situation to be involved in, and I thought the actors portrayed the situation as accurately as they could.

The other major scene, that inspired gut busting laughter from the terrible crowds that joined me, was in the last film. Katniss has finally returned to District 12 after the big war is finally over, and she is standing in her kitchen reflecting on the events that have happened. She breaks down and starts crying, and if you remember this scene, Jennifer Lawrence happens to drool or spit as she is crying…. and the crowd goes crazy.  Maybe you happened to laugh at this scene as well, but I didn’t find it that funny. Katniss has just gone through a pretty rough three years that ended with her killing a bunch of people, several of her friends have died, and her sister died. The beginning of this journey started with Katniss entering the games just to save her sister, and all her efforts have been wasted. So yeah I think her crazy drooling crying was an acceptable reaction for her to have. Maybe you think you look pretty when you cry, but I can assure you that you do not.

 Three final questions for you to think about

Why in the hell does Mrs. Everdeen allow her daughter (Prim) to enter a warzone where she could end up dead? Is she not aware of the fact that her other daughter fought in gladiatorial combat to save her life? Wouldn’t she be slightly worried that Prim would die, and that all of her daughter’s prior efforts would then be in vain?

Why does the capitol put District 12 at a distinct disadvantage in the Hunger Games? In several of the districts, one and two (there is some debate about whether 4 is a “Career District”), the children train from a young age to compete in the games. In districts 3, 4, 7, and 11, the children are forced to work in order for their districts to be successful.  The other districts aren’t really talked about much so we can avoid talking about them here. Why aren’t the children in 12 forced to work? Mine work is difficult; wouldn’t it make the children really strong? It’s just never explained why 12 is the loser district that has only had one winner in 74 previous games and it bothers me.

In the second film, the victors end up having to reenter the games to celebrate the Quarter Quell, 75th anniversary games. Now, it’s stated earlier in the book that the Quarter Quell is always a bit crazier than a normal year. For the 50th anniversary for example, instead of 24 contestants they doubled the number to 48. This was the year that Haymitch won the games, which I am sure made for insane television ratings. The book also stated that the instructions for the games were created years ago, and that no one had access to them until the year of the games. In the movie, it is clearly indicated that Snow changed the rules in an attempt to kill Katniss Everdeen, but the book leaves this question more ambiguous. So my question, at least as it relates to the book; were the rules changed to kill Katniss, or did she just get really unlucky? If Katniss never won the 74th games, how would they have had the 75th games?  Prior to the 74th games, District 12 had only one living victor, Haymitch.

The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

Spotlight

I first heard about this film on a movie podcast called Channel 33, where they were comparing the film to one of my all-time favorites, All the President’s Men. (Now if you haven’t seen All the President’s Men I suggest you stop reading this article and watch it right away because it is a great movie.) The comparison between the two movies is easy to make. Both of them deal with a small group of determined journalists who are investigating a cover up by a large organizational power. They are based on true stories and involve a real life character named Ben Bradlee (Ben Bradlee Sr. was the editor at the Washington Post during Watergate, and his son was an editor at the Boston Globe during the events of this film). The other thing the two stories have in common is the astonishment you feel about the real life events depicted in the film.

Quick Synopsis

The movie begins in early 2001 at the offices of the Boston Globe. New editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) meets with all of the editors to discuss their sections and the stories they are covering. At the end of the meeting he pulls aside Robby Robinson (Michael Keaton), who is the head of the Spotlight team, to discuss a new in-depth investigation. The Spotlight team is small group of four people that typically researches and covers in-depth investigations, which often take up to a year before a story is published.

Baron requests that the team look into the allegations concerning pedophile priest John Geoghain and other priests who have been charged with similar crimes. This was a topic that the Globe had covered before, but they had never done an in-depth investigation into the allegations. The investigation also represents something of a problem for the Globe because of the local support/power that the Catholic Church holds in the Boston area. Reluctantly the Spotlight team begins the investigation, unaware how deep the rabbit hole really is. Through their efforts they expose a cover-up so big, it’s truly appalling.

I could go into a long synopsis, but this is a true story. What really happened in this movie is a part of history.

Review

This movie is a somewhat slow developing drama based on true events. There aren’t any explosions or shootouts, just a two plus year investigation by journalists. But this movie had me on the edge of my seat for over two hours. To be honest I had somewhat forgotten about the magnitude of this scandal, and watching the movie really reminded me of what had happened. I must admit, I was a little shocked that I had forgotten about this story unfolding just a few short years ago. But this isn’t a review on the events of history; this is about the movie, which might be one of the best of 2015.

Spotlight brings together a very solid cast of actors who all bring home the bacon.  Liev Schreiber does an outstanding job despite his limited screen time. He is in several intense scenes, but the one that really set the stage for me was his meeting the Cardinal Law. As the new editor of the Boston Globe, he schedules a meeting with the Cardinal, and this face-to-face is a very intense scene that depicts the power that the Catholic Church has in the Boston area. After the meeting, the Cardinal sends Liev’s character, who‘s Jewish, a book on catechism; which, if this is true, is an awfully strange gift.

Mark Ruffalo, who happens to be from my hometown of Kenosha Wisconsin, plays Michael Rezendes a member of the Spotlight team.  His character is appropriately intense throughout the entire movie and earned himself his third Oscar nomination.  Give this man an Oscar already, he’s from Kenosha! Rachael McAdams plays Sacha Pfeiffer, another member of the Spotlight team. Her character seems to struggle with the investigation because of her deep family ties to the Catholic Church.  Michael “Batman” Keaton does an excellent job in his role.  As the head of the team he spends most of his time battling with several prominent members of Boston society.  These scenes were somewhat chilling to watch because most of the people who Keaton meets with refuse to accept the reality of the situation and often are deeply involved in the cover-ups.

I can honestly say that this movie left me stunned. After the movie finished I remained in my chair for a few more minutes to fully comprehend the gravity of the situation, and even hours later still couldn't grasp it. This is an excellent movie and definitely one of the best of 2015. The movie will be released on Blu-Ray on the 23rd of February, and you should put this at the top of your “must watch” list.

Who will like this film?

Everyone should see this movie.

Overall

8.6/10

The Movie Guy

[echobasegazette]

The Hateful Eight

This movie has been something of an emotional roller coaster ever since I heard about it back in 2013. Here is my personal play by play:

11-2013: A western shot in the 1880s called the Hateful Eight and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Awesome, I’m getting tickets as soon as possible.

1-2014: Some asshole leaked the script and now Tarantino’s not going to do the movie? WTF?

5-2014: The movie is back on? YES!!

Okay so maybe I was a little excited about a movie that wouldn’t come out for 2 more years, but I love Tarantino’s movies.

As the date for the film steadily approached, I became even more excited, and my own internal hype machine was operating overtime. I knew all the actors and had a basic understanding of the script, and I kept planning all of the possibilities out in my head. I could have gone online and read the entire script, but I decided to wait and not ruin the ending. On Aug. 12th I got an early birthday present in the form of a 3 min preview and thought, "This film is going to be AMAZING!”

In retrospect I broke my first movie going rule: You must have reasonable expectations when you go into a movie theater.  Every movie will fall short if your expectations are sky-high. I went into this thinking it was going to be two plus hours of awesome gun fighting, but the actual film was more of a slow paced mystery. Tarantino still delivered the goods, but it was different than I thought it was going to be.

Quick Synopsis (Without Spoilers)

The film takes place a dozen years after the end of the civil war. Trapped in the snowy mountains of northwest after the death of his horse, bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is attempting to transport the corpses of three outlaws to the town of Red Rock. Luckily a stagecoach happens upon him waiting in the road. On board the horse drawn wagon is fellow bounty hunter John “The Hangman” Ruth. Ruth, who is played by Kurt Russell, is transporting his own fugitive into the town of Red Rock. Her name is Daisy Domergue, and she’s played by Jennifer Jason Leigh.

The stagecoach is trying to reach Minnie’s Haberdashery before the big blizzard hits. Along the way the group picks up another traveler, former confederate militiaman Chris Mannix. Mannix, played by Walton Goggins, is travelling to Red Rock as well, and when he arrives he will become the town's new sheriff. He persuades Ruth and Warren to give them a ride, as he will be the one paying their bounties.

The group arrives at Minnie's Haberdashery, just as the blizzards hits.  “Bob the Mexican”, says Minnie, is visiting her mother and left him to look after the lodge. There are three other lodgers already there when they arrive.  One of the three is an Englishmen named Oswaldo Mobray, played by Tim Roth, who just so happens to be the Red Rock hangman.  Joe Gage, played by Michael Madsen, is a cowboy looking to spend the holidays with his mother. And finally, Sanford Smithers played by Bruce Dern, is a former Confederate general.

John Ruth introduces himself to all of the lodgers and also disarms them because he fears one of them is looking to free his prisoner. He calls a meeting with Major Warren and tells him that he suspects one of the men is not who he claims to be. He also doesn't believe that someone will attempt to free Daisy Domergue. The pair decide to work together to protect their bounties.

Review

It is safe to say that this is the most despicable collection of people that Quentin Tarantino has ever assembled. Kurt Russell spends nearly all of his screen time beating the shit out of Daisy Domergue. Normally you’d feel bad for someone in this position despite the fact that she is a convicted murderer, but every time she opens her mouth it’s to make a racist or generally terrible remark. Samuel L. Jackson’s character, who early in the film is painted as the protagonist, has an extended monologue where he tells a bewildered General Smithers that he tortured and killed his son when the latter’s kid came to collect a bounty that was placed on his head by a bunch of Confederate sympathizers. The rest of the main characters are either racists or cold blooded murderers.

Now it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise that Tarantino would assemble a cast of despicable characters, but this collection is by the far the worst. At least in his other films the protagonists had some inherently good quality which made them stand out from the filth which surrounds them. Jules Winfield, from Pulp Fiction, was a hired gunman who worked for a mobster. But early in the film he has a near death experience which provides him with a moment of clarity, after which he pledges to give up the life of a gangster.  Beatrix "Black Mamba" Kiddo, the heroine and main character in Kill Bill, is on a quest to avenge the presumed death of her daughter. In this quest she kills hundreds of people, but all of the people that she kills are so malevolent that their deaths seem warranted. But the same case cannot be made in this movie. Every character is a “bad guy”, so throughout the film it’s often difficult to find a character to “root” for.

Despite the contemptable collection of characters, this is still a Tarantino film and so it is naturally good. He takes his time developing the plot, and I found myself glued to the screen waiting to see what would happen next. He also provides some interesting camera angles. The opening shot has the camera panning away from a crucifix.  At first it’s difficult to discern what you are looking at, and as the panning continues, you begin wonder if the wooden depiction is natural or manmade. It’s a very cool opening scene as the credits are rolling. The director also continues his tradition of nonlinear story telling by including several scenes from the past in context of the story.

Who will like this film?

Anyone who considers them self to be a Quentin Tarantino fan will enjoy the Hateful Eight.

Who should not see this film?

After leaving the theater, the guy in front of me turned to his friend and said, “That was the dumbest film ever, what was the point?” This is Quentin Tarantino; there isn’t often a “point” to his films. But if you feel like this matches your sentiment to any of his previous films, then this movie isn’t for you.

Overall

7.8/10

The Movie Guy

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Five awesome things in the prequel trilogy.

After a long time of waiting it’s finally here and I can barely contain my glee.  The release of the new Star Wars film is today… well it comes out at midnight but I’m going to a 10:30 pm showing, and there is a 7:30 showing before that? Wait what? Quick tangent: When did they start doing these early release dates? What’s the point of them exactly? I mean I like them it’s much easier to get up for work after a 10:30 movie than a 12:00 movie. But there was never any announcement about this change it just happened, but I digress. So there is a lot to be excited about with these new films. JJ Abrams was brought on board, and he did a great job with the Trek films. Disney just spent $4.2 billion so they aren’t going to cheap out with bad writers. Additionally, the trailers have looked outstanding.  But didn’t the trailers look great for the prequel trilogy, and those movies were awful right? But were they really that bad?

The movies have been slammed by critics and fans ever since Phantom Menace came out in 1999. Even casual movie watchers will say that prequels weren’t as good.  I am a huge Star Wars fan and just last month I wrote about five things in the prequels worse than Jar Jar Binks, so the trilogy has to be bad, right?

Well I am here to tell you that it isn’t! Yes, I know, it couldn’t measure up to the original, but the original Star Wars films are the greatest trilogy of all time. Yes, they are better than LOTR, and I don’t want to hear another word about it. Did we, as fans, really expect it to measure up? And isn’t it our fault for setting such lofty expectations.  So here are five things that were awesome about the prequel trilogy.

 Darth Maul, General Grievous and Count Dooku

All of three of these characters were incredibly awesome, but Darth Maul was by far the coolest of the three. His skin was red with black tattoos, and he had a halo of horns on his head. He barely spoke and had red and yellow eyes. Just his appearance alone was enough to make him one of the coolest looking characters in the Star Wars universe. And he used a double bladed lightsaber. What? Everything about this guy was freaking amazing; except, that he died at the end of the first movie.

The next Dark Lord of the Sith was Darth Tyranus more commonly referred to as Count Dooku. I must admit that his Sith name is a little on the lame side, but luckily everyone just called him Dooku. The character itself is pretty run of the mill; although, he does carry a curved hilt as opposed to the more traditional ones (if you didn’t notice this in the movies you should google search it because it’s cool looking), he’s a former Jedi who left the order because he was dissatisfied with the corruption in the Republic. What sets Dooku apart is the actor that plays him, Christopher Lee. This dude is a serious actor, his first movie role was in the 1940's, and he kills every scene he is in. He also just looks like a movie villain, and he played villain roles throughout his career like Dracula and Saruman.  Lee’s outstanding acting really takes this character to the next level.

While not technically a Sith lord, General Grievous becomes the next lightsaber toting bad guy to be introduced in the Star Wars Universe. General Grievous is a cyborg who has been trained in lightsaber combat by Dooku. Some people said it was stupid that a robot had the rasping cough, but it was from a previous battle with Mace Windu. The organic parts of Grievous were burned in a fire that takes place directly before his first on screen appearance. Additionally, he’s not a robot, he’s a cyborg so there’s nothing wrong with him getting a cough. Until someone can prove cyborgs don’t get colds, this is a stupid complaint. Grievous is visually very cool; he is a massive guy with metal claw like arms and legs. He can wield 4 lightsabers at once and his raspy mechanical voice makes him a very cool character.  

 Jango Fett

In the original trilogy Boba Fett was a minor character with four lines and less than ten minutes of screen time.  Despite his limited role, he still managed to attract his own cult following among fans. And in the prequel trilogy his father was introduced to the Star Wars Universe. Jango sports a similarly badass suit of armor just like his son, and also wields dual Westar-34 blaster pistols. These blasters and the way he uses them give him the appearance of an old west gunslinger. I know what you’re thinking, “He got his ass handed to him by Mace Windu,” and I admit that was not Jango’s finest moment. But his battle with Obi-Wan was very cool and he was in a very awesome video game called Bounty Hunter, which is one of my favorites.

 Pod Racing

I just wrote an article which lamented on the fact that George Lucas wrote a story in which a nine-year-old saves the day by podracing and destroying a giant battleship. But the podracing scenes were actually very cool. the thing that bothered me was that he was nine years old, not the podracing itself. The introduction of podracing brought an entirely new ship into the Star Wars universe. Sure it was never in another movie, but the whole design was very cool. The racers were all different alien species and all of the pods were unique, which conjures images of 1930's racing. These scenes also brought back Jabba the Hutt and his seedy underground gambling. You can trash the Episode 1 all you want, but podracing was really cool.

 Emperor Palpatine Throwing Down

Throughout the original trilogy Palpatine looks like a crippled old man who wields power from the shadows. The only time we actually see him do something, other than brooding and scheming, is when he uses force lightning on an unarmed Luke Skywalker. But was there a time when Palpatine could fight a real opponent, or does he just attack people who won’t fight back? Well we finally found out the answer in Episode 3.

Another side note: For those of you who aren’t into Star Wars like me, there was a time when serious fans questioned whether or not Darth Sideous (this is Palpatine’s Sith name and what he is called by Nute Gunray in Episodes 1) was in fact Palpatine. To me this always seemed crazy. Of course it’s the same guy! Just because he wears a cloak that covers his eyes we question whether or not it’s the same guy? Like Clark Kent and his glasses, of course he is Superman. He wears glasses and it confuses everyone? Well it was the same way with Sideous and Palpatine, but don’t worry I never fell for that shenanigans.

In Revenge of the Sith we finally get to see Palpatine, and he really kicks ass. He drops three Jedi Masters in seconds, and fights Mace Windu. Ohh yeah, he also duels it out with Yoda in one of the coolest lightsaber fights to date. Which brings us to the coolest thing in the prequel trilogy:

 Yoda with a Lightsaber

I saw Attack of the Clones when I was 15 years old, and when I left the theater that evening, I remember thinking that it was one of the coolest movies I’d ever seen. The movie was incredible, it had Jango Fett, Mace Windu wielding a purple lightsaber, and Yoda leaping around fighting Count Dooku. Upon reflection the movie may be worst of the Star Wars movies, but I couldn’t help it. The Yoda lightsaber fight was so awesome. The little Jedi Master who was nearly 900 years old had a mini light saber, and he jumped around and would have defeated Dooku if the latter hadn’t cheated. You could say the last action scene clouded my judgment; I should have listened to Yoda earlier in the film, “Clear your mind must be.”

But the prequel trilogy wasn’t done featuring Yoda as a lightsaber dueler. He later confronts Palpatine, and the two of them duel it out in the Senate chambers. This action sequence was awesome, two masters of their respective order welding lightsabers, using force lightening, and throwing Senate cars at each other. I still get goosebumps thinking about that scene.  

Overall, the prequel trilogy was not great, but when you hear people talk about it, they act like it was the worst thing they have ever watched. I admit that the newer films left a lot to be desired, but they weren’t terrible, they were just misjudged. The original trilogy set such lofty expectations that anything but perfect would have been a letdown. With the newest Star Wars film set to release on the 19th I hope that it can compare with the original films, and I’m holding out hope that Disney will do a good job with these new movies. When you go back and watch the prequel trilogy, I hope that you give it a fair shake and don’t compare it with its predecessor.

The Movie Guy

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Inside Out

I know what you are going to say before you even say it. You think that I’m too old to watch kid’s movies. Maybe it’s a fair statement, but I don’t really care. I like animated movies and I always have, and I probably always will. So I’m going to fight Father Time and keep watching kid’s movies and I’m going to hope that you will join me as well.  In my opinion, there are two different types of kid’s films. The first is a generally bad movie that is animated and over advertised, but kids will beg their parents to go see anyway. The children sit and enjoy the color show, and the adults sit and wait for the film to end. Monster and Aliens was so bad that I gave up on it after 35 minutes, it’s one of only two movies that I couldn’t complete. The second type is an adult film disguised in a children’s wrapper. The characters are designed for kids; a talking mouse that likes to cook, a fat panda that does Kung Fu, or maybe a bunch of toys that come to life. But the stories are adult films with legitimate plots, twists, and subtle humor.

Inside Out fits into the latter category.  I wanted to go see this film in theaters but I never got around to it, and I don’t have a child that begged me to take them. Finally, it was released to video, so I decided to look into it. Most of the reviews rated this film very highly, so I was preparing to be disappointed. Whenever movies are super hyped, I end up being disappointed. Before I saw Inception, a friend told me that it was the best movie he’d ever seen. So when I watched the movie, I just sat in the theater ripping it apart because it couldn’t measure up to the impossible standards of GOAT (greatest of all time). But I was not disappointed with Inside Out; it was actually a great film.

Quick Synopsis (without spoilers)

The movie is set inside of Riley’s mind. Riley is an 11-year-old girl born in Minnesota, and within her mind are five characters which represent her basic emotions.  Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler, is in charge at Cranium Headquarters. Sadness is the next emotion to come to life, voiced by Phyllis Smith from The Office, and she is often at odds with Joy over the controls. The other emotions are Fear, Disgust, and Anger.

The beginning of the movie walks through the first 11 years of Riley’s life and mind and shows how the emotions interact with each other and affect Riley’s actions and memories via a control console. Riley’s memories are represented as colored orbs, and her core memories create special orbs, and are stored in various parts of the headquarters. When Riley finds out that her dad is taking a new job, and she is moving to San Francisco, Joy struggles to keep Riley happy. During a disagreement, Joy, Sadness and all of Riley’s core memories get sucked into a tube and sent to her long term memory bank. This incident leaves Disgust, Fear, and Anger in charge of her emotions, and naturally this turns Riley into an emotional wreck. Meanwhile, Joy and Sadness venture through Riley’s mind and try to get back to headquarters before something terrible happens.

Review

I really enjoyed this movie. It was incredibly funny, but I still worried about the fate of the characters, and I know when I care about the fate of the characters that I am watching a good movie. The film gives you a view into several other characters’ “Headquarters”, and these scenes were particularly funny. One scene has Riley’s mom subtlety trying to get her father involved in a family conversation. Meanwhile his “Headquarters” is busy watching a hockey game. When his crew of emotions finally realize that they have been signaled, the following exchange takes place:

Dad’s Anger: She’s looking at us. What did she say?

Dad’s Fear: Sorry sir, no one was listening.

Dad’s Anger: Is it garbage night? We left the toilet seat up? What? What is it women? What?

I found this scene particularly funny as it echoed memories of family dinner at my home.

Joy and Sadness’ quest takes you throughout Riley’s mind as they travel to a variety of different “places” like Imagination Land, Dream Productions, and The Subconscious. Each of scenes was unique and offered the directors/animators a chance to playfully explain the inner workings of our minds.

This film also had a surprisingly solid cast.  Lewis Black plays the emotion Anger, which if you’ve ever seen his comedy, is a great casting job. I was able to recognize his voice instantly. Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling voice Fear and Disgust, although I had to look up this information. Diane Lane, Richard Kind, and Rashida Jones were also brought it for several supporting roles.

I know this is an animated film and most people who don’t have kids won’t see this movie, but I would strongly suggest watching this.

Who will like this film?

People who have kids and are forced to watch this with them. Anyone who decides to watch this movie even though it’s animated.

Who won’t like this film?

People who think that they are too old to enjoy animated movies.

Overall

8.0/10

The Movie Guy