#apparently liam neeson was here as well earlier

[thatsgonnaleaveamark]

you guys i saw eddie redmayne earlier today lmao

14y/o me watching Les Mis is dying

[moviemunchies]

Alright I love this movie so I don’t know how objective of a review I can write. I have fond memories of this movie--we went and saw it as a class trip in middle school, and ever since it’s been one of my favorite fantasy films. I mean, yes, it totally came out when it did and padded its battle scenes out more because it was cashing in on the crowd of kids what like Lord of the Rings but that doesn’t make it bad, does it?

So, first things first-- no, The Chronicles of Narnia is NOT an allegory. Stop saying that. 

Anyhow I imagine most people who read this blog know the story, but if you don’t: during World War II the four Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are sent to the countryside manor of Professor Kirk. While exploring the house, Lucy comes across a wardrobe, and within the wardrobe she enters another world called Narnia. Soon enough, they all make it there, but it turns out that there’s a prophecy about them, and the tyrant that’s taken hold of Narnia and cursed it with eternal winter, the White Witch, wants to kill them.

Also, one of them betrays them to the White Witch for the promise of supremacy over the lot of them. To be fair to poor Edmund, he was magically drugged, and he didn’t know she wanted to murder anyone.

So our siblings must seek out Aslan, the Great Lion and true king of Narnia (who is totes Jesus, still not an allegory) and end the reign of the White Witch!

Like I said, I have seen accusations that this was Disney’s cynical attempt to cash in on Lord of the Rings but aimed at children. And I don’t know that it’s wrong to say that, but it’s also short-selling this movie. I mean yes, a lot of this movie was filmed in New Zealand, and WETA Workshop did the effects for this movie.

But you guys know that WETA will work the shiz out of the effects and props, right? The level of detail on the design in this movie (and the sequels) is INSANE and look, I didn’t think that they’d go this hard on designing a story that many people think of as a souped-up children’s fairy tale, but they did and it is GLORIOUS. There are plenty of little details that you may have missed the first time watching that you pick up if you’re paying attention. Like you know that in the final battle Jadis is wearing Aslan’s mane on her collar?

[I have some of the concept art saved on my computer, btw.]

The character arcs are also great developments/additions? They’re not all true to the books, and I do kind of miss that. But I do understand WHY those changes were made. For example, in the novel Edmund’s dickishness is mentioned to be a result of the terrible school experiences he had (Lewis didn’t much like the English education system). Here, to tie it into the other characters his acting out is in large part because his father’s been absent during the war, and butting heads with Peter.

Skandar Keyes is a fantastic Edmund. He gets better in the next movie, but in this one he conveys a lot of the conflict within Edmund, so that he’s sympathetic as the movie goes on, even if he does a lot of things that are pretty terrible (for a child, for the record--it’s not that he really gets into a lot of grade-A evil).

Peter’s characterization is made much more explicit as the older brother who is sometimes a little too hard on his siblings. I think William Mosely does a fairly good job. He gets annoying as an older brother sometimes, but that’s the point, and it makes sense how he and Edmund would be butting heads.

Probably to act as foreshadowing for what happens to her later in the series, Susan is the skeptical one, the logical one, the one asking questions about what the heck is going on and trying to make sense of it all. I think they lean a little too hard into this at times--she starts telling Peter to put down his sword when they’re surrounded by wolves. Otherwise I like that she has a much stronger character arc than in the novel, and Anna Popplewell does well with it. I mean, she’s still pretty likable, and you can see that she is someone trying to achieve the best for her family.

Georgia Henley’s a great Lucy. It would be very easy for this role to be annoying and it’s not, it’s quite lovable. Lucy’s very young and innocent, and in some stories this would play against her, but in this story (both book and movie) it’s kind of her strength? She’s endearing, she’s lovable, and that’s what you need in Lucy Pevensie.

Also we should probably talk about how the child characters are aged up a bit. Of course, this being Hollywood and trying to do action scenes with a twelve-year-old would be… unwise, I get it. But it is a bit weird that Peter and Susan are being sent off to the countryside when, even allowing for Dawson Casting, they’re old enough to stick around their family. They’re not really children. I don’t mind, but it is a case against it as an adaptation, and it works a bit against the logic of the film.

Also Tilda Swinton is having a ball as Jadis, the White Witch. She doesn’t really look like the character description, but she’s fantastic as a cruel and haughty queen, and really, no one does weird ethereal and near inhuman beauty like Tilda Swinton. She apparently had so much fun with the role and the people at Walden Media liked her so much that they put her in the next two movies with whatever scrap of justification they could grab.

Liam Neeson voices Aslan and does a good job. Don’t know if there’s that much that makes him stand out other than needing a serious actor to do the voice. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know if there’s anything in this film that makes Neeson a better choice than any other particularly famous actor.

[Apparently for one of these movies, Neeson took his family on safari to “prepare for the role” which is silly but hey if you can take your family on safari and excuse it as a work trip, why not?]

Final word before the sendoff: the CGI in this movie is still pretty good? It’s not perfect--watching it this past time made me think how something about the Beavers still looks noticeably artificial. But they still look fairly realistic. And I know it’s been said before, but the animal characters in this movie are incredibly expressive despite also looking like real animals, a trick that seemed impressive then, but after _The Lion King_ remake came out a couple years back, one of the defenses of the lack of expressive characters in that film was “Well we wanted them to look realistic!”

And DISNEY, the studio that released both movies, did THIS one FIFTEEN YEARS EARLIER, and also WITH A LION, and managed to make Aslan convey facial expressions and emotions through impressive CGI! WHAT THE FUDGE!

If you like the fantasy works of C.S. Lewis, I imagine you will like this film, unless you’re very strict about adaptations being close to the works they’re inspired by. Even then, I think it’s a pretty good adaptation, and that the changes made are those that make for a better cinematic viewing experience. If you’re not as familiar with the source material but you like fantasy, and children’s stories, you’ll probably like this movie.

Like I said, I have seen some people accuse this movie of being a lower-tier Lord of the Rings cash-in. I don’t think that’s the case, but if you’re very interested in serious fantasy and war stories, this movie’s not going to work for you. I don’t think there’s any blood at all in the film; if there is, it’s very little. Which considering the amount of action and the battle sequence in the climax is maybe a bit egregious.

I think it’s a good movie and a pretty solid adaptation of one of the foundational texts of the modern fantasy genre. Take a watch.

[simonjadis]

A friend talked about a lot of geeks bemoaning how female characters aren't "allowed" to be girly anymore. I agreed with him on how they're not disallowed from being girly so much as allowed to be human.

This is SUCH a complicated topic because there ARE ways in which women are penalized, in real life and in fiction, for perceived femininity . . . but that is essentially never what these hellclowns are talking about

I’m not going to try to define femininity. It’s not exactly a cultural constant or some sort of universal truth. Even if it were, I would not really be the best authority on the subject. Or on masculinity, for that matter.

But the people saying this could mean multiple things

ONE

The first and most obvious is that they want a return to storytelling and characterization norms that our society is trying to move past. Whether it’s a soft, slightly ditzy girl with bunny ears, a feisty barmaid who wields a cast iron skillet like a cudgel, or deeply intelligent princess who is nonetheless in need of rescue (and perhaps “needs” to learn about the real world through a male protagonist’s eyes), storytelling has been filled with women for many years and they can genuinely take many roles while being “girly.” But these women, in most “traditional” media, are contrasted with Mother Figures, with Bad Women Who Are Too Darn Sexy, and with Bad Women Who Are Too Masculine. The hero might be tempted by the Too Darn Sexy, might fight and respect the Too Darn Masculine women, etc . . . but at the end, his love interest will meet an easily accessible definition of femininity (such as those I listed above) and also need his help. I should note that this can also be true of extremely good storytelling, and that a woman being feminine OR needing help during her story are not dealbreakers or even necessarily storytelling mistakes. It is that their roles and how they are morally framed within the story are so limited by their gender performance that is the problem. (Just think of how many action movies have the male protagonist have a fistfight with an enemy -- she is always going to be “too big/strong/masculine” so audiences are not supposed to care). Anyway, so people with this gripe want to see women back in these tropes, and if they see a woman with great arms being the hero, they get culture shock.

TWO

Not every character exists to be thirsted after, but for SO long, any woman who wasn’t at least twice the (white, straight, male) protagonist’s age existed, if not necessarily to be his lover, to be a potential object of temptation for the hero or thirst for the person consuming the story. Increasingly, female characters without any of the usual femininely attractive traits are appearing in media -- buff orc women, women wearing realistic armor, etc. Now, basically all of these women are going to be objects of thirst anyway, but for people seeing them as not feminine/hot enough, this feels like a waste to have that character there. Well, folks, welcome to the club. I’ve been feeling that way about so many men in stories for all of my life. However, being an adult tells me that not every character exists to be thirsted after, and that even though I do not personally thirst after a guy does not mean that no one is. Just as a gorgeous buff orc woman might be wasted on your average straight dude but adored by others, a character I wouldn’t even glance twice at as a prospective thirst object will have other people falling head over heels, no matter how much I cannot personally relate.

THREE

Sometimes, it’s just about things like hairstyle and outfit. There are very feminine women with short hair or who don’t dress in an overly provocative or “soft” manner. Not every fictional character is going to dress like Princess Jasmine, or have her tiddies out, or have long hair. They can still be hot. There are lots of ways for someone to be hot. I saw someone whine about “a bald lesbian” upon seeing a short-haired, attractive-faced woman in a trailer for Outriders (SO hyped for that game) and I was just like . . . she’s a beautiful woman on a nightmare monster planet, I’m sorry that she’s not wearing pasties, panties, and pleasers with 3-foot hair and body glitter. It’s 100% okay to have women who dress like that in the right context (fitting the story and setting, also ideally coupled with men who are dressed more or less the same -- no Conan-style false equivalences with male power fantasies either). Anyway, actual human women in real life can be hot but maybe that’s not apparent when they’re wearing their welding outfits or whatever, but I think that many brave and wise lesbians would agree with me. Also, here is the lady from Outriders who was dismissed as a “bald lesbian” when she’s likely just a player character

FOUR

Okay, here is where I might sound a little sympathetic to these dudes -- when it comes to video games, the way that graphics keep improving means that people are looking more realistic. In many ways, that is great! But it also creates a wealth of potential for characters to look, well, worse, because of details that did not exist in earlier models. For example? I watched YouTube playthroughs of the first three Uncharted games. I enjoyed them. I also spent the whole time thirsting after Nathan Drake. Well, then Uncharted 4 comes around, and suddenly he doesn’t look like Alistair Theirin’s cousin, he looks like . . . Liam Neeson? I have to be honest . . . I straight up just quit watching Uncharted 4 because looking at Nathan was no longer fun. (I’m not saying that I’d say “no” to him, but that doesn’t mean anything when you have standards like mine) So if some straight guys are feeling that women in video games are getting “uglier” because they’re getting more realistic, I’m not going to say that I sympathize exactly, but I do “get it.” I’m splitting hairs there, but whatever.

[I was going to paste a photo of Drake before and after here, but looking at them side-by-side I worry that people will roast me for being deeply shallow about video game man. they’re right]

ANYWAY

There are a ton of real women who have to dial back their femininity in real life in order to be treated with respect. Women who have to go twice as hard as they, say, cheer for sportsball in order to be viewed as a friend and fellow fan rather than as “one of the guys.” A lot of things are not designed with long nails in mind, or long hair in mind, though of course neither of those are intrinsic aspects of femininity.

There are also a lot of ways in which femininity is demanded. This performance can be required to be viewed as attractive or as “not political,” etc.

The fact that some ladies have big strong arms or wear armor in stories doesn’t mean that women aren’t allowed to be feminine. That’s a complicated subject, but this isn’t the touchstone for it. The men saying this either lack understanding . . . or are cowards.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 8/20/21 - REMINISCENCE, PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE, THE PROTÉGÉ, THE NIGHT HOUSE, FLAG DAY, DEMONIC and More

Ugh.

Apparently, we have four or five new wide releases this weekend, just as we get into what I always lovingly referred to as “The Dog Days of Summer.” Thanks to COVID, that could be referring to almost every weekend this summer, but it definitely becomes more true as we get to the end of summer as many kids are returning to school, some of them wearing masks, others social-distancing, some just getting us closer to the herd immunity we were always heading towards… ha ha… that’s one way to see if anyone is even reading this column. Get Political!!

Presumably, the widest release this weekend will be the sci-fi noir, REMINISCENCE (Warner Bros.), starring Hugh Jackman, Thandiwe Newton, and Rebecca Ferguson, which is the feature directorial debut by Lisa Joy, the co-creator of HBO’s popular series, Westworld. Like The Suicide Squad, In the Heights, and every other Warner Bros. movie this year, Reminiscence will be released concurrently on HBO Max this Friday. Unlike any of those other movies, I honestly don’t think anyone will give a shit about getting off their asses to risk COVID in order to see this. And I say that a.) without having seen it; b.) knowing almost nothing about it; c.) not believing the poppycock that movie theaters are the death traps some claim; and d.) I already have a ticket to see it on Friday.

In fact, I almost feel like I shouldn’t do a lot of research into what this movie is about, because despite having seen the trailer a few times, I still have no idea. All I know is that it stars Hugh Jackman, and it’s science-fiction, and that’s enough for me! (I haven’t even watched that much of Westworld beyond the first season for no other reason except that I haven’t.) The plot according to IMDB is, “A scientist discovers a way to relive your past and uses the technology to search for his long lost love.” Good enough for me.

Okay, then, so basically it sounds like a Christopher Nolan movie like Tenet or Inception from a lesser-known director -- who also happens to be Nolan’s sister-in-law, because she’s married to the other Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan. See how Hollywood works?

Because of all the Nolan connections, maybe we need to look at something like Transcendence, the 2014 sci-fi thriller directed by Nolan DP Wally Pfister, which starred Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall (coincidentally), and Paul Bettany. The movie opened in mid-April (a known dumping ground) to about $10.9 million in 3,455 theaters, and then tanked, making just $23 million domestically. (It made about $80 million overseas.) The fact that the title Reminiscence bears more similarity to Pfister’s movie brings another level of foreboding.

At the time, Depp hadn’t completely destroyed his career, and he still had a few bit hits under his belt, including Into the Woods and his final Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2017, as well as Murder on the Orient Express. Jackman, on the other hand, is still in a better place career-wise, although he still owes much of his career to playing Wolverine in the X-Men movies for nearly two decades. He’s had one significant hit since Logan’s swan song, fittingly enough in 2017’s Logan, which grossed $226.3 million domestically. That was the PT Barnum musical, The Greatest Showman, which made $174.3 million over the holidays that same year, and that really centered around Jackman as a leading man. His next movie, the Gary Hart movie, The Front Runner, didn’t fare very well (less than $2 million gross), nor did the animated Missing Link, although the latter did get an Oscar nomination. The question is whether Jackman can do much to get moviegoers into an original science fiction movie with his mere presence.

Even the rest of the cast that includes Ferguson from Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies, Newton from… well, another one of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies, and Daniel Wu from the series Into the Badlands and the most recent Tomb Raider movie. Again, take these three out of a franchise and who knows if there’s really much left?

I’m not even sure how many theaters Warner Bros. is releasing… sorry, I hate spelling out the title of this movie… into, but I have a feeling it won’t be that much more than 3,000, especially with the movie being readily available on HBO Max and all the week’s other movies being theatrical only.

Because of that, I’m very dubious about this movie making $10 million this weekend. In fact, I’m not even sure it can make $8 million this weekend. No, I’m probably going to go closer to $6 to 7 million on this, and even that might be overly optimistic.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see Reminiscence in advance, so we'll just have to see what other critics who see it think about it. I’m not really expecting it to get too many good reviews, since it seems like the kind of movie that critics go to see begrudgingly, because they were assigned to see it, more than having any interest in it. And I was right.

On the other hand, I’ve already been seeing rave reviews about the animated PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE (Paramount), which I also haven’t seen, and in fact, I can guarantee that I will never see it. Why? Because I don’t have kids. Nor will I ever have kids. Nor do I know anything about this other than it’s about police dogs?

In fact, opening in 2,700 theaters, I wouldn’t be surprised if this rare G-rated movie ends up winning the weekend, or at least comes in second to Free Guy, despite many kids being back in school, kids being unvaccinated and more likely to get COVID by going to movie theaters, etc. etc.

If you can’t tell, I’m writing this while on a mini-vacation and I’m kind of in a “I just don’t give a shit” kind of mood right now, but as I said, I don’t have kids, and the only reason I know what “Paw Patrol” is because the people I know who have kids seem to know of the movie’s existence. Maybe even some of them will take their kids to see it or at least wait until it’s on Paramount+, which you know is coming.

I’m going with this making somewhere around $8 million this weekend, taking second place behind Free Guy, which should continue to do well with little other direct competition.

On the other, other hand (I have three arms, you know), I have had a chance to see the action flick, THE PROTÉGÉ (Lionsgate), directed by Martin Campbell of Casino Royale acclaim and Green Lantern… what’s the opposite of acclaim? That.

The movie stars Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton, but more importantly, it stars… the awesome Maggie Q from Mission: Impossible III! (See a pattern in this week’s Weekend Warrior?) Most will probably know Ms. Q from her run as Nikita on the show of the same name, and she’s definitely back in that mode for this action-thriller in which she plays an assassin looking for the killer of her mentor (Jackson) which puts her at odds with another assassin, played by Keaton. I loved the fact that Maggie appeared in three very different movies last year from Sony/Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island and two other movies that ended up going to VOD, but the former of these shamefully opened with just $12.3 million over Valentine’s weekend and then it quickly got destroyed, first by the release of Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man in its third weekend and then by COVID, because theaters shut down in its fourth weekend. It made less than $50 million worldwide, which is a shame, because I actually liked it.

This is another case where I don’t know how many theaters it’s getting, although I do know reviews are embargoed until sometime Thursday evening, which is never a good sign, and actually, I can’t even tell you if I liked it or hated it until then, so… I guess we’ll have to go blind on this one, assuming Lionsgate will dump it into around 2,300 theaters with very little promotion. Even though action has been faring well this year, I have a feeling this will struggle to make $3 million this weekend.

Mini-Review: As I’ve probably mentioned, I love Maggie Q whenever she’s in any movie, but she’s particularly good in this sort of action role that requires a little more of a dramatic touch than we’d normally get from a man in this type of role. Sure, we can be slightly worried when there’s a movie with a female lead both written and directed by men, and some of those worries are founded, but Ms. Q always finds a way to bring more to her roles, and that’s the case here as well.

The general plot is that her Anna is an assassin and when her mentor Moody (Jackson) is murdered, she sets out to find his killer or killers, which brings her back to Vietnam where she runs headlong into another known as Rembrandt, played by Michael Keaton. At the same time, Moody has set Anna on a mission to find a boy whose father was assassinated 30 years earlier, as she learns that the two things are connected.

Written by Richard Wenk, who has quite a bit of experience with this sort of action movie, having written Denzel’s The Equalizer movies, as well as a few of The Expendables movies, he gives the movie enough story and characterization to separate it from the normal trashy action movie where that stuff isn’t important. For instance, giving Maggie’s Anna a full backstory with Samuel L. Jackson’s Moody, her blues guitar-playing mentor, or having her be interested in books and running a bookstore.

Unfortunately, the movie is kind of erratic, comical sometimes but deadly serious for the most part and the flirtatious relationship between Anna and Keaton’s character leads to some super cringe-worthy moments. While the action and fight choreography is pretty solid, the fact that 69-year-old Keaton doesn’t seem to be doing much of the actual fighting is a little too obvious. (Is he trying to be Liam Neeson now?) The way the violent fighting leads the two of them into bed also feels problematic. I generally abhor any sort of violence against women, but at least Maggie Q makes her character look super-tough and able to handle anything.

I wasn’t as keen on the film’s multiple twists in the ending or the flashback to Anna’s past, which seems to come far too late in the movie. In general, women are going to HATE this movie and I know exactly why, but men will probably enjoy it for just as many obvious reasons. All-in-all, it’s not a terrible throwback action movie that only sometimes goes off the rails. Rating: 6.5/10

Next, we have another highly-acclaimed horror film that played back at the Sundance Film Festival back in 2020 (like the recent Nine Days) with David (The Ritual) Bruckner’s THE NIGHT HOUSE (Searchlight Pictures), starring Rebecca Hall as Beth, a teacher whose husband Owen shot himself but not after designing and building their house on the lake. Shortly afterwards, weird things start happening and Beth thinks the house is haunting, but then she discovers a mysterious mirror image on the other side of the lake, and things start getting even weirder.

Definitely don’t want to say too much about this, because whether you like it or not might rely on whether you like the twist(s) in the movie, and I’m not sure that average moviegoers will like them as much as the type of person that goes to the Sundance Film Festival.

Hall is one of my favorite actors, because I feel she can do anything but she’s also very underrated. I mean, she can play a role in Iron Man 3 (one of the best things about that movie) or a movie like Transcendence (mentioned above) or Godzilla vs. King Kong or do comedy like ...um… Holmes and Watson, if anyone would consider that “comedy.” What she hasn’t been able to do is really get people out to theaters with her presence, although one of her more successful non-Marvel movies was Joel Edgerton’s The Gift, and she’s done a couple other good thrillers.

On top of that, the movie is still sitting pretty with 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes one wonder if Sundance buzz is able to transcend the 20-month gap since a movie’s premiere, and Nine Days seems to say otherwise. Another thing going in The Night House’s favor is that there’s been quite a bit of horror movies in recent months, which means this trailer has played in front of a lot of them.

I’m not really sure why Searchlight didn’t put this concurrently on their streaming partner Hulu, but maybe they’re giving theatrical another chance even with COVID still being a concern to many, but maybe not the fan of horror who might want a little escapism. This is only opening in about 2,000 theaters, and I think that might make it tough for it to make more than $3 or 4 million.

Mini-Review: Like with Maggie Q above, Rebecca Hall is an actress who I honestly think can do no wrong. Therefore, David Bruckner’s thriller might already have a bit of an advantage, because I assumed (correctly) that this movie will feature a lot of the filmmaker’s camera trained on her at all times capturing her every emotion, every fear and facial twitch.

As mentioned above, I don’t want to say too much about the plot beyond what you can easily watch in the trailer, but this is only partially the movie you might be expecting. Sure, there’s a good amount of eerie creepiness as Hall’s character tries to find whatever is haunting her house after her husband’s suicide, as well as discovering the identical house that may or may not be in a dream. (It's that kind of movie.)

Much of the film is kind of slow and mopey, and even funny in a weird way, since Hall’s character seems to be going crazy and her behavior (and performance) is quite erratic because of it. Think of it a bit as if you can imagine Hall going into crazy Nicholas Cage moments over the course of the movie or acting that way towards her friends, including Sarah Goldberg’s Claire, who always seems to be saying the wrong thing around her BFF.

One of the things that tends to work about Bruckner’s film is that you’re never quite sure what exactly is happening, but it keeps you interested enough to want to know where it might be going. The other great thing that works even moreso is the film’s amazing score and sound design that helps to keep the viewer on edge through all of the film’s ups and downs.

As the film went along, I presumed correctly that there would probably be some sort of semi-inane M. Night Shyamalan twist, and in some ways, I was right. I certainly didn’t hate the twist when it showed up (or the second or third twist), but I know plenty of fans of more straight-ahead (translation: bad) horror that might be thrown off and even perturbed by so many twists.

The Night House may ultimately be too smart or clever for its own good, since it’s being sold as a straight-ahead ghost story with the twist of this mirror house, but that’s really something that’s very much only on the surface. Any problems with the movie are countered by the fact that Hall is just so good at selling its strange concept.

Rating: 7/10

Lastly, there’s Sean Penn’s film FLAG DAY (MGM), which may or may not get a wide release -- I'm going to guess not, but just in case it does, I might try to figure out how it might do. It tells the story of lifelong criminal and con-man Jon Vogel (Penn) as seen through the eyes of his journalist daughter Jessica (Penn's daughter, Dylan Penn). Based on Jessica Vogel's book "Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father’s Counterfeit Life,” the movie covers Jessica's entire life from when her father left her and her brother Nick (played later by Hopper Penn) and mother Patty (Kathryn Winnick) through her own troubled life to when she takes back her life to succeed as a journalist. Also starring Josh Brolin, Dale Dickey, Regina King (blink and you'll miss her), Eddie Marsan and more, it's opening on Friday.

Without knowing whether Flag Day actually is getting any sort of wide release or will just be put into a few hundred theaters, but as you'll read in my review below, it's a very strange movie for MGM (or rather, United Artists Releasing) to have picked up before it premiered at Cannes, because it's just not that great, and it certainly isn't something that might do well in a wide release. Even if somehow MGM gets this movie into 1,000 theaters this weekend, I’m not convinced it can make a million dollars, because I just don’t think many if any people really know about it. Maybe it didn’t turn out to be the awards contender MGM hoped to release it later in the year, but it’s also strange for it to be opening a week after Respect, which I expect to do quite well in its second weekend. I’m just going to assume this will be in a few hundred theaters, and that’s about it.

Mini-Review: I really didn't know much about this movie going into it, other than the fact that it was directed by Penn, co-starred his daughter Dylan, as well as his son, Hopper. (Okay, maybe I didn’t know that last part.) What I didn’t know was that it was about a notorious counterfeiter named Jon Vogel, as seen through the eyes of his journalist daughter Jessica, and as with most of these type of memoir adaptations, it’s only going to be as interesting as how the story is told.

Penn has proven himself to be a decent filmmaker and storyteller, but here, he’s going for something arty that’s almost Terrence Malick-like at times, but needlessly so, because it just feels like he’s trying to make up for the flaws in the story by throwing in things like shaky camera work, overusing voice-over narrative and frequently leans on its soundtrack to try to make up for the weak storytelling.

On the other hand, if Penn was trying to create a great showcase for his daughter Dylan, Flag Day does a great job doing just that, and when you first see her on screen, you might be thrown off by how much she looks like her mother Robin Wright when she was much younger. It’s somewhat interesting to note that Sean Penn has never appeared in a movie he directed, which is only odd because you would think that being in scenes with other actors would make it easier to direct them. (I learned that from Jason Bateman, oddly.) In fact, the very best moments in Flag Day are those between Penn and his daughter, although there's still a lot of overacting and melodrama.

Honestly, I’ve met people like Jon Vogel, who are just constantly trying to make money however they can without worrying about who they hurt with their dishonesty. Because of this, I couldn’t fully get behind the father-daughter aspect of the story vs. just being interested in Jessica’s own personal growth.

In other words, maybe Flag Day should have been prefaced by "Based on a Dull Story,” because it just never really connected with me even though there were a scattered few moments that worked.

Rating: 5/10

Presuming that Flag Day isn’t going nationwide into over 500 theaters (and even if it does, it won’t be in the Top 10), here’s what the Top 10 should look like.

1. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $15 million -47%

2. Paw Patrol: The Movie (Paramount) - $8.4 million N/A

3. Reminiscence (Warner Bros.) - $6.2 million N/A

4. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $5 million -45%

4. Respect (MGM) - $4.8 million -45%

5. Don’t Breathe 2 (Sony/Screen Gems) - $4.6 million -57%

7. The Night House (Searchlight) - $3.3 million N/A

8. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros.) - $3.2 million -57%

9. The Protege (Lionsgate) - $2.6 million N/A

10. Old (Universal) - $1.4 million -41%

District 9 director Neil Blomkamp returns with the horror film, DEMONIC (IFC Midnight), in which Carly Pope plays Carly Spenser, who learns her estranged mother Angela (Nathalie Boltt) who disappeared years earlier is now in a coma, although new technology has been created as therapy that will allow Carly to enter her mother's brain and communicate with her. What could possibly go wrong? I mean, read the title and take one effin’ guess.

I went into this one fairly hopeful that maybe Blomkamp had figured out a way of getting out of director’s jail after the last few duds by essentially going the M. Night Shyamalan route i.e. making a super low-budget horror movie without stars that can let him show people that District 9 wasn’t a fluke. But unfortunately, kids, Demonic does the exact opposite, because it’s one of those horrible high concept tech-driven horror movies (not unlike the Blumhouse model) that gets so bogged down in a premise that should thrive on its simplicity that it just fails to keep the viewer entertained, let alone scared.

As soon as Carly enters the mindscape that is her mother’s brain, you know you’re in trouble, because it looks like a scratched DVD or an old video game that’s gotten dirty and is now skipping or crashing just as you’re almost past the hardest level. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie, and after Carly’s first horrific experience in her mother’s brain -- I mean, just writing that and knowing my own mother makes this a scary idea -- you wonder why she’d go back and do it again.

On top of that, there’s just so much exposition with Carly talking about her mother’s disappearance, but before you can get bored, something weird happens like her best friend turns into some weird creature and gets pulled into the mix of whatever is possessing Carly’s mother. I won’t say too much more, because like with The Night House above, you shouldn’t know too much. Unlike that movie, as you learn more, you become more annoyed with the whole idea.

Then on top of that, Pope just isn’t a particularly dynamic actress, so she does little to elevate the weak material, and when her dumb-ass BFF shows up at 3 in the morning, the banter between them is so cringeworthy, you might wonder who wrote this crap. (Surprise: Blomkamp did, so he can’t even blame how bad this movie is on the script.) There’s also what looks like a scary chicken, which just makes the whole thing more laughable than scary.

Demonic is a truly awful movie, taking Blomkamp further down the spiral of a filmmaker that was obviously a one-trick pony and doesn’t seem to be able to prove otherwise.

Rating: 4/10

Now available on digital is Gracie Otto’s documentary, UNDER THE VOLCANO (Universal Pictures Content Group), which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March, and I absolutely loved it, though that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to anyone who knows about my background working in recording studios. The doc is in fact about the Air Studios Montserrat that the late Sir George Martin built in the Caribbean in the ‘70s where some amazing artists like The Police, Duran Duran, Mark Knopfler and others recorded some of the classic rock records of the ‘80s. Of course, like the movie Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm about Rockfield Studios in Wales, I’m a complete suck for these movies about legendary recording studios where great music was recorded, because it feeds one of my primary interests in life: music and specifically the history of rock music. I’m actually going to have an interview with the filmmakers over at Below the Line sometime soon, so you can read a lot more about the movie then.

Because I was away this weekend, I wasn't able to get to any of these. Sorry, publicists!

ON BROADWAY (Kino Lorber) MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY (Good Deed Entertainment) BARBARA LEE: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER (Greenwich) CONFETTI (Dada Filims) CRYPTOZOO (Magnolia) COLLUSIONS (Vertical) Next week, we're back to just a single new wide release -- thank you, God! -- and it's the Universal/Blumhouse remake of the cult horror classic, CANDYMAN.

Incidentally, I couldn’t write this column weekly without the fantastic data found at The-Numbers.com. The site continues to maintain one of the best box office databases on the internet, and I appreciate that being available to us.

[wittypenguin]

The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012)

The trilogy is apparently considered ‘this generation’s version of The Godfather. While they are very good, these three movies have little in common with the earlier films. For one thing, there’s far less plot and character development in these. Also, the third part here works and feels like an ending which is planned.

Batman Begins (2005)

We find a young Bruce playing with a girl in the garden of his massive estate. He falls down a well.

No, it was a dream. Brice Wayne (Christian Bale) is in some Asian jail and is being beaten-up by other prisoners who speak astonishingly good English — they’re quite witty, in fact.

Now we meet some mysterious dude named Ducard (Liam Neeson) who knows who Bruce Wayne really is. He claims to speak for Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), and tells Bruce of the League of Shadows. The League are not vigilantes, but they seek ‘true justice;’ a contradiction which is both integral to the character and which is difficult to reconcile about the character.

The League of Shadows have been around for millennia. When a city rises to the pinnacle of its power and influence, it also becomes sufficiently decadent that corruption and other criminal activity runs rampant, and those in power feel immortal or at least impossible to overthrow. This is the point that the League of Shadows has stepped in in order to, in their view, re-balance justice and morality. But, clearly, it is only by destroying the city and its inhabitants that this ‘re-balancing’ is accomplished, and those ‘necessary’ crimes of mass murder and destruction are meted out by one single body of self-appointed judges. This takes away the greatest aspect of Homo sapiens’ existence: freedom to do as it pleases, making whatsoever choices which it sees as correct based upon the current morality and legal guidelines in its society.

The Bat Man is here to defend that right of the individual, as well as protect the very individuals themselves: we each have the right to make bad decisions, for it is only by making mistakes that we each learn.

Anyone who comes along and says ‘I will decide for you when you have done wrong’ is to be opposed, whether or not we have a Bat Man to do so for us.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Again, the question considered at the very end is one of ‘fairness.’ The passengers of the two ferries are asked to decide which of them is going to be blown-up. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) wants someone to die in revenge for the death of Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Detective Ramirez (Monique Gabriela Curnen) wants her mother to live, and is willing to pay the price of knowing she’s aided in the death of an innocent person. The one who would have been be the greatest hope for Gotham’s future, and therefore the retiring of The Bat Man, is a man who we see driven to insanity and who no longer adheres to the legal structures of society. Instead of trials using evidence and testimony, he reduces people’s fate to chance: a toss of a coin. The person who would have created a society which no longer needed The Bat Man has been pulled down to the level of anarchy overseen by The Joker (Heath Ledger).

The Joker, as Alfred (Michael Caine) points out, is simply someone who wants to watch the world burn.

As much as The Bat Man holds himself to the rules that he will not use firearms, nor he will willfully kill another human being, he is unable to hold himself to the standard of allowing the Justice System to take its course and so he works to dispense justice on his own. One can suggest that that system isn’t able to deal with the reality of these events — this is a movie, after all — but art must hold its mirror up to our natures: thus, the two ferries cannot bring themselves to cause the death of the other, Detective Ramirez feels guilt at valuing her mother’s life higher than Rachel Dawes’, Harvey Dent is first reasoned with but then casts aside any resistance to seeking his own vengeance, and The Joker is subdued by ’the Caped Crusader.’

In that arguably immoral — and definitely illegal — crusade, however, The Bat Man succeeds in getting away with invading the privacy of every citizen of Gotham in the name of ‘security,’ and escapes the police in order to return one day, after he is no longer seen as a scapegoat for everything which took place.

The vigilante is free to continue, but must live with his own guilt and mourn the losses of his own loved ones.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Eight years have passed.

Here it is more complicated. Ra’s Al Ghol’s spirit lives again, but the end of the story is the only true ending for a hero: sacrifice. As director Christopher Nolan puts it, this movie resolved itself with “consequences,” not only from this film, but also the ones before it.

He must not only fight off the villain with a mask (Tom Hardy) — much like his own desire for anonymity, so arguably he’s battling with himself — bent on destruction of the city he loves, he must also deal with the gradual loss of the few people for whom he truly cared. Later, Bruce Wayne must overcome his own physical limitations to fight his way out of a jail from which seemingly there can be no escape.

He knows that there is only one way to solve the problem which was created when he donned the cape and cowl: the Bat Man must die. He oughtn’t to have been created, but the need in Gotham for any justice within a corrupt system put him into action. He has given too much for one man, and too many people know who the Bat Man truly is. He cannot return to civilian life, but he cannot be his other identity any longer.

Hopefully, Gotham no longer has need of him; or at least they will be safe on their own.

More than anything, one hopes that Bruce Wayne can finally locate some throat lozenges.

★★★★★

[ferretfyre]

Review: Silence (2016)

[devinsena]

Irish Post-Abortive Father Speaks Out: 'We Are Choosing To Exterminate Fellow Humans'

I am a 44-year-old man and almost ten years ago my then-partner fell pregnant. She traveled from Ireland to England for an abortion. I was not aware she was traveling and the next five years of my life were devastating. I ended up seriously contemplating suicide twice and drinking heavily to cope. I was not able to have a relationship with any female and my appearance suffered as I gained weight and self-loathed. The lady who aborted our child did so out of fear.

She was afraid she would be left alone to raise the baby. Abortion was offered to her as a “solution.” I saw her retreat into herself, also drinking heavily, and both of us became very angry. Despite the abortion provider’s website offering counseling services, she got none.

She was only able to ask a couple of questions like, ”Will the baby feel pain?” Afterward, she was herded out like an animal who had a minor procedure performed. No empathy, no care, none of the things that those who hold up abortion as a solution claim exists. They took her fee and showed her the door. All these years on we are both somewhat healed. We are on friendly terms. We are both hurt. Our baby is dead.

May 26th, 2018. I was sitting at home watching the “celebrations” in Dublin Castle. Ireland had voted to allow unrestricted abortion up to twelve weeks into pregnancy.

As I sat somewhat dazed and feeling ill to my stomach at what was unfolding, I thought back to my own journey. After finding out what happened to our baby, I made it my business to work out what abortion meant. I spent three months looking at diagrams, procedures, and forums. I discovered what late-term abortion entails. I discovered the tools used in this “trade.” I sometimes sat crying at a screen thinking of a little child struggling to fend off the instruments of death. Videos I watched showed children being surgically torn apart and put into pans. I came to the conclusion I do not know how anyone could think abortion of pregnancy is a good idea.

Now, there were thousands of Irish people jumping up and down, faces painted, and our minister for health posing like a celebrity among the hordes. Our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) had photos taken of himself overlooking the crowd and put on social media. It was bizarre.

This had been the first campaign where I remember the government taking such a divisive stance. Those of us who were pro-life had kicked off our campaign earlier and by the time the government mobilized, the polls were showing even numbers.

I ran an anonymous pro-life account on Twitter. About a month after opening it, noticed strange things happening. The number of followers would decrease around 10 AM each morning. Another two weeks in and those who had been re-tweeting me were not able to see my tweets. There were rumors hose providing social media platforms were interfering with the debate.

As our government became entrenched in bringing abortion to Ireland they ramped up their Social Media Campaign. The majority party in power (Fine Gael) had in 2017 recruited a major media resource and it was apparent this person’s work was at play. Via his own Twitter account, he had joked about planting media stories. He had spoken many times in his previous role about being pro-abortion. Our Taoiseach produced some professional videos showing women leaving Ireland to travel to England for abortions. In every debate, those who wanted to allow abortion increasingly used the rape justification for abortion. While rape is a horrible, disgusting crime, I began to wonder: how many rapes go unreported? Ireland was portrayed as the rape capital of the world.

The polls began to show the pro-abortion side winning. As they did, the deaths of a number of women were attributed to Ireland not allowing abortion.

One lady Savita Halappanavar who died in the hospital from sepsis while pregnant in October 2012  was used as the poster woman of the “Yes” campaign despite her widower asking for her not to be used by any side.

On Twitter, the pro-abortion movement made no mistake. They recruited name after name in the media. I began to wonder where their funds were coming from. U2, Liam Neeson, former and current sports stars were all involved in the “Yes” campaign. I began to hear whispers in the workplace suggesting a “yes” vote to allow abortion in Ireland. One went, ”well you know my sister had a very hard pregnancy,” and another said,  “I don’t agree with abortion but women are dying left, right, and center here.”

People were panicking. The number of women who have, factually, died as a result of Ireland’s abortion laws up to 2018? Zero.

The government had done their job. They persuaded public opinion to legalize abortion. In the final days of the debate, it was clear only a major slip-up would see abortion kept away from Ireland’s shores. The “yes” campaign kept repeating their keywords: “compassion,” “care,” “rape,” “yes.”

Personally, I have never seen anything like it.

Two ministers, who had assured their constituents in 2011 that they were pro-life, had delivered abortion to Ireland as our health system lay crumbling, as 200+ Irish women had died from incorrect cervical testing.

Care and compassion seem to be only available to those who want to end the life of another human being. In Irish hospitals, we have people in their nineties waiting 24 hours plus to get a bed in A&E (accident and emergency hospital). Yet we will now have taxpayer funded abortion available on demand.

May 26th, 2018, the day Irish citizens celebrated being allowed to kill the preborn. I spent the next two nights drinking heavily. I was unable to go to work on Monday, not because I was hungover, but because I had awful visions of what our country was about to face. Anyone who has seen an abortion video knows what it entails. What starts out as a beautiful preborn child developing in its mother’s womb ends up being removed in a barbaric fashion and disposed of without dignity, compassion, or care.

Why did Ireland’s leaders want this? Well, I have two main theories.

The first is that both our Health minister (Simon Harris) and our Taoiseach (Leo Varadkar) changed their pro-life stance to pro-abortion because they realized there were more votes to be won by being pro-abortion. Secondly, our Taoiseach is on very friendly terms with Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister. Canada allows abortion up to full term. Perhaps one leader saw the other as being modern and forward-thinking, so he copied his policies.

Think of your son or daughter. Think of your niece; think of any child you know. Can you remember the first time you saw them? Now imagine them 24 hours previously being removed from their Mother’s womb. Yes, it is easy to kill something when you cannot see its eyes, is it not? But when it is a little face you now recognize, a human being with his or her own unique characteristics, a little boy potty training or a little girl combing her hair--think of that child being destroyed because of someone else’s “choice.” It is pretty sickening.

Our world has become obsessed with a consumerist culture. The buyer is always right. We can purchase a service, a product; we want to use it, dispose of it, forget it. We all have the ultimate choice there is – a choice to partake in sex in a way which does not result in pregnancy. But once a life is created,  “choice” should cease.

The pro-abortion movement offers up terms like “forced birth.” If no one forced you to get pregnant, how can it be a “forced birth”?’

As humans, we are choosing to exterminate fellow humans at a point in the life spectrum where we ourselves had no choice. We are here because someone else gave us the gift of life. We are here because one or more people offered us love, care, and compassion. You will notice at no point have I mentioned anything about religious beliefs. The pro-abortion movement loves the “keep your rosaries off my ovaries” line. I don’t care what your religion is. What I care about is what is right or wrong and to take away the choice to live from a defenseless human being who is growing and developing as I myself once did, is simply wrong.

source http://humandefense.com/irish-post-abortive-father-speaks-out-about-the-abortion-referendum/