#it felt more as a first introduction movie than a standalone thing

[sunshineandviolets]

finally got around to watch the dungeon and dragons movie and it was... good, i guess?

like it was an enjoyable movie, made me laugh, visually stunning with the world, characters were cool - kinda wanted to see more of them and their group dynamic.

but i suppose with so much hype around it, i had too much of an high expectation.

[tolkien-feels]

Okay, so, I've watched the movies and I've read The Big Three, though I'm still a little shaky on my Silmarillion lore if I'm being honest. Where do I go from here if I want to read more Tolkien? Is there a commonly followed reading order? Should I just go by publication date? (Yes I am motivated to get into deeper lore because of your blog, that's why I'm asking you lmfao)

Oh hey! Happy to see my blog dragging people deeper down into the black hole of increasingly obscure Tolkien works!

I actually have a friend reading the Silm for the first time and I'm already making my little evil plans that can be summed up by "If she doesn't hate it, what can I tempt her to read next?" So I've been giving it a lot of thought lately, actually! Which is why this post ended up, uh, long.

I've taken the liberty of adapting this answer a little bit just in case I have any followers who have read fewer books than you have and find this useful. Hope you don't mind it!

The best way to read Tolkien depends a lot on what you enjoy. If you thought The Hobbit was too childish, don't read his stories for children. If your eyes glazed over when poems came up in LotR, don't pick a poetry book. If The Silmarillion drove you to tears, maybe wait before you get into the more scholarly works.

Availability is also something to consider. Maybe your local library has a few titles already, or you happen to find a good copy of something in a used bookstore, or there's a deal that saves you a lot of money. Alternatively, maybe you're set on reading something but can't find it. You might also fall in love with a story through fandom and want More Of It, or see a pretty edition that you just Must Own. These are all okay! See, the thing about Tolkien is that generally speaking, you can read his works in almost any order, so be open to changing your plans as stuff comes up in your life. I'd be willing to take a bet that the minority of fans read his stuff in any way that makes any sense lol

Personally, I think it makes sense to read in this sequence:

Read these first

The core stuff

The Hobbit

The Lord of the Rings

The Silmarillion

These are the Big Three, and you should probably get to them before you get to anything else.

The Silmarillion might take a couple of attempts to get through depending on how comfortable you are with the style, and I personally had to read it from cover to cover twice before I felt like I had a good grasp on it. @askmiddlearth has a pretty good guide that my friend who's reading it is finding really helpful.

Stories you already know: now with 200% more detail

Most other books won't be Silm levels of difficult, btw! But many assume you're familiar with it, simply because Hobbit-LotR-Silm are usually the ones most people read. So even if I otherwise follow a generally "easiest to hardest" logic, the Silm belongs here.

As an addendum, I would say the LotR appendices are a good bridge, stylistically speaking, to the Silmarillion.

The books in this category can be read in any order you feel like - you already know how they fit together.

Unfinished Tales

The Great Tales of Middle Earth, which is a series containing the following standalone books:

The Children of Hurin

Beren and Luthien

The Fall of Gondolin

Here you'll find mostly unfinished, often contradictory versions of stories you already know - but with lots of awesome detail that fandom tends to consider canon as much as we can.

These are books which contain both stories by Tolkien and commentary by his son Christopher, explaining his father's creative process and taking educated guesses as to how stories connect together and so on. It's a gentle introduction to more hardcore scholarship and if you can handle long tumblr meta I'm sure you can handle these.

Oh, and of these four books, Children of Hurin is the easiest to read by far, so maybe begin from that one. You might even read it before The Silmarillion and possibly before The Lord of the Rings (especially if you've watched the movies) - it's a pretty straightforward novel.

Read these in any order you want

I'm listing them in the order I think makes the most sense, but if you've read the books above you can just pick any section here according to your interest

Fairy tale essays, short poems, short stories and such things

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book

Farmer Giles of Ham

Tree and Leaf

Smith of Wootton Major

The Father Christmas Letters

Mr Bliss

Roverandom

Tales from the Perilous Realm

These aren't technically legendarium relevant but are delightful if you like fantasy. A lot (but not all) of these are very light reading and excellent to read to children who aren't ready for the actual legendarium yet, or to turn to as a break from heavier material.

I really wanted to make separate sections for children's literature and things that just happen to be fairy tales but immediately noticed I had no idea when a fairy tale becomes too grown up to be children's literature, so a single section it is

The Deep Lore™️

You know when Frodo inherits Bilbo's papers (and then Sam inherits Frodo's) and they have to make sense of it? That's what it's like reading HoME.

The History of Middle Earth series, or HoME for short.

(There are 12 books in this series. It's probably a terrible idea to read them out of order, so I won't even list them here)

Basically, these are nearly all the scraps of paper by Tolkien that could be found at the time, put together chronologically and presented with commentary. Here you can find answers to like 80% of the questions you might have after reading the other books, and then answers to a million other questions you didn't actually have.

This feels more like reading a library than a book series - whether this makes you want to read it more or less depends on your taste.

Also! Last year they released The Nature of Middle Earth, which is in the same vein as these but I haven't read it yet so I don't feel quite comfortable saying "Oh yeah this is when you should read it!"

Tolkien as a person: biography, letters and essays

JRR Tolkien: A Biography (by Humphrey Carpenter)

The Letters of JRR Tolkien

The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays

I'm not the best person to ask about studying Tolkien as a person, but these are probably the most famous (and important) books.

The Letters also contain a lot of info about Middle Earth, so they might be worth taking a look even if you, like me, don't feel like reading tons of biographies.

For fans of all things medieval

The Fall of Arthur

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell

Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

The Story of Kullervo

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo

The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun

These are all translations, commentaries or deliberate imitations of actual medieval texts, as opposed to the ahistorical quasimedieval thing the legendarium has got going on. You probably shouldn't touch these if poetry scares you, though.

And that's it...?

Not really, no. There are other publications if you're a completist, but these are the major ones in every category I can think of. There should be some 30-40 books here anyway, so this should keep you busy for a while!

Note that I won't revisit this post to update it every time a new book is released, so for more recent books, use your best judgment!

[supremeleaderbutttouch]

Skywalker Saga Rankings

I begrudgingly post my Skywalker Saga rankings. I don’t feel safe posting it on Twitter.

1. Empire Strikes Back

2. Return of the Jedi

3. A New Hope

4. The Last Jedi

5. Rise of Skywalker

6. The Force Awakens

7. Attack of the Clones

8. Revenge of the Sith

9. A Phantom Menace Look into my thought process: I chose the original trilogy movies to all go first. The other films would simply not exist without them. It’s always so hard to put A New Hope at the bottom of this list because it really is a standalone movie without the other two but I love them all dearly & have grown up with them. The Last Jedi is a movie I could watch 100 times, has probably gotten me more interested in film again than I have been in years. It is a cinematically gorgeous film. The actors did the best with what they were given (Even John Boyega who was given a questionable storyline.) It received so much controversy and criticism that I’m certain it must be good. ;) The Rise of Skywalker was a little heavy on the Special Effects for me, and I feel did not showcase as much of JJ’s film-making capabilities and skills as it could have on top of that. It’s still a work of art no matter what way you look at it. Some of the scenes felt a bit forced in dialogue, some of the writing a bit dry and in a couple of scenes left something to be desired. Maybe this is because as a writer I feel I would have done things differently and tbh I felt like I could’ve written some of the dialogue better. And I don’t think I am that amazing, nor a script writer. I don’t blame JJ for all of this though. This is going to take me another 2-3 watches to really know the movie well. The Force Awakens is still one of my favourite movies with amazing visuals and performances, and all of the OST was a great introduction to these new characters.

People often rag on Attack of the Clones but I put it here for a couple pretty legit reasons, which is that I have no real emotional attachment to the other two at all. This one might be some of Hayden’s best performance even though the romance with him and Natalie Portman imo, the chemistry is just not there. I get what they were trying to do but again some of it is just pure cringe to watch nowadays and Padme’s attraction to him is not believable for me. Obi-Wan is my boo and the highlight of these movies pretty much besides the expansion of the Star Wars world. Revenge of the Sith has so much cringe for me in the end half that I just have a hard time accepting it as the way the prequels ended and it’s tainted my view of that movie to be honest...I can’t take it seriously, especially Anakin at the end and Padme giving birth, so that’s why it’s not at the top of my list.

[kisugay]

Ok now that I watched all of the Bleach live action movie, here’s my take on it.

I’ll look at it first only as a standalone movie made to be watched by people unfamiliar with Bleach, and second as a movie representative of the Bleach series from the perspective of a long-time fan.

As a standalone movie...

It was okay! I’ll list good things first. The music and the CGI were pretty good all things considered for an anime live action! The Drink Your Milk song is catchy, and Uryuu’s bow and arrows are probably the coolest thing in the movie. (I actually gasped and grinned like an idiot when Uryuu pulled out his bow in front of Ichigo.) There were some particularly cool or funny scenes. The actors were pretty good. The fight choreography was good. Besides the blatant over-usage of wide shots for transitions, I thought it was shot and edited nicely. I liked that they used some elements of horror genre in certain places, especially for the beginning scene, beginning credits, the introduction of the Hollows, and the introductions of the shinigami characters. The plot did complete itself, though there are some issues with it.

The bad things: Rukia’s and Ichigo’s friendship was very sweet, though it sucked that there was a ridiculous amount of subtext and Rukia was a damsel in distress nearly the entire time. I feel like if the director had focused more on making sure the plot and character’s motives made sense rather than including entire scenes for the purpose of teasing Ichigo and Rukia as a couple, it would’ve been an even better movie.

As a standalone, it was decent. Not the best or worst thing ever, and I feel it would be hard for a lot of people to really love it and get into it. But it sure is fun to look at!

As a long-time fan...

It is quite bad but still lovable.

I genuinely enjoyed the first 30 minutes of this movie, no joke. It followed canon well enough up until Renji’s introduction, then that’s where it started getting weird. I really liked the talent choices for Ichigo, Rukia, Chad, Isshin, Uryuu, Renji, and Urahara. Old and new fans alike can enjoy the music, CGI, editing, and fight choreography, so that’s good. In general, the beginning had me really excited because it all felt really natural when the movie followed canon, and it was only when the plot moved away from canon that I started to not be so sure about it.

Of course you can’t judge plot the same way; there has to be many changes because you can only do so much in roughly 2 hours to condense such a long series. But I was surprised that their solution was to mash completely different events together and scramble them up. I don’t know if I really like the ordering of events, but I think their reasoning for it was to save time and have more fluid transitions so events don’t seem disjointed, so I give them points for trying. Although it made for some pretty strange moments where they took lines out of context and used them for other scenes and it didn’t quite fit. (Ex. Isshin’s “grow old and die smiling long after me” speech was used for the end, but in a place that didn’t make sense because Ichigo had just forgotten everything that happened and Isshin and Ichigo had no dialogue beforehand in that scene.)

Like I said before, there is a lot of focus on Ichigo’s and Rukia’s relationship and the subtext present, which is unfortunate because there’s a lot of other things that could’ve been focused on during that time. If you like that pairing then it makes the movie amazing for you. But to everyone else who hates or is indifferent to the pairing, it just makes the movie drag because you know they’re not really getting together anyway. I already sorta predicted that there would be some weird romantic subtexty bullshit, because what else draws in viewers more than a romance that doesn’t need to be there? But whatever.

Knowing beforehand that Renji and Byakuya were going to be the villains of the movie at least prepared me for their very different characterization where they’re just ruthless killers and not much else. Their characterization serves the movie itself pretty well, logically I know that. But as a Bleach fan I still can’t help but feel disappointed that Renji didn’t have a good heart and good intentions when that’s 90% of his character. Byakuya is not changed quite as much and is just waaay more upfront about things. Despite having no heart, Renji still looks pretty damn cool, and I liked that they did do a good job on the CGI when he released his Zanpakuto and started swinging it around.

So yeah, the plot is basically a Frankenstein of the original, and some big changes had to happen, especially at the end. But man it certainly doesn’t represent Bleach all that well story-wise, and it’s kinda hard not to be a little disappointed.

Despite all that, I will say this: The movie looks visually pleasing and sounds cool. It has a lot of style over substance, and draws from various influences such as punk rock, horror, Shinto religion, Japanese sitcoms/j-drama, and samurai movies, which is something that makes it undeniably Bleach. The movie is fully representative of Bleach in its style, it’s just the substance like the plot and characterization that isn’t representative.

So it is definitely Bleach, and we can celebrate it for the things that Bleach already does well, but I wouldn’t say that it represents Bleach super well in terms of narrative. Fans knew the narrative was going to be sacrificed due to time restrictions, but we just didn’t know how much or in what sort of way. Narrative obviously suffered big time, no question about it, and it did make it a bad movie from a fan’s point of view. But as a long-time fan, I’ll still like it anyway because it’s Bleach.

[farfromdaylight]

@runicmagitek: As someone who played the original Tomb Raider games, I was massively underwhelmed by the reboot. I played it back when it came out give or take. I also hadn’t played anything in the uncharted series, so everything felt disjointed. It didn’t feel like a Tomb Raider game at all until maybe the last hour? I heard the second one is way better but the first one left a bad taste in my mouth. Also the PC controls were atrocious.

i've never played tomb raider before this game (though i have seen the first jolie movie and the new movie) and... yeah. it was not a super good introduction. i enjoyed playing it, but overall it was lacking in a number of areas.

this is not really related to the above, but since you mentioned uncharted, i wrote out My Feelings On Uncharted in an email to a friend a while back and since i've never really posted about it here i'll take this opportunity to expand on those thoughts now. (you know me, i can never pass up an opportunity to tl;dr.)

uncharted 1 has terrible combat. i wrote some mini-reviews on backloggery and my tl;dr for 1 was basically “this game is completely unremarkable in terms of gameplay, but the story’s fun and the characters are engaging.” (spoiler: i really like nate and elena.)

(the rest of this is completely tl;dr and if you want to skip it just go read my backloggery reviews. there are no spoilers.)

2 is much better; the pacing is much better and there’s way more variety to the gunfights, as opposed to 1’s Constant Courtyard Battles. mostly, 2’s goal as a game is to carry you from one flashy set piece to the next. it’s probably the closest i’ve come to feeling like i was playing an action movie. there’s a terrible love triangle, which sucks, but the villains are way more interesting than 1’s totally forgettable villains.

3: basically tries to recapture everything they did with 2, and doesn’t entirely succeed. stealth is better! since i played them all back to back some of the mechanics are a little fuzzy in my head but it’s definitely better in 3 and there are entire gunfights you can get through via stealth. ALSO: YOU CAN THROW BACK GRENADES. there’s a section in the middle that i think only exists for the sake of “we wanted a really flashy action piece” because it has literally no relevance to the plot, but the story’s fun, and gives more depth to the characters and their relationships. villains are lackluster (seem intimidating, really aren’t). however, there's basically no third act, and there are some terrible bits with spiders.

4: legitimately one of the best games i’ve ever played, and the game i wanted the first three to be. finally gets into nate’s backstory, and manages to make a retcon into a truly compelling story. WAY fewer gunfights — there are only a handful in the first half of the game, and still not that many in the second half. compared to 1 it’s like a walk in the park. 4 is basically the game the series should have been from the beginning: exploration first, combat a distant second. and when combat does happen, it’s really, REALLY fun. stealth is 10000% better, to the point that you can get through a solid 75% of the gunfights via stealth (if not more), and basically every single battlefield takes place in an area with multiple floors. the keyword for the game is verticality. also: great villains, and some really amazing twists. plus, environments that i'm still thinking about months later. seriously, i really want to replay it.

finally there’s the lost legacy which mechanically is incredibly similar to 4 (it’s DLC that became a standalone) but that’s not a bad thing since 4 has great gameplay. it still feels like expanded DLC, but it’s fun as hell, and the main characters (chloe from 2 and a character from 4) are a great duo. chloe in particular is great because she’s really not a heroic person, but being put in the main character role shows a lot more depth to her. honestly even if this game was terrible i'd still love it, because it's entirely focused on two fantastic ladies. hell and yes.

tl;dr: overall the games do have flaws, but they’re ridiculously fun to play. seriously, from 2 on it feels like an action movie you’re the star of. they’re what i’d call popcorn games — really not to be taken seriously, but super fun. (except for 4, it’s legit really really good. however, a lot of what makes it good comes from there being 3 games before it, since a major theme is that it’s the end of nate’s story. it is not a game you can skip ahead to.) i will say though that the combat in 1 and 2 is can get pretty punishing; 1 in particular gets awful, what with its insistence on fighting in Every Single Fucking Courtyard On This Fucking Island. however the characters totally make up for it and it's a fun story.

(there's probably an argument to be made about the "popcorn" aspect wrt tomb raider, but not having played the previous games i'm not the person to make it. it's definitely evident between the two movies i've seen though. the jolie movie was fucking absurd, but thoroughly entertaining. the new movie played it straight and was... nowhere near as entertaining. it's really hard to hit the right balance with stuff like this. i’m enjoying rise of the tomb raider so far though, so we’ll see where it goes!)

[itshansolo]

my review of the last jedi

spoilers, very much so

It’s easy to understand why the critics love this film. It’s very different from The Empire Strikes Back, it’s got some excellent acting, surprising moments and good action scenes. For people who get paid to analyze films as their own entities and do so countless times a year - and as such probably don’t remember much about The Force Awakens aside from “Han was killed as Luke showed up in the last few seconds” - that’s all it takes for a 10/10 experience.

The film ends on a high note, so you walk away from the theater in ecstasy and still absorbing what you just saw. But the euphoria doesn’t resist 10 minutes of critical thinking. For a film that praises itself for digging deep into its characters, The Last Jedi is surprisingly superficial. Presumably, one of the first questions Rian Johnson asked himself was “what is Luke Skywalker doing on that island?”. Turns out he feels guilty about what happened to Ben Solo and the Jedi order he was building. Wait, you might say, I thought the previous movie had already made that clear? That’s because it did. The Last Jedi was supposed to be Luke’s movie and we get no insight whatsoever into his character that we didn’t already know or make educated guesses about.

Except for one thing. Turns out he tried to kill his nephew when he sensed the darkness inside him. Yeah. Exactly. He didn’t give up on Darth Vader of all people, but he was ready to slaughter his teenage nephew. There is no plausible explanation for this. That was before shit hit the fan in the Skywalker household, so any psychological trouble that might excuse his odd behaviour when Rey finds him does not excuse this.

That’s not the full extent of Luke’s iffy characterization. We all remember how he went against his masters’ teachings and faced Darth Vader with nothing but compassion under his sleeve. So tell me how does it make sense for a Force Ghost Yoda to appear and lecture him on all that was wrong about the old ways of the Jedi? It doesn’t. Their respective beliefs were flipped.

In the last few months, the powers that be have repeatedly stated in interviews - as a weird badge of pride - that each director is entirely free to come up with the story of each film, with nothing but the previous instalment as a starting point. Long story short, the trilogy is being written as they go along. And it shows. Snoke was nothing but a plot device. The Knights of Ren are nowhere to be seen. There’s no explanation for how and why the Skywalker lightsaber ended up in Maz Kanata’s possession. Maz, by the way, has the most inorganic introduction I’ve ever had the displeasure to watch. I just have to presume it was in Lupita Nyong’o’s contract to be in at least two films.

If Lupita’s contract might explain Maz’s atrocious cameo, Benicio Del Toro can only be a close friend of Rian Johnson’s with a lifelong dream to be in a Star Wars movie. The character, whose name we do not learn, is completely useless and badly portrayed. The necessary skills that he has could have been easily transfered to Rose. As a side effect, the whole Canto Bight detour - also a waste of time - could have been thrown out altogether.

Speaking of Rose, she’s one of the few elements that actually work in this film. Kelly Marie Tran is excellent and the character is immediately likable. We learn more about her than we learned about Rey in two goddamn movies. Her storyline with Finn, as mentioned above, could have used a little trimming, but I have to disagree with critics who claim it’s the biggest/only weakness of the film. The sheer charisma of Kelly and John Boyega carries the storyline. 

The truth is there a lot of weakness and they are spread out. Case in point, the dynamic between Amilyn Holdo and Poe, my least favorite part by far. Rian Johnson came up with the character of Amilyn and Claudia Gray borrowed the name to write a different character in her novel Princess of Alderaan. Those who have read this book know that she’s the Luna Lovegood of Star Wars and her charming personality completely vanishes in the film. She’s virtually a different woman. Did the story group of Lucasfilm and their supposed responsibility for continuity in a galaxy far far away take a vacation while Claudia was writing the book?

It’s clear that Holdo was introduced in the movie to prop up Poe Dameron’s character development, but the trouble is that such development is not necessarily welcome or well done. I don’t know how a movie that lasts two and a half hours can feel rushed, but here it did. Poe and Holdo’s altercation is truncated, confusing, almost impossible to get invested in.

Did you notice how I failed to mention Rey until now? You may think Daisy Ridley was just being humble when she kept saying in the press tour that Rey is not necessarily the main character. She wasn’t though. Rey does not feel like the main character at all. As a matter of fact, Poe feels more like a protagonist this time around. And that’s saying something, considering his character was supposed to die early on in The Force Awakens.

I’m not gonna ramble at length about the godforsaken topic of Rey’s parentage. I’m just gonna say that, aside from being almost comical how The Force Awakens missed the mark when introducing the child of literal nobodies, The Last Jedi takes its sweet time to settle the debate once and for all, as it continues to tag people along like Lucasfilm and Disney have been doing for two years. As soon as Rey and Kylo have their first bizarre Sense8-esque Force meeting, my seatmate whispered to his friend “wait, are they siblings?” and I wanted to take a bullet to the brain right the fuck there. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT WOULD HAVE MADE SENSE. Mere seconds after one of their Force connections, Luke has a similar scene with Leia. You know… Leia. HIS SISTER. At some point, Kylo tells Rey that he knows she’s gonna join him eventually… because he’s seen who her parents are. Geez, Louise. I wonder why the identity of her parents would compel her to get closer to Kylo. Maybe because they are HIS PARENTS TOO?? No, that would have just been too good.

And it doesn’t end there! Remember that teaser in which something sinister is calling to Rey and Luke yells “RESIST IT”?. That was awesome, wasn’t it? Who was calling to her? Snoke? Kylo? Turns out it was… a cave. A cave in which Rey has a borderline psychodelic experience that involves mirrors. She asks to be shown the face of her parents and the music intensifies until… we see Rey staring at her own reflection. That’s brilliant, Rian. Keep building up the mystery only to reveal later on that her parents were alcoholic junkers that may or may not remain nameless for eternity (and Rey shall remain just “Rey” forever).

I’m still trying to figure out the purpose of that cave scene. This goes back to how disappointingly shallow the movie was. We were supposed to learn some pretty interesting lore about the Force and what did we actually get? We learned that the Force doesn’t belong to the Jedi (duh)… and that’s it. Are you serious?

Let me get into what I did like about the film. Like I said, John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran are a tour de force of charisma. They’re the most endearing pair and just plain fun to watch. Although Finn has been criminally demoted from his leading man status, his confrontation with Phasma (who’s Phasma again?) brought nice closure to his arc as a former stormtrooper.

I know many of my mutuals and followers cannot stand Adam Driver. I have side-eyed some of the things he said recently myself. But the guy is phenomenal in this movie. I caught myself looking forward to his appearences, because he is simply magnetic. I have no idea what’s gonna happen to Kylo, but I’m invested either way. The one thing The Last Jedi taught me is that speculation is pointless, because fans put way more thought into the story than the powers that be. That’s depressing, but it’s the reality of the situation.

I think my favorite scene in the whole movie is Kylo and Rey in Snoke’s throne room. The tension was palpable. The way Kylo ended Snoke had everyone in the room on the edge of their seats and the battle against the Praetorian Guards right afterwards was simply breathtaking.

Carrie Fisher is so Leia in her last appearence. I’m pretty happy with her send off, all things considered. She felt way more at ease in the role when compared to The Force Awakens and we gotta give Johnson some credit here, even if I want to strangle him most of the time. The infamous Superman scene is pretty awkward, but it was about time she showed some badass Force powers. The old hologram from A New Hope being what motivates Luke to finally help Rey was a stroke of genius. Such a simple plot development, but literally no one saw it coming. There wasn’t a single dry eye in the audience.

LUKE AND LEIA REUNITE! Well, sort of. But it was enough for me. Which brings me to Luke projecting himself across the galaxy. It sounds cartoonish on paper, but boy did it work! If you didn’t get goosebumps when he became one with the Force to the sound of Binary Sunset, something is wrong with you. The shoulder wipe was LEGENDARY. Some of the humor didn’t work in this film, but most certainly did, especially Chewie and the porgs (which are adorable and thankfully not overused) and Luke hitting Rey in the hand with a stick when he asks her to reach out.

As a standalone film, I give The Last Jedi an 8 out of 10. But as a follow-up to a seven-part saga, it’s a 6/10 with a pinch of generosity.

[aion-rsa]

Best Movies Coming to Netflix in July 2021

https://ift.tt/2UQ1B1r

Movies are back. It at least feels that way when you see the numbers that films like F9 and A Quiet Place Part II are earning. But more than just the thrill of going back to theaters, July signals what is typically considered to be the height of the summer movie season. On a hot evening, there are few things better than some cold air conditioning and a colder drink of your choice while escapism plays across a screen.

That can prove just as true at home as in theaters. And as luck would have it, Netflix is pretty stuffed with new streaming content this month. Below there are space adventures, comedies, dramas, and more than a few epics worth your attention, either as a revisit or new discovery. And we’ve rounded them up for your scrolling pleasure.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

July 1

When the first Austin Powers opened in 1997, it was intended to be as much a crude love letter to the popular cinema of the 1960s as a modern day raunchy laugh-fest. Now with the benefit of another 20 years’ worth of hindsight, Mike Myers and Jay Roach’s spoof of Bondmania is itself an amusing time capsule of 1990s comedy tropes. There’s Myers’ cartoonishly larger-than-life characters—beginning with Powers but most dementedly perfected with Dr. Evil, the comedian’s riff on Ernst Stavro Blofeld—as well as the pair’s embrace of what they considered to be the defining trappings of the late ‘90s.

The film’s nostalgia for the ‘60s and its value as a piece of kitsch ‘90s nostalgia makes this Austin Powers (and to a lesser extent the second movie, The Spy Who Shagged Me) a fascinating relic, as well as a genuinely funny lowbrow symphony of sex gags, bathroom humor, and multiple digs at British stereotypes, including bad teeth. In other words, it’s a good time if you don’t take it too seriously. Just avoid the third one, which is also coming to Netflix.

The Karate Kid (1984)

July 1

1984’s The Karate Kid is the cultural apex of Reagan America’s obsession with martial arts movies and Rocky-style underdog stories. It offered ’80s kids the ultimate fantasy of learning martial arts to defeat local bullies and finding time to squeeze in a love subplot along the way. Granted, the Cobra Kai series has thrown a wrench into this film’s seemingly simple morality tale, but just try not to root for Daniel by the time you reach arguably the greatest montage in movie history.

There’s also something eternally comforting about watching Pat Morita beat-up ’80s thugs while validating parents everywhere by suggesting that you to can one day grow up to be a great warrior if you just sweep the floor, wax the car, and paint the fence.

Love Actually

July 1

Christmas in July? Sure, why not. This Yuletide classic likely needs no introduction. Writer-director Richard Curtis’ Love Actually is the ultimate romantic comedy, stuffing every cliché and setup from a holiday bag of tricks into one beautifully wrapped package. Perhaps its greatest strength though is it mixes in a touch of the bitter with its sweet, and doesn’t hide the thorns in its bouquet of roses. Plus, its use of “All I Want for Christmas” is still a banger nearly 20 years on.

Admittedly, we aren’t particularly inclined to watch this in July ourselves, but if you don’t mind the Christmas of it all, there are few better rom-coms in your queue at the moment.

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

July 1

This adaptation of the Arthur Golden novel of the same name was one of the highest profile literary adaptations of the early 2000s. It’s the story of a young girl sold to a geisha house in the legendary Gion district of Kyoto who then grows up to be the most famous geisha of 1930s imperial Japan… right before the war. The film (like its source material) had controversy in its day due to having a somewhat exoticized view of Japanese customs, as well as for the casting of Chinese actresses Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi in the roles of icons of Japanese culture, with Zhang playing central geisha Sayuri.

Read more

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Black Widow Review: Marvel’s Most Feminine Film is a Brutal Action Movie

By Rosie Fletcher

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How Underworld Mixed Werewolves, Vampires, and Shakespeare

By David Crow

But whatever its shortcomings, Memoirs of a Geisha is still an exquisitely crafted melodrama that provides an often delicate window into one of he most graceful and misunderstood arts. The film won Oscars for its costumes, art direction, and cinematography for a reason. Plus whenever Zhang and the actually Japanese Ken Watanabe share the screen, unrequited sizzle is hot to the touch.

Mortal Kombat (1995)

July 1

Look, 1995’s Mortal Kombat isn’t a great movie in the classic sense of the word. Those looking for notable ’90s schlock might even have a better time with 1994’s Street Fighter and Raul Julia’s scene-stealing performance as General M. Bison.

Yet at a time when video game movies still struggle to capture the magic of the games themselves, Mortal Kombat stands tall as one of the few adaptations that feel like an essential companion piece. It might lack the blood and gore that helped make 1992’s Mortal Kombat arcade game a cultural touchstone, but it perfectly captures the campy, shameless joy that has defined this franchise for nearly 30 years.

Star Trek (2009)

July 1

The idea of a Star Trek movie reboot wasn’t greeted with universal enthusiasm when it was first announced but then J.J. Abrams delighted many fans by creating a Trek origin story that was both familiar and new. Chris Pine shone as the cocky Kirk, bickering with Zachary Quinto’s Vulcan Spock while trying to save the universe from a pesky Romulan (Eric Bana). This was a standalone that could be enjoyed by audiences completely ignorant of the Star Trek legacy which also achieved the feat of not annoying many long-term followers of the multiple series. It was a combination of humor, heart, action and a zingy cast that won the day – it’s still the best of the three Star Trek reboot movies to date.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2005)

July 1

Alongside Step Brothers, Tallageda Nights remains a a biting snapshot of the 2000s zeitgeist from writer-director Adam McKay. Eventually he would drop (most of) the crude smirks in favor of dramedies about the excesses of the Bush years via The Big Short (2013) and Dick Cheney biopic Vice (2018), however Talladega Nights remains a well-aged and damning satire of that brief time when “NASCAR Dads” were a thing, which is all the more impressive since it was filmed in the midst of such jingoistic fervor.

So enters Will Ferrell in one of his signature roles as a NASCAR driver and the quintessential ugly American who’s boastful of his ignorance and proud that his two sons are named “Walker” and “Texas Ranger.” He’d be almost irredeemable if the movie wasn’t so quotable and endearing with its sketch comedy absurdities. There’s a reason Ferrell and co-star John C. Reilly became a recurring thing after this lunacy. Plus, that ending where adherents of the homophobic humor of the mid-2000s found out the joke was on them? Still pretty satisfying.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

July 1

This is the movie that changed everything. Filmmakers had been experimenting with computer-generated visual effects for years, including director James Cameron with 1989’s The Abyss. But Cameron, as usual, upped his game with this 1991 action/sci-fi epic in which the main character — the villain — was a hybrid of live-action actor and CG visuals.

Those of us who saw T2 in the theater when it first came out can remember hearing the audience (and probably ourselves) audibly gasp as the T-1000 (an underrated and chilling Robert Patrick) slithered into his liquid metal form, creating a surreal and genuinely eerie moving target that not even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brute strength could easily defeat. There were moments in this movie that remained seared into our brains for years as high points of what could be accomplished with CG.

Read more

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Terminator 2 at 30: How Guns N’ Roses Created the Perfect Hype

By Joseph Baxter

Movies

Aliens and Terminator 2: How James Cameron Crafts Perfect Sequels

By Ryan Lambie

This writer prefers T2 to the original Terminator. It’s fashionable to go the other way, but the first movie, while excellent, is essentially a low-budget horror film, Schwarzenegger’s T-800 a somewhat more formidable stand-in for the usual unstoppable slasher. The characters in T2 are far more fleshed out, the action bigger and more spectacular, the stakes more grave and palpable. It was the first movie to cost more than $100 million but it felt like every penny was right there on the screen. And Cameron tied up his story ingeniously, making all the sequels and prequels, and sidequels since irrelevant and incoherent. We don’t need them; we have Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Underworld (2003)

July 1

Is Underworld a good movie? No, not really. Is it a scary movie, what with the vampires and werewolves? Not at all. Well, is it at least entertaining?! Absolutely. Never before has a B-studio actioner been so deliciously pretentious and delightful in its pomposity.

Every bit the product of early 2000s action movie clichés, right down to Kate Beckinsale’s oh-so tight leather number,  Underworld excels in part because of the casting of talent like Beckinsale. A former Oxford student and star of the West End stage, she got her start in cinema by appearing in a Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare adaptation, and she brings a wholly unneeded (but welcome) conviction to this tale of vampire versus werewolves in a centuries-long feud. Shamelessly riffing on Romeo and Juliet, the film ups the British thespian pedigree with movie-stealing performances by Bill Nighy as a vampire patriarch and Michael Sheen (Beckinsale’s then-husband who she met in a production of The Seagull) as an angsty, tragic werewolf. It’s bizarre, overdone, and highly entertaining in addition to all the fang on fur action.

Snowpiercer (2013)

July 2

Before there was Parasite, there was Snowpiercer, the action-driven class parable brought to horrific and mesmerizing life by Oscar-winning Korean director Bong Joon-ho in 2013. The film is set in a future ice age in which the last of humanity survives on a train that circumnavigates a post-climate change Earth. The story follows Chris Evans‘ Curtis as he leads a revolt from the working class caboose to the upper class engine at the front of the train.

Loosely based on a French graphic novel, filmed in the Czech Republic as a Korean-Czech co-production, and featuring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, with dialogue in both English and Korean, Snowpiercer is not only a truly international production that will keep Western audiences guessing, but it packs an ever effective social critique as we head further into an age of climate change and wealth inequality. Also, there is a scene in which Chris Evans slips on a fish.

The Beguiled (2017)

July 16

Sofia Coppola’s remake of the 1971 film of the same name (both are based on a Thomas Cullinan novel) is a somewhat slight yet undeniably intriguing addition to the filmmaker’s catalog. It’s the story of a wounded Union soldier being taken in by a Southern school for girls–stranded in the middle of the American Civil War–with salvation turning into damnation as the power dynamics between the sexes are tested. It is also an evocative piece of Southern Gothic with an ending that will stick with you. Top notch work from a cast that also includes Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Colin Farrell makes this a bit of an underrated gem.

The Twilight Saga

July 16

In July, not one, not two, not three, not even four, but all five of the movies adapted from Stephenie Meyer’s young adult phenomenon book series will be accessible on Netflix. Indulge in the nostalgia of Catherine Hardwicke’s faithful and comparatively intimate Twilight. Travel to Italy with a depressing Edward and Bella in New Moon. Lean into the horror absurdity of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 2. Or marathon all five for maximal escapism into a world where vegetarian vampires are the boyfriend ideal, the sun is always clouded, and the truly iconic emo-pop tunes never stop. 

Django Unchained (2012)

July 24

The second film Quentin Tarantino won an Oscar for, Django Unchained remains a highly potent revenge fantasy where a Black former slave (Jamie Foxx) seeks to free his wife from Mississippian bondage and ends up wiping out the entire infrastructure of a plantation in the process. Brutal, dazzlingly verbose in dialogue, and highly triggering in every meaning of the word—including quickdraw shootouts—this is a Southern-fried Spaghetti Western at its finest.

Read more

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Quentin Tarantino Still Wants to Retire Since Most Directors’ Last Films Are ‘Lousy’

By David Crow

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

By David Crow

Perhaps its other great asset is a terrific cast of richly drawn characters, including Foxx as Django (the “D” is silent), Christoph Waltz as German dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz, Leonardo DiCaprio as sadistic slaveowner Calvin Candie, and Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen. While Waltz won a deserved Oscar for the film (his second from a Tarantino joint), it is Jackson’s turn as a house slave who becomes by far the most dangerous and cruel of Django’s adversaries who lingers in the memory years later… 

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[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Reviews: Life Is Unfair

WandaVision finished last week and i had planned to write and entire review about it as, you know. ‘m a hardcore Marvel shill, bu i opted to wait a bit. I wanted time to let the show marinate and then revisit it all at once to see if i still felt the way i did during the initial run. I’ve written little standalone posts, her and there, about specific episodes or characters as the show aired but i wanted to kind of document everything good and bad, that i noticed watching the MCU’s fist attempt at long form content. Objectively, I'm probably still pretty bias toward the show because it’s been a year since we got any new MCU content so there might not be a ton of critique in this bad boy. Plus, i really like Darcy so this thing already starts with bonus points.

The Good

The overall concept of this how being Wanda’s journey through the stages of grief was brilliant. I don’t know if this was ever officially acknowledged, but you can actually see a stage for every two episodes. Denial is basically the entirety of the first two episodes while seven and eight are straight up Depression. Going back through knowing that really makes for a far more potent watch.

I mentioned Darcy before but i really liked how Jimmy Woo got to shine here as well. Dude was one of the best things about Ant-Man II and i just really want dude to get bumped up into SWORD already.

The acting in this is exceptional. I wrote about Lizzy Olsen’s outstanding performance in it’s own posts a while back, but i need to acknowledge Paul Bettany as well. Dude is great in his role as Vision and i was a little bummed he got bumped off so soon after his introduction. I’m so glad Feige gave him such legs with this role because it really did Bettany a service in letting him actually show us who his Vision truly is.

Actually, the entire cast was pretty dope, overall. The child actors were kind of whack but they’re kids so that stands to reason but everyone else, did a decent job. The writing was pretty temperamental overall but everyone did their very best with the material given to them.

This series was pretty dope to look at. Like, the visual effects were spectacular at times. Not all of the time. There are chinks in the armor but, as a whole, this thing was very pleasing on the eye.

But dat White Vision, tho! White Vision is the Vision i grew up with as a kid. He was in that Avengers game and, at the time i got into comics, the primary Vision on the Avengers squad. I’ve always preferred that version of the character, mostly for nostalgia reasons, but i understood the red and green was classic styles. I carried no illusions about seeing a White Vision in the MCU but then BAM! WandaVision brings MY Vision to the Little Big Screen and i am forever grateful.

The sitcom aesthetic was a fun framing device. I really enjoyed recognizing all these shows that i used to watch growing up. When they hit me with the Malcolm in the Middle episode, i was the only one among my friends that immediately knew the reference. Malcolm is a lost gem, a classic in the sitcom hierarchy that more people should definitely watch. It f*cking launched Bryan Cranston’s career. We wouldn’t have Walter White if not for Hal Wilkerson.

Wanda’s Scarlet Witch costume is dope as f*ck. I was surprised she actually got a suit as, if i recall, her character wasn’t supposed to ever go full hero like that that. She even said the tiara thingy was dumb. Fast forward a decade later and there she is, tiara thingy and all.

The Meh

That Fox-Men Quicksilver bait was superfluous. Evan Peters was great, as always, but superfluous. His appearance in this show was unnecessary. A lot of people were crazy upset about the “reveal” but i didn’t care. I was pretty sure this show wasn’t going to be the mutant backdoor everyone wanted it to be.

The Bad

Monica’s origin kind of sucks. The actress, herself, did a great job with what he had but the overall character arc was a little flaccid. They did a disservice to Teyonah Parris with that. There were hints that she’s capable of much more, particularly the opening seen where she returns from the Snap, but that potential was never fully realized and it’s unfortunate. It makes her overall character feel inconsequential.

Also, the f*ck are those powers, man? Monica in the comics is a straight up powerhouse, especially in her current Spectrum persona. It’s a little ridiculous to me that she would get dog-walked so easily by literally anyone she came into contact with. Bro, Monica is on the Ultimates. She shares space with Black Panther, Blue Marvel, Captain Marvel, and America Chavez. T’Chala is a top ten genius in the Marvel Universe, so is Adam Brashear on top of being a living anti-mater generator, Carol Danvers is probably the most powerful human hero currently in the 616, and America can literally punch her way into other dimensions. And Monica’s power set slides right in line with those people. Plus, they have a pet Galactus. But MCU Monica stopped bullets by letting them Vision phase through her body kind off. The audacity!

They did my girl Agatha so wrong. When she was Agnes, she was dope as f*ck! I loved her insidious suggestion and the way she just inserted herself into everything; It was delicious! Kathryn Hahn was great as Agnes. And then she went full witch and lost all of that charm. It was so disappointing, you know? She was well on her way to becoming a second Justin Hammer only to be relegated to the same level of clownery as Yellowjacket or Malekith.

While touching on Agatha’s generic villain-ness, her climactic battle with Wanda was so cliche. It as really disappointing. You have two, dumb powerful witches, and you resort to what is effectively laser beam in the sky. There was a distinct lack of imagination for so much potential available.

How is Vision a Vision without the Mind Stone? That was the bulk of his power. How is White Vision doing the same thing without the literally cosmic forced that predates the universe, powering his abilities? Questions for later i guess?

The pacing in this thing is mad wonky. Those first three episodes upon re-watch drag like nobody’s business. It picks up after that for three or four more episodes, but you can definitely tell those last few were mad rushed. It’s a crazy uneven show altogether but i can’t say it really takes you out of it

Tyler Hayward is a terrible villain. Arguably, the worst.

The Verdict

WandaVision was pretty okay, definitely the right show for which to introduce us to Phase Four. That said, it peaked way too early, man. Like, i enjoyed this thing thoroughly, it's a nice start to what looks to be a darker turn for the MCU, but it felt kind of wonky. Bad pacing, man, and SO many loose strings to tie going forward. There were some lackluster character choices, Monica feels dumb underdeveloped, but all in all? Not bad. If this thing were a movie, I'd say it'd be about upper mid tier. About as good as Endgame and, say, Guardians II. WandaVision is better than everything in Phase One but staggers against the better films in Phase Two and doesn’t even touch It can't touch the best in the Franchise. Iron Man, Infinity War or Winter Soldier blow this show out of the water. As a vehicle for Wanda Maximoff, it is excellent. This is definitely her origin story, even if it doesn’t stick the landing as assuredly as i would have wanted.

[carterhaughs]

TLJ Analysis (SPOILERS!)

I absolutely loved The Last Jedi. It deepened my understanding of all the characters involved in a way the first movie didn’t, while at the same time making me appreciate the first film more. This film also felt like more of a standalone feature rather than just an installment in a series, which is always a good thing. The Force Awakens functioned mostly as a prelude or an overture of sorts, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but makes for a weaker film. 

I walked away from The Force Awakens liking all the characters but not really feeling like any of them had a particularly strong character arc other than Finn and Kylo. This film remedied that, and then some, adding the wonderful Rose Tico into the mix as well. Looking back on my analysis of Rey in the first film and the things I wanted for the second film, The Last Jedi pretty much checked off the whole list and delivered on all of it, big time:

The spiritual and psychological element of the Force is very important to me and we almost don’t get enough of it in this movie - although I think a lot of that has to do with this being the introduction of these characters, and I think that Daisy and Adam did a really good job with what was included.

All that being said, I needed more quiet moments with Rey because any Force-sensitive character is best-written with a hefty side of introspection. I needed to see more quiet moments in the film in general - slower moving scenes that focused solely on characterization. Nowadays, we don’t get a lot of those in action-adventure franchise movies, and J.J. Abrams rarely includes them in his films, which is his biggest weakness as a director imo. Moments like Han seeing Luke in Rey’s innocent, unbridled wonder when she sees the Resistance base planet covered in trees and says she didn’t think there was so much green in the universe. Rian Johnson, a director-writer, is very good at such moments (as in his film Looper), and I’m counting on him to include many in the next two films, which he is writing (and one of which he’s directing as well).

Also, can I just say that I love being right? I think you all already knew that but I do so love being right. I haven’t talked much about Kylo Ren on this blog bc he’s such a polarizing subject and my hands were full enough dealing with the nastier side of the Rogue One fandom without weighing in on Kylo, but I’m going to quote myself here - this is from my initial analysis right after watching The Force Awakens for the first time (I also analyzed all the other main characters in this post, if you’re interested in reading my takes on them as well) - then, as now, the conflict in him was fully evident:

I was fascinated by Adam Driver’s soulful, wrathful, deeply disturbing portrayal of our new conflicted Dark Sider. He’s embarassed by the very fact that he’s human - he turns away when Hux enters Snoke’s hologram throne room thingy like he can’t bear for anyone to see his actual face. He’d rather be a concept than a flesh and blood human with feelings and we don’t know what drove him to this. Leia absolves Han and herself of guilt, saying it’s Snoke who seduced him to the Dark Side and that Ben had too much of Vader in him. This is confusing to me, as the last thing Vader says to Luke is to tell Leia that Luke was right about there being good in him. Until we know more, I’m going to interpret this as Anakin’s acute vulnerability to the extremes of the Force (because of the whole Chosen One business) being something Ben is susceptible to as well. Snoke did something and Ben ended up killing Luke’s new Jedi Order - bad shit had to have gone down and I want that explored, stat. He’s not a completely soulless monster yet, but if no one intervenes, he soon will be.

Snoke’s final test for him was to kill his father, and he passed that test with tears in his eyes (of anger? of sadistic joy? of love? of all three and other emotions beside?). But his eyes aren’t Sith eyes yet so perhaps there’s further yet for him to fall. He says Rey would be “disappointed” if Han was her real father, but we never hear him speak a word about Leia, and I need his relationship with his parents prior to his fall, as well as his fall itself, to be described. He’s lonely, I think - he asks Rey to allow him to teach her, genuinely desperate to connect with her in spite of his jealousy of Anakin’s lightsaber choosing her. He’s filled with self-loathing (for more reasons than I can fathom - for his perceived emotional weakness, his actual physical weakness, his multiple failures in his pursuit of Rey, and so on) and punches his own wounds as if that will make them go away. I feel like I’ll have more to say about him after another viewing, because Adam’s subtle acting says so much that repeated viewings are a must for thorough analysis.

Now, the Imperials/First Order members are much more intriguing in this film than they were in the original trilogy. They aren’t cynical and above it all, or just trying to get by. They’re true believers.

Ok, see what I mean about being right? Bc damn, was I ever right. Conflict and the balance channeled thereby make up the grey areas of the Force where Rey and Kylo were finally able to meet and connect.

Luke’s arc about failure in this film moved me to tears and among the few issues I had with the film were that we didn’t get to see him continue to teach Rey beyond this film - Mark Hamill was fantastic and the scene between Luke and Force Ghost Yoda was my favorite in the film and resonated with me deeply - the truth of failure as a potent teacher and the role of the master to nurture the student to grow beyond their reach. 

I also wanted more lore from this film - more about the connections between past and present via the ancient Jedi but maybe that would have been too esoteric for general audiences. I’ve been spoiled by Knights of the Old Republic, a video game series in the old Star Wars canon that this film certainly has drawn on (that much is most obviously evident in Kylo Ren’s character design and now in the Force Bond lore and connection between Rey and Kylo - if you are interested in my meta on Revan and Bastila, and then Atton and the Exile and Kreia, you can read all that here and here, respectively).  

In any case, I am raring to go see it again and can’t wait to dive into fic and meta for this film - and as I did with Rogue One, am very much looking forward to contributing my own.

[just-honey-dewd]

A review on Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

Just a heads up: I’m not one for watching DC things, Batman-related shows or movies, so this review is more of a standalone review of the movie from an outsider’s perspective. I’ll definitely have some misses in identifying certain characters that are alternate versions of Batman characters, so forgive me for any mistakes. And of course, this’ll have a bit of spoilers.

Alright, pleasantries aside, I really, really enjoyed this movie. The atmosphere, pacing, and characters were wonderfully executed. I was happily surprised by how engaging the story was, given the concept itself sounded quite goofy. ‘Victorian Era Batman going after Jack the Ripper’ is pretty ridiculous on paper. Yet, the execution in movie format was well done, and while there were a few bits and pieces I had to rewind and process, I think this was a good introduction into the cast of characters you would see in a Batman show.

Looking at the character Batman himself, we get a good amount of screentime for both his vigilante and rich boy personas, and both are very entertaining for their respective reasons. When watching a live-action Batman movie, I honestly can’t help but forget about his civilian life as Bruce Wayne. Sure, he doesn’t have the same conflicts of money, high school and girls like Peter Parker. But I would’ve liked some exploration into the man behind the mask besides being cold, dark and unfeeling at night. This movie gives it to me with as little time wasted.

From what my small brain’s deduced, Batman is a vigilante which seeks justice but uses crime-fighting as a way to serve vengeance for the death of his parents. As Bruce Wayne, he’s a charming, charismatic playboy who throws his money wherever he thinks would serve a good cause to Gotham. I’ll be honest, I’ve watched a handful of live-action DC movies including Batman, watched clips of animated Batman in action with the Justice League, and watched 1-2 seasons of Young Justice. I did not know a thing about Bruce Wayne because the few times I’ve seen Batman outside of the mask was when he was just taking off his suit to talk to Alfred, Robin or Batgirl. Never got the chance to see the duality between Batman and Bruce until this movie. And in the span of barely 80 minutes, I saw more of Batman’s full fledged character than any of the handful of glimpses, clips and teases I’ve seen thus far.

This could be the same for a lot of the characters. For what little time I’ve spent watching Batman, I know notable characters like Poison ivy, Catwoman, James Gordon (I had to actually search up his first name just now), Harvey Dent and Barbara Gordon. Out of all these characters, the ones that I found intriguing to watch were Selina Kyle, Harvey Dent, and James Gordon.

Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman, was a fascinating personality in regards to the role she plays in the story. Unlike the Batman-Bruce Wayne duality, she doesn’t have a secret identity, and she doesn’t seem keen on hiding her combat skills. From the few clips I’ve seen of her previously, I assumed her to be an intelligent, bold seductress with a grey sense of morality. 

This movie takes this character and reinvents her into the appropriate time period, but not without the consequences that come from having the personality that she has in the 19th century. It’s interesting seeing her play a bigger role in Gotham through voicing her outrage over the injustice towards impoverished women, and how vocal she is about seeking justice for them. At the same time however, this kind of obscures her supposed grey morality, and I can hardly imagine her being particularly villainous as her modern era counterpart. For the sake of avoiding heavy spoiler details, I won’t say much more about what she does in the movie, but I’ll just say that she was one of the highlights in this movie for me.  Harvey Dent, AKA Two-face, was a fun character as well despite the comparatively lesser role he got compared to Selina. Minor spoilers, but he didn’t get his face half burned unnecessarily which I appreciated since I’ve seen enough of that gruesome scene from Dark Knight. His personality however was rather insincere. He was like the type of friend that would hang close to you and act as though he’d have your back, but is never true to his words. Nothing short of two-faced in nature, which I found to be a nice interpretation of this alternate version of his character. Pretty different to see in comparison to the Harvey Dent of Dark Knight, which was my only access to his civilian character before becoming Two-face so I’m not sure how much he changed in this movie, or rather if he was always a disreputable character. Still, I enjoyed the scenes where he was there.

[SPOILERS AHEAD: I suggest you watch the movie before you read this as these next few paragraphs are more ranting specifically about plot-heavy stuff and it’s criticism no less.]

Under the impression that you’ve either watched the movie already or don’t mind the spoilers, I’ve been pointedly not mentioning the character Jack the Ripper up until now. The reason being that is because this interpretation of his character gets a conclusion which heavily deviates from history, and it definitely did a number on me.

Fact of the matter is, James Gordon was the infamous Jack the Ripper in this iteration. And while I praise the creativity and ingenuity of using a character who’s long been established since introduction into Batman comics to be a trusted ally to Batman, it felt forced  that he was Jack the Ripper.

Besides my unrelated confusion over the fact that Barbara is his wife (for real, wasn’t she his daughter usually?), I spent a fraction of my brain energy humoring the possibility that Gordon was Jack since he was the only notable character in the cast with the same build and brown hair. But I really was expecting Jack to either get away, or reveal his identity to Batman but not to the audience.

However, the main reason I dropped any suspicion I had was because there was a scene earlier which I vividly remembered that showed Gordon having a nightmare about Jack the Ripper reaching his wife, Barbara, and killing her. And this man was not only horrified then, but as he woke up shouting her name, reaching his hand out for the comfort of his wife’s relieving presence -- only to find an empty side of the bed where she should be, then proceeds to look for her hurriedly as if she’s in actual danger. 

And the moment he sees her standing in the kitchen making breakfast....

“...𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮.. 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘦...“ 

He hugs her.

He’s genuinely torn up about that nightmare of Jack the Ripper killing his wife. And this moment was so poignant and genuine to me, that it stuck as I watched in the last 20 minutes in the movie. Where there were heavy implications that Selina Kyle was walking into the hands of Jack the Ripper himself. And in his place stood Gordon as the shadow uncovers his face, and he escorts Selina off for a private talk. In that moment, I thought ‘Huh, did the movie just pull a bait and switch for the sake of it, or are they actually saying that the killer’s Gordon? ’

Truth be told, I was holding out hope, at least enough that it only finally hit me when Batman went into the basement of Gordon’s home, and saw explicitly the incriminating evidence and the messed up thing he did to Barbara’s face..

“𝘏𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘦... 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘶𝘴. 𝘕𝘰... 𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘣 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘶𝘴. 𝘏𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘺... 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘶𝘴. 𝘞𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘵𝘰. 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯'𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘵, 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺'𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦! 𝘑𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵! “

Pretty fucked up, and worst of all, contrived from my perspective. 

At some point right before this confirmation, I was really thinking that maybe Gordon is being controlled by Jack the Ripper which is why the narrative was beginning to give off hints that he’s Jack, because it’s misleading us. It was after the I watched Gordon actively hunt for Selina, monologue in excruciating detail about how passionately he despises sins and women -- who he believes possess the worst kind of sins, pull a Frodo and Hellfire’d the himself alongside the newly built Gotham World’s Fair... that I finally processed that this was it. He was Jack the Ripper in this movie. And that my processing skills were below average. Anywho...

Despite this big glaring issue, don’t doubt me when I say that I really liked this movie and found it to be a good introduction into the Batman series. What it succeeded in was introducing the duality between Batman/Bruce Wayne, character of Selina Kyle, chemistry between Bruce and Selina, and the corrupt justice system of Gotham. It effectively managed to give us look into the psyche of Bruce Wayne, and balance his character’s inhuman skills with his human sense of compassion, which seems befitting to his overall personality. This was a fun movie to watch and besides the Gordon was Ripper thing in the last duration of the movie, it didn’t ruin my overall watch experience and I encourage others to watch it.

[weekendshowcase]

Any Love for the Super Friends?

by Antonio Garland

     Many critics and fans are divided about their opinions on the recently released film Justice League. Most say it was an alright film, while others disliked it. I saw the film shortly after its release and here are my thoughts and opinions.

    While this is a spoiler-free review, there is a minor spoiler. However, if you know the story of the Justice League and have already read recent reports on who would star in the film, you already know what it’ll be.

    The film takes place a while after Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice (BvS), with everyone still in mourning over the death of Superman. With their icon of hope gone, crime starts to rise and people are fearful without their protector. Sensing the people’s fear, the intergalactic tyrant Steppenwolf comes to Earth in search of three artifacts called mother boxes to assist him in his world-conquering scheme. Gotham’s dark knight Batman discovers this and decides to put together a team consisting of Wonder Woman, the Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman, to help combat the approaching threat of Steppenwolf and his army.

    Story-wise I thought it was acceptable. Many critics said that the story was average at best, but you have to remember that the film is following directly behind BvS, which was heavily criticized for its plot. Naturally, being a sequel, Justice League had to carry over those story elements. Now personally, I thought the story in this film was better than its predecessor, but in its own right there were a few elements that I wish had happened differently, such as including certain characters and giving the main villain more motivation with his goals.

    Speaking of the villain, Steppenwolf threw me for a loop. I and many others believed that a similar villain in the Justice League mythos, Darkseid, would had been the main antagonist, though it turned out to be the lesser-known Steppenwolf. He was basically a generic “take over the world” villain with no in-depth elements. He was an entirely CGI character and I felt that his character would have worked better if he’d been an actual actor. Many of his scenes were just there to progress the story, like ordering his minions to attack.

     The “Mother Boxes” themselves, I felt, needed more buildup to what they could do. From how they’re described, they seem to be DC’s equivalent to Marvel’s Infinity stones. Apparently, these McGuffins have all these special abilities, such as supplying energy, terraforming and teleportation. While one makes a cameo in BvS, they just seem to come out of nowhere. There’s a flashback scene in the film that shows how they ended up on Earth, but it makes you wonder as to why no one on Earth would use their power.

    Speaking of coming out of nowhere, that’s my biggest criticism about the film. Not to compare, but Marvel’s cinematic universe had most of their characters established in films beforehand. When they finally came together in crossover films, it made them feel bigger like they earned the payoff. In this film, most of the cast were only in a few second cameos in the previous film, with brief introductions. If you don’t already know who these characters are, then you’re going to have a hard time sympathizing with them and you’re going to wonder why they’re so important. This made me think about Wonder Woman in BvS, who just came out of nowhere. Though she had a prequel film that came out later it would have helped BvS if she had been established (especially for newcomers).

    Regardless, the characters themselves were all likeable. Jason Momoa, who played Aquaman, was better than I expected. In the trailers, he gave off a 90s heavy metal guitar player vibe, which there are minor shades of that in the film, but despite a lack of background and having the least amount of screen time compared to the rest of the cast, he was still an interesting character that does have lots of interesting scenes. Ezra Miller portrays the speedster Flash, the main comic relief character. Honestly, I found none of his jokes funny; however, he didn’t bother me. Most of his jokes felt very forced. The one thing I found annoying about him was that he basically had the shortest time to explain his origin, having pretty much a single line that explained how he became fast. Cyborg, similar to Wonder Woman, comes out of nowhere. While he does have a major role in the plot, he seemed to be the least developed character. Ray Fisher, Cyborg’s actor, was alright. However, it didn’t seem like he was given much to work with. To me he just felt a little stale and somewhat forgettable.

    To be honest, I always had an issue with Ben Affleck playing Bruce Wayne/Batman, as I don’t feel that he’s the best person to play the role. He just feels like he’s out of his element in both this film and BvS. Now, I did like Batman’s first scene in the film, as it did help give it that superhero comic movie feel. For the rest of the film, Batman just felt average. Gal Gadot returns as Wonder Woman, straight from her standalone film. She was pretty much the most interesting character in the film to follow, as it added on to what she experienced in earlier films. She’s the first one to join the team and essentially takes the role of team mom. Most of the emotional scenes involve her and she has a great deal of character development.

    Time for that minor spoiler. Now if you kept up with the news for the film or know the mythos for the Justice League, then you should already know that Superman is in the film. Henry Cavill once again portrays the man of steel in the blue and red outfit. Many were wondering just how Superman would be revived following his death in BvS. Well, I won’t go into detail on how he comes back, but I will say that I had some issues with it. Personally, I didn’t like how his return was done, but even more so, it contradicts the events of the previous film. Actually, I wondered in general just why director Zack Snyder killed him off at all. As I mentioned earlier, you can’t have the Justice League without Superman. Post return, Superman’s lines were horrible. They felt corny and are cringe-worthy. However, his scenes that showed him using his abilities are something to see. Let me put it this way, Snyder purposely kept him out of the early parts of the movie due to what Superman can do. Had he been in it earlier, there wouldn’t be much of a film.

    The music was decent. I did like that cover of “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen, sung by Sigrid. I like the song and was surprised to hear it. Hearing “Come Together” sung over and over in the trailers and commercials got old real quick. I do like the song “Heroes” by David Bowie covered by Gang of Youths.

    Despite a cluster of heroes gathering with little introduction, a short run time of two hours, underwhelming main villain, and a few loose plot threads, Justice League is a pretty good superhero film. It unfortunately doesn’t leave a lasting impression. However, if you’re into comic/superhero films, then you’ll find yourself liking this one. Just don’t expect to get blown away.

[ramajmedia]

Star Wars: 6 Relationships Fans Were Behind (& 4 They Rejected)

From the very beginning, the sweeping saga of Star Wars has focused on relationships in all their forms: romantic, familial, friendly, antagonizing, and more. As much as the series has been driven by action and adventure, it has always been richly based in characters and their desires, too - for better or for worse.

RELATED: Star Wars: George Lucas' 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Creative Decisions

Across three trilogies so far, as well as two standalone films, Star Wars has introduced fans everywhere to key relationships that have been met with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Uncompromising in its commitment to stories about love, redemption, and hope, Star Wars is a series filled with loves both old and new. As is always the case, though, not all romances, duos and friendships have been received well by the saga's fans.

10 Fans Were Behind: Lando and L3-37

Arguably one of the most innovative relationships in the entirety of the Star Wars saga, the bond between Lando Calrissian and his faithful droid L3-37 is one that took viewers by surprise in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

The movie frankly discussed the potential of a romantic relationship between them, even if L3 dismissed the idea of it out of hand due to Lando's nature. After the tragic loss of L3 during a key battle in the film, Lando appeared almost irreparably shaken in her absence, going on to incorporate her central system into the Millennium Falcon to ensure her legacy would continue.

9 Fans Rejected: Luke and Leia

Star Wars might be a lot of things, but Game of Thrones it certainly is not. That's why, of course, the brief romantic text explored between Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa never sat well with fans during the original trilogy of films.

It's entirely possible that it wasn't yet completely decided upon, during the production of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, that Luke and Leia would eventually be revealed as twins during the final act of Return of the Jedi. But that doesn't make their flirtation, or their kiss, any more comfortable.

8 Fans Were Behind: Finn and Poe

From the moment Finn (then known as FN-2187) and hotshot Resistance pilot Poe Dameron shared the screen in The Force Awakens, fans have been clamoring for more of this now iconic duo.

RELATED: Star Wars: The Clone Wars - 10 Crucial Plotlines To Remember Before The New Disney+ Season

Whether fans have been invested in FinnPoe or Stormpilot in a platonic or romantic sense, it's clear that the bond between these two has been a real crowd pleaser, no matter how little screentime they've actually shared. This dynamic duo helped to endear a whole new generation to the series.

7 Fans Were Behind: Finn and Rose

From the moment Finn and Rose Tico met in the first act of The Last Jedi, it was clear that fans were witnessing the introduction of a very important storyline. The duo met at incredibly key moments in both of their lives: Rose was reeling from the tragic, heroic death of her big sister, Paige, and Finn was having a crisis of faith as he considered abandoning the Resistance.

Through their adventure in Canto Bight, and their heroic efforts during the battle on Crait, Finn and Rose more than proved their compatibility, especially when Rose nearly sacrificed it all to save Finn, before kissing him.

6 Fans Rejected: Jyn and Cassian

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is perhaps the rockiest of the new generation of Star Wars films, a film that suffered as a result of its limited scope and external knowledge that the characters weren't made privy to.

From the very beginning, it was clear that all of these characters would not survive their heroic mission. On the one hand, that made things all the more poignant for some of them. But on the other hand, it made the teasings of a romantic connection between Jyn and Cassian, two characters who couldn't have shared any less chemistry, all the more difficult for fans to rally around.

5 Fans Were Behind: Rey and Kylo Ren

The relationship that has developed between young scavenger Jedi Rey and tormented First Order leader Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo, has continually proven itself to be one of the most fascinating things about the sequel trilogy. Though the relationship dubbed by fans online as Reylo might be one of the more divisive in the franchise, there's no denying that the fanbase that has developed around this pairing is massive, incredibly positive, and truly a sight to behold.

These two lost souls are both struggling in similar ways - with loneliness, with their powers, and with the legacies that have been passed onto their shoulders. The Last Jedi showed that, through their Force bond connection, they have what it takes to become one of the most important relationships in all of Star Wars. Only time will tell if things go that way.

4 Fans Rejected: Han and Qi'ra

As with Rogue One, Solo was released with a burden of telling stories limited by existing in the past and during a very brief time frame. In the case of Han Solo's young romantic life, there was also the unenviable fact that no suggested romantic relationship would ever compare to the epic, sweeping romance between Han and Leia.

RELATED: Star Wars: 10 Ways The Rise Of Skywalker Can Give Leia A Fitting Send-Off

So, when the film introduced a young love dynamic between Han and eventual villain Qi'ra, it was a loser from the get go. This relationship was one that definitely should've been condensed in editing.

3 Fans Were Behind: R2-D2 and C-3PO

No list of beloved Star Wars dynamics would ever feel truly complete without the franchise's true ride-or-die relationship: the epic bromance between long time droid best friends R2-D2 and C-3PO.

The two beloved droids are the longest lasting characters in the entire series; characters who have been there for it all and been at each other's sides for almost just as long. Through their "old married couple" banter and their willingness to embark on any adventure as long as they're by each others' side, it's clear that these two are the real deal and always will be.

2 Fans Were Behind: Han and Leia

The scoundrel and the princess. The bad boy and the good girl. Things don't get much more archetypal than that, and in the case of Star Wars' longest love story between Han Solo and Leia Organa, they truly don't get much more epic than that either.

The chemistry between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher is unmatched, and every scene the will-they, won't-they couple shares from A New Hope, all the way through The Force Awakens, is simply electric. It's impossible to hear even a single second of their sweeping score, or to think of the lines "I love you." "I know," without being moved in some way. These two are about as beloved as it gets.

1 Fans Rejected: Anakin and Padme

Chemistry is subjective, we totally get that. However, it's hard to think of a couple in recent cinematic history that has been more poorly matched in terms of believability than the one portrayed by Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman in the prequel trilogy of films.

Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala are two of the most influential characters in all of Star Wars canon, but from day one, their relationship never felt real enough to care about. Its tragic ending was indeed that - truly tragic and avoidable. If the franchise had found a way to avoid their relationship altogether, and still allow the characters of Luke and Leia to exist afterward, we would have been more than okay with it.

NEXT: The 10 Coolest Star Wars Characters, Ranked By Their Feats

source https://screenrant.com/star-wars-best-worst-relationships-friendships-fans-supported-rejected/

[j-watched-something]

J Watched Netflix’s Death Note 2017 [SPOILERS]

Introduction

When it comes to adaptations, viewers for the most part fall into two groups: fans of the original source material who want to see the adaptation do the original justice and viewers who have either no or some passing knowledge of the source material and are there to enjoy a movie. With Netflix's Death Note, the recent American film adaptation of the Japanese manga of the same name, I find myself in the second group.

Now, I'm not a complete Death Note virgin. I've been in fandom circles for the past 12 years now and with a series as iconic as Death Note, you can't not know at least a little about it. Personally, I've seen the first two episodes of the anime and the first Japanese live action film that came out. I saw these probably when I was fourteen or fifteen which dates my exposure to this series by about nine or ten years (I feel old...). The rest of what I know comes from the billions of internet memes, listening to one of my mega-fan friends talk about the series (these conversations also taking place nine or ten years ago), and whatever I happened to come across on my dashboard while scrolling through Tumblr.

I'm writing this introduction part out before I watch the movie. I wanted to jot down what I knew about the series and my position in relation to it so that everyone could know where I was coming from when I gave my review. So to establish a starting point for myself, here's what I (think I) know about the Death Note series (potentially inaccurate spoilers up ahead):

Death Note is about a genius high school student named Light Yagami who comes across a book, the titular Death Note, that has the power to kill a person if you write their name down in it. The book will even allow you to specify the time and details of the person's death and you can plot out their actions for quite some time leading up to their demise. Light sees the Death Note as a way to become a god and starts using it to rid the world of those he deems evil. Multiple deaths start occurring and somehow people come to the conclusion that a person is behind it and this person becomes known as “Kira.” A task force is organized with the purpose of bringing in Kira and Light's father is one of the people on this task force. Enter L, a detective who is very reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes. His mental abilities far surpass the people around him, he displays strange quirks (a love of sweets and the strange manner in which he holds his body and how he sits), and his social skills are lacking and perhaps unimportant to him. L and Light are equally matched intellectually and a cat and mouse game begins to take place as they try to outsmart one another. Light's ego and increasing paranoia from being pursued by the police leads him to sometimes stray from his original intentions with the Death Note as he tries to destroy the people in his way.

Other characters I know about are Misa Amane and Ryuk. Misa has feelings for Light and has a Death Note of her own. She has an ability linked to the Death Note that Light finds useful and he treats her as a pawn in his bigger plan, keeping her around only because of this ability and not because he returns her feelings. Ryuk is a Shinigami, or Death God, and is connected to the Death Note. Only people who've touched the Death Note can see him and he spends a lot of his time snarking at Light and his plans. Also he really likes apples.

There's a scene in which L manages to trick Light into revealing his general location by limiting a news broadcast to a specific area and another scene where Light uses a potato chip to throw off the police and that's about all I know for plot points.

As you can see, I know probably about as much as one would get by reading a summary slapped on the back cover of a book, and I'm not even sure if some parts of my information is accurate. I'm pretty removed from the source material as I head into this movie. I've noticed that a lot of the fans of the original are very unhappy with the movie (to put it lightly) and I'm curious as a non-fan if I'll enjoy it. Are the problems with this film strictly as an adaptation or does it fall flat as a standalone as well? My review will look at the film first and foremost as a movie, but I will set aside some time at the end to reflect on it as an adaptation as well (though I'm not sure how much I can contribute to that conversation).

I'll see you all on the other side!

Review [Spoilers Ahead!]

There is so much to talk about.

This movie is bad. The lead is atrocious, the leaps in logic are ridiculous, and the movie can't for the life of it figure out what tone it's going for, but damn if I did not enjoy every minute of this movie.

I watched it with my dad, who knew absolutely nothing about Death Note going in, and we laughed our asses off. I'm reminded of the first time I watched Maximum Overdrive, and how the over the top ridiculousness of it just made it even more fun. It felt as though at every moment where they should have taken things seriously, someone in production tripped and dropped cheese onto the project.

There is a part in this film where, during what's supposed to be a serious and tragic moment, everything goes into slow-mo and “I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love” by Chicago starts playing in the background. That is all I need to tell you for you to understand what kind of movie you're getting yourself into.

Let's start getting into the specifics of this beautiful disaster.

Everything about this film is over the top. A lot of the deaths are super gory in the film. Everyone's head has to explode, or their body has to explode. Human beings in this universe are one hard push away from gooey destruction. One guy in the film has a heart attack, but he couldn't just have a heart attack, he also had to fall down a flight of stairs. Mia's death at the end of the film wasn't gross, but it was still over the top. Homegirl fell down onto a display from a flower shop, petals erupting from her crash site in slow motion as an 80s love ballad played on in the background. Good lord.

Speaking of slow motion, there's a lot of it in this film, or at least it feels like there is. I wouldn't say that they use slow motion more in this movie than what is typically normal these days, but it's how they're using it. There aren't any complex choreographed action scenes in this film, the only times they use slow motion is to enhance a serious moment or to show off the aforementioned gore, and in the case of the former, it really doesn't work out. The use of slow motion to make things more dramatic reminds me of slow motion in 90s movies where I'm sure everyone at the time thought it was really enhancing the impact of the serious moment but in hindsight it's unintentionally funny.

The over the top nature of the film really hurts it. Everything is taken a step too far and because of that, what's supposed to be taken seriously becomes comical. Yes, I'll say that it's because of this that I really enjoyed the film, but that wasn't the intention here. This film wasn't supposed to entertain me in the way it did.

There were some good ideas in this film that never went all the way through. The soundtrack has a lot of 80s soft rock in it and even the score seems 80s inspired with its use of synthesizers. A lot of the important conversations and confrontations between characters take place with the actors lit up by a nearby neon sign. The chase scene towards the end of the movie where the characters are running through alleys and across construction sites, through a diner, also features a lot of neon lighting. It felt like the film was trying for an homage to 80s detective thrillers but they never fully committed to it. While I'm not sure an homage to 80s detective thrillers would have worked out, they shouldn't have just stopped halfway through the concept. Another good idea that went nowhere was the possible moral dilemma that naturally comes along with the nature of something like the Death Note. Being presented with the power to kill anyone with a low chance of getting caught is an Ethics professor's wet dream. We get some talk here and there of whether or not Kira has the right to do what they do, but it's in passing conversations that never go anywhere important.

There are certain things that I will say were genuinely good in this movie aside from a couple of the actors. I thought there was a lot of well shot scenes in this film, I thought the lighting at certain moments was good and as a fan of 80s music, I liked the soundtrack and score.

On to the characters. The ones I'll be focusing on are Light Turner, the person who receives the Death Note at the beginning of the film, Mia Sutton, Light Turner's crush, then girlfriend and partner-in-crime as the serial killer Kira, Ryuk, the Death God who gave Light Turner the Death Note, and L, the FBI detective determined to bring Kira in to answer for their crimes.

Light Turner. Dear God. First of all, besides Ryuk and L, all of the other characters from the series that I'm aware of got westernized names and honestly they should have done that for Light, because “Light Turner” is way too ridiculous for me to deal with right now and I'm probably going to say it as many times as I can in this review just because it makes me laugh. I guess the creative team thought that the fans might be mad if they changed Light's name, but man that is probably the last thing they should have been worried about and I'll get to that later.

I honestly have no idea what they were going for with Light Turner, because nothing they try sticks its landing. I haven't seen the actor, Nat Wolff, in anything before this, so I can't speak about his talents as an actor in general, but this didn't seem to be the right role for him. Most of his line delivery fell flat, there were times when Light Turner was supposed to say something sarcastic and he never got the timing or the tone right, and it seemed to me that every time he had to say a swear word, he'd fumble over it like he wasn't comfortable with saying it. It doesn't help when he has to act alongside established actors like Willem Dafoe and in general, a lot of his costars outperform him.

There wasn't any charisma or intensity to Light Turner. There's a part at the beginning where he's trying to defend his crush from a bully and his “threat” to this bully is telling him that because he was held back in school and is 18, if he hit Light Turner, it would technically be child abuse and he could get in tr-*punch* And yes, it was funny, but it was also kind of lame and it doesn't help Light Turner's character when added to what I have to believe is the now infamous “screaming scene” where he spends a full minute screaming like a goat and hiding under desks after seeing Ryuk for the first time. He's never able to shed that image of him during the rest of the film, making his more serious moments hard to take seriously.

Throughout the film, there are times when other characters will speak about how smart Light Turner is, but we're never really shown anything to suggest that he's smarter than the people around him, in fact, he does things that are very, very stupid. I'm not kidding when I say that this guy is probably the worst serial killer I've ever seen, and it's kind of troubling that I know I'd be able to pull it off better than he does. Right off the bat, he shows the Death Note to Mia the day after he kills his first two victims and goes as far as to kill another person to prove it to her that it actually works. This is stupid for many obvious reasons and he doesn't stop there. He and Mia decide to use the Death Note to rid the world of evil, he chooses the name “Kira” then acknowledges that in some languages Kira means “Light.” When Mia smartly points out that that would make it easier for people to connect to the killings to him should they look hard enough, he tells her that it's okay because Kira also “kind of means 'killer' in Japanese,” and then uses that point to throw people off but even that is seen through eventually (by L, but the fact remains that he saw through it). His father, James, is investigating Kira, and Light Turner is cartoonishly suspicious whenever he tries to get information on how the investigation's coming along from his dad. At the end of the film, Light Turner pulls off some genius plan using the Death Note, but let me tell you, nothing in the movie leading up to that point led me to believe that he was smart enough to do that. This point actually brings me to Mia.

Mia Sutton starts out as Light Turner's love interest but then becomes, in my opinion, the head of the operation when it comes to their activity as Kira. She's more cold and calculating than Light Turner, and enjoys the god aspect of being Kira more than he does, referring to the people of the world as sheep. Mia would go as far as she needed to go to keep Kira a secret, which is something Light Turner wouldn't do. She's so ruthless that I honestly found her a more interesting character than Light Turner, she definitely made a smarter killer than he did and sometimes I felt as though L should have been pursuing her rather than Light Turner as the person behind Kira. At the very least, L, as smart as he's supposed to be, should have been able to deduce that Kira was not one person, but two. The script pushed so hard for it to be between Light and L (probably because they had to, but that's a point for later) that even though Mia's doing a lot of the driving as Kira, her involvement is basically ignored by the plot at certain points. I will say that as much as I enjoy her character, this is still Netflix's Death Note, and she doesn't escape the fate the other characters suffer. She doesn't do anything ground breaking, and really, it's hard not to outshine Light Turner in this movie. She also falls victim to the idiocy that plagues most of the characters in this film, like using the testimony of random people on the internet as good enough evidence that a person deserves to die (though honestly I'm not sure if she particularly cares about the guilt of the people she kills, but we're not allowed to learn anything about who she is and what drives her), and eventually getting outsmarted by Light Turner, which is super embarrassing.

Ryuk is...fine? I mean he's just sort of there. Willem Dafoe does a good job with his voice work here but the character honestly isn't given much to do. I liked how they presented Ryuk in the film, always keeping him partially in the shadows. His glowing eyes peeking out of the darkness was really cool, and judging by the effects on him that I could see when he moved a little further in the light, I do think the shadows help make up for the limitations of what they could do. He looks more real this way, and yeah it's bad that the CGI's quality requires this sort of trick, but honestly it's better than parading poor effects around in the light.

L was pretty interesting in the first half of his screen time. Lakeith Stanfield is a good actor and he played his part well. His obsession with candy, how he carried himself, and his weird way of sitting in chairs fit well into the movie, but I'm not sure if this was a good thing. It was definitely ridiculous to watch and at times it was hard to take him seriously, but when I think about it, Light Turner was hard to take seriously so it kind of works out fine in this ridiculous movie. One thing that bothered me about his character is the insane leaps in logic he had. He jumped to conclusions quite a bit in this film and he  doesn't really explain himself very well if at all. Yes, most of his deductions turned out to be right, but that doesn't excuse the writers for cutting corners. There's a point in this movie where L's associate and father figure, Watari, is in danger and is ultimately killed, and after that L's character goes off the rails. He becomes angry and reckless. He ends up getting his hands on a gun and the final confrontation between him and Light Turner is a chase scene. I'm honestly very split on the shift in L's character. It's obvious from Lakeith Stanfield's performance earlier in the film that he did some homework and tried to stay true to the L from the anime. He nailed his idiosyncrasies to the point where it's hard to view his performance without thinking about the anime. With everyone else so divorced from the characters that they're supposedly playing, he was the one character that was still pretty faithful and it's hard not to take note of that. So then comes the character shift. From what I know about the anime I don't think L would act like this, but just looking at the L that appears in this film who's under the control of a different creative mind, maybe he would. It's also hard to deny that there are moments when Lakeith Stanfield does a good job of getting across the anguish, anger, and grief his character is experiencing. I guess ultimately what disappoints me about the turn L takes in this film is that I wanted more of an intellectual confrontation between him and Light Turner, and then what follows that is the deeper disappointment of realizing that Light Turner doesn't seem smart enough for that kind of confrontation. Maybe they had to make L into a last minute action character to make the confrontation with his adversary work.

One scene I just have to talk about in full is the chase scene which has to be my favorite scene in the movie as well as a perfect example of everything wrong with the film. The chase starts off with L in a police car armed with a gun and driving like a maniac through the streets trying to catch Light Turner, who's currently escaping on foot. At several points, L nearly runs down pedestrians and at one point crashes through an ironic sign about safe driving because this movie can't help itself. Eventually, L leaves his car and begins to pursue Light Turner on foot and I swear to God these two run through specific places just so that they have people to push out of the way and stuff to knock over. The movie is so convinced that watching them push people over is super cool and action-y and wow that at one point they show Light Turner running through a back alley that just happens to have a group of twenty people standing there and positioned so that they block the entire way through and Light Turner has to push them aside. The boys take a turn into a stereotypical action diner, entering through the back so they have to run through the kitchen and then they go out to the seating area and through the front door. Again, because this movie just can't help itself, as L runs through the seating area of the diner, he bumps into one of the patrons and accidentally shoves the man's face into his bowl of soup. The whole way through this, L is shouting after Light Turner and Light Turner is letting out little high pitched yelps. It's so dumb, so cheesy, and so beautiful. I love this scene.

For the most part, I've tried to avoid talking about this film in comparison to the original source material, but the rest that I have to say about it only makes sense if I talk about it as an adaptation so I'm going to head into that now.

Light Turner's character is a really dramatic departure from his anime counterpart, and in some respects I feel like this is kind of insulting to the western audience this adaptation was made for. Light from the source material was a mastermind, a megalomaniac, a genius. Light Turner is a stereotypical high school loser edgelord with a crush on the popular girl. The only thing the two Lights really have in common is that they're high school students and their fathers are in law enforcement. None of the original Light's character traits were carried over. It makes me think that the creative team or the marketing team didn't think we could be invested in a story with a complex character like Light Yagami, that our dumb western minds weren't ready for the intense intellectual cat and mouse game of the source material and that's why we got the lazy Hollywood trope for our lead and ended the movie with a chase and a sequence on a collapsing ferris wheel. Not to mention the changes they made for Light Turner really reminded me of how they adjusted Goku for an American audience in Dragon Ball Evolution. It's just about as lazy as you can get when westernizing a concept. The westernization is so predictable that they jammed a school dance into this. Really.

Mia, from what I can gather, is supposed to be the American version of Misa Amane, and the difference is even greater in this case than it was for the two Lights. It's funny how in this adaptation, the relationship dynamic between Light and Misa seems to have completely flipped. By the end of the film, Mia seemed more like the Light from the original than Light Turner did.

One of the thoughts that I came out of this movie with was that this might have been better off as a spin-off of Death Note rather than an adaptation of the original story, and my reasoning all comes down to the nature of Kira. Light as Kira in the original was an egotistical, calculating killer, taking careful steps to not get caught. Light Turner and Mia as Kira in the adaptation was more reminiscent of teenage couple spree killers. They make reckless mistakes, killing people too close to home, they seem to make a date night out of choosing their next victims, and the killings fuel their romance, especially from Mia's side. These different types of killers with different motivations will naturally make for different types of stories, and it feels like the creators in the adaptation's case really didn't want to make it. With how dramatically they changed Light and Misa, it seems to me that they liked the concept of the Death Note, not the story, but the book itself.

This movie focuses on the “what if” scenario of two dumb, jaded, pretentious kids suddenly having the power to kill whoever they want and what happens afterwards. That's not what the original Death Note was about, true, but it's still a story that could have been interesting. It's just that it wasn't the story the adaptation was supposed to tell, and I don't think it was right to try to tell that story with characters that weren't theirs. Even with original characters, this film still doesn't work, but it's not as insulting.

Final Thoughts

In the end this is a really bad adaptation, and possibly an entertainingly bad movie so long as you don't have any strong feelings for the source material. I feel kind of bad for enjoying this film as much as I did, especially when I think back on all the horrible comic book adaptations I've seen in my life, but I can't help but recommend this movie to the So Bad, It's Good crowd, so long as you don't know anything about Death Note. To all the Death Note fans, I'm so sorry.

(And a final tidbit I couldn't find anywhere else to bring up: The calculus book that plays a crucial role in this film is the same textbook my dad used in college back in 1972, and he got very excited about it. This book has been out of print for a long time, so I have no idea why Mia has it.)

[re-pression]

8/25/2017

Today was my last time spending time with Elsie and Kevin before I go back to San Jose. I’m glad I got to. We made katsudon, and it was delicious, and then watched the new Death Note netflix film that came out today. Needless to say, it was horrible, but it was even worse than I had anticipated. Like, it was horrid. Awful. Irredeemable. I wrote an entire review on it, which I’ll add to the bottom of the journal.

I really don’t have much else to say, other than the fact that I’m going to miss them... But I’m excited to go back to San Jose on Wednesday, and I’m especially excited about SacAnime. I start really packing tomorrow.

Let’s do this.

----------------------------

Okay, I’ve never written a review for a movie before, but I’m doing it for the first time here because I hated this movie THAT MUCH. Keep in mind, for all of you who haven’t watched the original Death Note series, this review will be laden with spoilers. Proceed with caution.

Now, I want to make it very clear that I understand how impossible it is to put an entire series into one movie. Most times, I don’t mind artistic liberties taken or scenes removed to make the movie feature film-friendly, because copying something scene by scene just doesn’t work for a movie adaptation. However, I would expect that the very basics of a plot are kept, and that the overall themes and mood are kept intact. This was NOT done in this film. This showed just… a blatant disregard and disrespect for the source material. It was like they simply took a name that people love just for the sake of having it. They didn’t pay any respect AT ALL. Let me explain.

First things first: Plot. Again, I understand taking artistic liberties in order to keep pacing suitable for a feature-length film. However, this film kept nothing. I can’t even make comparisons because literally nothing even remotely matched up. They only kept the main cast of characters (sort of) and the mere presence of the Death Note. The RULES in the Death Note weren’t even the same. Not a single character acted like their original counterpart. I’m not blaming actors for this at all, because I can’t really complain about the acting. That was entirely the script’s fault. Shame on you, scriptwriters. If any of you have seen the original series and then watched this botched piece of work, you’ll know what I’m talking about. From the story, to Light’s economic status, to the the very existence of his mother, EVERYTHING is wrong. A story has three parts: rising action, climax, resolution. Not a single one of these was the same. You would think a live-action reboot would have those, AT LEAST. Consider Disney’s live-action reboots. Extremely unnecessary, nobody really asked for them, but at least they had the basics of the story down! At least they, like, watched the original and made an attempt to recreate it respectfully. They take artistic liberties, add new songs, change some details, BUT AT LEAST THE STORY IS GENERALLY INTACT.

Next: Theme. The original series was meant to create a gray area between the roles of “protagonist” and “antagonist”. It was meant to make you question whether you were rooting for Light or L, and make you sympathize with both of them for different reasons. There was no clear “good guy” or “bad guy”, and that’s what makes the show so interesting to its fans. Light Yagami was a straight-A honors student with a clean record, on his way to becoming an upstanding member of society. His downfall was the introduction of the Death Note. No, it wasn’t Ryuk, as this film makes it out to me. In the original, Ryuk was a neutral party. He was an observer. He was simply the delivery method for Light’s downfall. It was Light who fell into the temptation and took those steps in the direction of a serial killer. He had a god complex and took it upon himself to create a new world free of crime, thus becoming a criminal himself in the process. In the series, this was a clear parallel to the biblical story of Lucifer. It was basically spelled out for you in the ep opening. The apples that Ryuk loved were a parallel to the forbidden fruit, a symbol of temptation, and then a symbol for the Death Note itself. This series set out to make you actually consider the concept of mass-killing criminals for the greater good. This film totally destroyed those themes of grayed morals and home-brewed destruction. It turned Light into a victim of circumstance rather than a totally self-aware genius with a god complex, thus rendering the original major theme that made the series SO WIDELY LOVED completely useless. You were forced into seeing the concept of mass-killing criminals as evil, rather than legitimately considering it and then seeing that it will ultimately only lead to more destruction in the end. You don’t get to think. You don’t get to consider alternatives. You don’t get to think through Lights’ and L’s schemes and work through how brilliant both of them are. This film had so many other aspects that just… didn’t survive this remake. The close rivalry between Light and L that went above a simple state of enemies. The total control that both Light and L had over their own plans. (This one just withered and died. Light was only shown as a genius in mention. The ONLY time he showed it was in the very final scene. And L was just… disappointing.) I could go on about this for a few more paragraphs AT LEAST but I’m gonna stop here.

Next: Mood. This one is a little more excusable as compared to the other things but I’m gonna complain about it anyway. The original series’ mood was one of the things that made me really fall in love with it. With a mix of color choice, unmistakable art style, and music, it was a perfect combination of sterile calculated mindgames and intense dramatic action. The juxtaposition made everything so complimentary, so everything was that much more impactful. The film was just grunge over drama over brooding over action over more drama. I felt suffocated by the sheer amount of edgy gore-fest romance death montage. Plus, the religious symbolism and mind games of the show really made the mood. It was a show that forced you to think and follow along. It wasn’t something you could mindlessly watch.

So, in short, this film is just… a disappointment. As a standalone film, sure, MAYBE it deserves it’s 40-ish percent rating from critics. I, however, find this to be very generous. In fact, I find 20% rather generous, because as a reboot, it fails completely. If you had given my father a synopsis of the original plot and told him to make a movie from it, he could have made something worthy of that 40%. And my father is a total IDIOT.

TLDR; this movie sucks.

[cryptoriawebb]

Dead Men Tell No Tales: review

What the hell, gotta start somewhere.

When I first heard about this movie, I initially wrote it off. The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been around for so long and unlike, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe or even the X-men films (of which I am personally partial to) they haven’t made any particular, long-standing mark, beyond Jack Sparrow as a character himself. That, and I wasn’t particularly impressed with On Stranger Tides. The story, I felt at the time, had wrapped up enough there needn’t be any further sequels, and standalone films (because that is what it felt like) seemed like nothing more than an excuse to keep pumping merchandise and Depp working in Hollywood.

However. I admit I have not seen On Stranger Tides since its release in 2011. I’m thinking I may go back and rewatch the entire saga, see if my overall opinion changes. I quite liked the first film, particularly the horrific angles and that it drew primary inspiration from a theme park attraction. When I heard this fifth installment was supposed to echo the first one in tone and supernatural involvement, I began to change my mind about writing it off. Then I saw the most recent trailer, a trailer that not only included Orlando Bloom, whom I assumed, along with Keira Knightly, left the franchise to pursue other opportunities, but Will and Elizabeth’s son. I admit, I’m a sucker for family relationship and tragic stories, and while yes, I would have been fine with leaving things At World’s End, a small part of me has always wondered what happened to the Turners after. Truthfully, I think I might have preferred a film focusing more on Bloom and less on Jack Sparrow; Jack’s…a unique eccentric, but as I said, I’m a sucker for tragedy.

Before I go any further I’d like to point out I tend to be anal about continuity. However many years apart these films are (any franchise, actually) they’re all telling one long story and things ought to flow as smoothly as possible. So I was a little confused, watching young Henry’s interaction with his father. If I remember correctly, Will could only return to land once every ten years, and the third film ended with the Dutchman sailing towards them. I may be wrong about that last part but I know for sure there was a ten year waiting period before reunion. So was this the first meeting between father and son? It didn’t seem that way, but the dialogue between them felt so melodramatic I couldn’t tell for sure. I’d like to think maybe it wasn’t, maybe Henry spent some months after meeting his father for the first time studying the Dutchman and mythology so he could find him at sea. Maybe along the lines of ‘finally meeting your father, seeing how much he cared for his family and how painful it was to say goodbye’ or something.

I blame the script more on Bloom’s delivery than the words themselves. I mean, they weren’t…the most original, reminded me of a soap opera, really, but there just didn’t seem to be any spark from Bloom, little or no energy. I don’t know if that was intentional or not but it kind of dampened what could have been a really dramatic moment. Ten years spent cursed among the dead…separated from your family against your will, that’s a lot to work with. I will say the boy who played Henry did a decent job capturing that urgent determination. I only wish it were reciprocated…

I’m not going to lie, part of me hoped, purely from a story perspective, Elizabeth had died. I think it might have added a little more to Henry’s character in adulthood; at the same time, I really did want to see the family reunited and I wasn’t expecting Knightly to appear, which might be why I informed my initial opinion. Off-screen mentions without appearance weakens a character’s intensity.

Honestly, I don’t have as much to say, scene-by-scene. Much of the film ran as most of in this franchise do: ludicrous schemes by Jack and his crew, chases and impromptu/chaotic character introductions, Barbossa’s sudden appearance, even the eerie sorcerous-types.  Don’t get me wrong, the story itself contained elements I didn’t see coming; I’m referring to the overall method of delivery—the journey itself as opposed to the stops along the way.

I do want to mention Salazar before I forget. His opening scene was fantastic and probably my favorite moment in the film. It was, and such a tease. I’d hoped by the way he looked and carried himself I was in for a really dark, horrific ride. Instead, that promise fell a bit flat in favor of quirky inflection and sexual innuendo. I will give the movie points for blending both the dark and humor well together: I’ve seen a few movies over the last couple of years fail spectacularly in this regard. And I also admit my inclinations for the spooky really are more personal preference than anything implied by promotion. It has been a few years since I’ve seen the first movie; it may not be quite as dark or scary as I remember, older as I am now.

Back to Salazar…he was by far my favorite part of the film. Yes, I have seen a lot of villains driven half-mad by revenge, but he held a kind of captivating power about him when on-screen. I couldn’t look away. Normally I’m not the biggest fan of computer-generated effects over the practical but it worked really well for Salazar and his crew. His face, his hair…when he first introduced himself as death I genuinely thought he might be. I would certainly by Death having a vendetta against Jack. He escaped…twice now? Technically? Although not without help, if I’m remembering correctly. Going back to effects, I was absolutely fascinated by he and his crew: you could tell even before the backstory they walked exactly as they died—his hair mimicking the water he drowned in I didn’t catch until the flashback but damn…such a cool effect. I do also want to point out what practical effects there were though. Salazar’s mouth—really all their mouths. I watched a bonus feature included in the first film some years ago that went in detail about applying ‘pirate teeth’ to the actors. I’m sure methods have changed over the years, but it’s no less interesting. Oh, and the black blood, or whatever it was…that was truly horrifying. I loved it. Salazar was by far my favorite character in this film and in my opinion, its one notable highlight.

Praise aside, I’m not sure introducing a new villain in the ‘final’ film was the best decision. It hurts me to say it because again, I loved Salazar, but I really think bringing someone back, someone the audience saw perish on one of Jack’s adventures, someone who blamed him or perhaps actively pursued and failed to capture/stop/kill him, might have added emotional weight. I had read there was speculation regarding Norrington’s return; I personally would have preferred this. He really came into his own as a character and serves as a prime example of what getting involved with Jack Sparrow can do. To see him undead and commanding a power he never possessed in life would have been so…I don’t want to say horrifying again but it would have. Especially a reunion with Barbossa!

Don’t get me wrong, I do think there is importance and significance in delving into Jack’s past. We see a lot of who Jack is and hear of what he’s done but we never see who he was and what made him the way he is. Though Jack isn’t my favorite character I know he’s the heart of this franchise and he deserves development, too. He’s constantly called ‘the worst pirate [I’ve] ever heard of.’ And that’s true, he really isn’t a good pirate…but he carries with him the essence of someone who once was. He still sees himself as this great, untouchable captain and I bet that’s why he’s stepped in so many times and prevented a lot of awful things from happening. That, and I’m sure some part of him cares about the people he’s with (which in hindsight may be why some people see him as a poor excuse for a pirate.) I don’t know…this isn’t meant to be a character study. Just some things to think about.

While not entirely necessary I did find it cool, seeing how Jack achieved much of his iconic attire. And where the compass came from…although I can’t for the life of me remember why it’s tied to the Devil’s Triangle. I really should have rewatched the other movies beforehand.

As far as the other new characters, I was pleasantly impressed. I worried I’d see copies of Will and Elizabeth in Henry and Carina; while there were small nods here and there both stood out as individuals, Carina especially. I was afraid she’d follow the same trend several female protagonists seem to suffer from lately; namely, a staple for female empowerment and nothing more. Thankfully, she wasn’t. Yes, she was strong-willed and stubborn but so is most everyone in this franchise and those traits are not at all signs of surefire propaganda. Adding astronomy/horology to her character also helped her stand out; I haven’t seen a character in the PotC world yet really touch on it, and it’s such a fascinating concept, at least to me, in historical fiction. Before the world of google and apple maps, there were stars. And people who could read them as easily as Siri can our phones fascinate me.

Loved her banter with Henry, too. It was cute, playful but not without that stubbornness on both ends. I’m usually adverse to the whole ‘love interest’ subplot; there’s hardly enough time in movies and during ones that move ahead, rarely any chemistry. I didn’t mind these two, even though I expected it. I think that lively, friendly spirit between them helped: they felt a lot more like equals than a lot of other romances I’ve seen on-screen lately. Speaking of the on-screen experience, I did not at all expect her to be Barbossa’s daughter. I’ve seen enough movies now I can usually predict most twist and turns; I didn’t at all see this coming. That was a pleasant surprise, especially when so much else about this film carried an almost fatigued familiarity. I did enjoy it, and I would probably go see it again, if only to see if there’s more to pick up, but it never once heightened the stakes beyond what this series has come to be known for. That, in my opinion, was probably the greatest tragedy.

Going back to the characters, because I’ve still more to say, I’m repeatedly amazed how Barbossa’s character continues to develop. In my personal opinion, he stands out the most because of it. Looking back on where he came from in the first film to now…there’s a real, honest heart and realness to him—you really feel what he feels and I was genuinely saddened by his death. I know someone had to die—someone usually does in ‘final’ chapters but I really wish it hadn’t been Barbossa.  I think some of this is definitely attributed to Geoffrey Rush, but some of it, too, to the script and direction. When he learned the truth about Carina, you could really see and feel what he felt; this continued in every scene following her but didn’t disrupt the pirate he was. Rather, I think it allowed another side only previously glimpsed to come out. Not just in previous films, but this one, too. I find it really interesting, and maybe clever, now, that he’s introduced as this lavish, temperamental ruler of the high seas. One might get the implication he’s become shallow, callous and full of himself, but this begins to change as his men begin to die and you discover more has changed than first assumed.

I really do wish Jack had been given an arc like Barbossa. Maybe not a surprise child, but something that drew more from him than his eccentricities. Although…one might argue the drunk, down on his luck pirate is development in of himself. We’ve seen Jack at his high points, but he isn’t where he was anymore and I wonder if the alcohol and insistence on tribute and whatnot are an attempt to cling to that greatness he once held…I digress. I would have liked to see more. Especially if this is the final installment. Jack is back on top again, but I’m not…entirely sure he earned it? If that makes any sense. He felt a lot more like a passenger in this film, an observer as opposed to an active participant. Strange, given the villain’s primary motives. In that regard, it is interesting when comparing him to Barbossa. At the start of the first film, they were in opposite positions. I mean Jack didn’t rule the high seas but he carried himself with an air that implied he believed it.

That sums up most of what I had to say. There are a few loose ends, however:

1)      Why did no one age? Hollywood has this bizarre notion we can just pretend however many years have passed despite no one except the young characters aging. I don’t buy it, and I don’t like it. Barbossa was the only one I felt who looked older, but only just. I would have liked to see Jack with a bit of gray in his hair, or Elizabeth with a few more lines. I’m fine with Will not aging, it makes sense for his character and it’s kind of interesting to think about: he’s spent so long aboard that ship, so long trapped in his cursed state while his son’s grown up…and for Will, physically, it’s like almost no time has passed at all.

2)      I’m glad Gibbs is back. He’s always been my favorite member of Jack’s crew. I did, however, miss those two goofy pirates. I forget their names, but one of them had a glass/wooden eye. They were always such fun characters and I can’t for the life of me remember what happened to them at the end of the last film (third film?)

3)      Paul McCartney! Didn’t recognize him until afterwards. I enjoyed the exchange, but I admit, that little scene confused me; I wondered if Uncle Jack had been mentioned or seen before. Now I understand.

4)      Did Barbossa know about the triton the whole time? Did he really believe it and study the location? I can’t remember.

5)      That possession scene was not nearly as freaky as it could have been. Salazar seemed so assured the Triton would fix everything it kind of killed its encompassing awe. There should have been more emotional weight and it should have lasted longer. I think that would have helped heighten the stakes. Everything in this movie was ‘a little of this, a little of that.’ Sampling but never having a full dish to yourself.

6)      I would have loved to see Poseidon. He’s one of my favorite Greek gods...although I doubt he’d actually look remotely Greek, but that’s another personal thing. I’m wondering if we’ll see him in a later film, now that his triton’s been destroyed. Or maybe he and the other gods have long since vanished—it kind of seems that way, with Calypso being a remaining oddity. Maybe the triton is a lone remaining artifact. Although I’m still surprised there wasn’t more protecting it. I can appreciate a different angle, although I think it hurt any direness the climax might have held.

7)      Speaking of the gods, do their curses remain in place, with the triton broken? That was never made clear…I hope so. I love the mythos of the sea and if this isn’t the last movie I’d like to see it brought back in some way. It’s always (well, once I got over my crush on Jack) been my biggest draw.

8)      What happened to Bootstrap Bill? Did he not board land with Will at the end of the film? Are we to assume he did even though we didn’t see it? Given the parallels between generations of fathers and sons, I’d hoped we’d see something more of him.

9)      Speaking of Will’s return, I did tear up a little but I felt Bloom’s acting fell flat, again. I really hope that’s just me though. I loved Will’s character arc and if there is another film I hope it follows the buzz I’ve heard so far: focusing on him and his son. Provided Orlando’s up for it, of course. I don’t want to sit through two and a half something hours of him half-assing it.

10)   Didn’t expect Keira’s cameo either. That was really touching.

11)   Davy Jones????? Is he back? Wikipedia (yes, Wikipedia) said the Triton freed him from Calypso. I’m wondering if that means curses set upon by gods remain unaffected by the triton. It would explain that slimy, tentacle-silhouette. But if he has returned, then why? How? Is he the last cursed creature of the sea? What does he have against Will, now? And will there be another movie?

12)   Less a critique and more personal wishlist:  I wanted more skeleton pirates. I don’t know how or why, but I wanted them. Really bring everything full circle although I have no idea how you’d bring it back. Maybe Salazar succeeds in ‘killing’ Jack or something but the Triton’s power gets in the way? I have no idea. That final battle in the first film was so memorable I really wanted to see something similar. I also wanted to see the Dutchman in action. The sea was literally parted, how cool would it be to see that ship swimming alongside one wall?

I really need to rewatch these movies. So many unanswered questions! I can’t believe I’m getting excited about PotC again…never thought that would happen in a million years.

[angelofberlin2000]

Interview: ‘John Wick: Chapter Two’ Director Chad Stahelski Discusses the Man, the Myth, the Legend

A long but VERY interesting article/interview!!!!

http://www.slashfilm.com/john-wick-chapter-2-director-chad-stahelski-interview/

Interview: ‘John Wick: Chapter Two’ Director Chad Stahelski Discusses the Man, the Myth, the Legend

Posted on Friday, February 10th, 2017 by Jack Giroux

John Wick: Chapter 2 isn’t a sequel that delivers more of the same. There are familiarities, but it’s more like the same engine in a slightly bigger, more stylish, and more aggressive car. The simplicity of the first movie remains, but the titular character finds himself in a larger and more dangerous world this time. The world, which takes a few ideas from Arthurian mythology, grows along with John Wick in the sequel.

Director Chad Stahelski, who co-directed the first movie with the uncredited David Leitch (Deadpool 2), shows audiences a different side of the character, while also delivering on the quality action sequences audiences now expect from a John Wick film. The director ups the stakes and increases the scale in the sequel without ever abandoning the titular character’s arc during all the beautifully orchestrated madness.

We recently spoke with the 87eleven co-founder at the press day for the sequel. We discussed finding the right story to tell, the film’s opening and closing action scenes, the influence of Buster Keaton, workshopping scenes with Keanu Reeves, and more with the filmmaker. Below, read our Chad Stahelski interview.

How did you decide on John Wick’s introduction in the sequel? 

We’re big fans of silent movies, or silent storytelling, or visual storytelling as opposed to just exposition. So I had to reveal what we’ve already determined is kind of a mythological figure. Once again, let’s just stick to what we know, we’ll just do it with … When I say action I just don’t mean stunts, I mean let’s just tell a story [visually]. It’s a wacky city.

I was trying to make a movie that was a good introduction to those that hadn’t seen the first film. So how do you introduce that wacky world that half the audience is in on and the other half is not in, and satisfy both? So we’re like, all right, let’s do a little bit of action. Let’s figure out what would be an interesting way to show them you’re not in for a Bourne or a reality-based action movie. It’s a little wacky, so let’s start with some wacky aerials. We’ll come down, and as a little nod to our established audience, we want everybody to know that we’re making fun of ourselves. We’re gonna start with Buster Keaton.

I went to Montreal on a scout for something different. Up there they had all these great projections going as part of an art thing in Montreal. We went to New York, and we saw all these kids from the NYC film school, and it was awesome, they’re just walking around with his little projector on a little red wagon. It was really funny. With a little generator, they’re projecting all these silent movie images up on buildings and taking pictures, and that was part of their art project. Like, that’s fucking genius. Yeah, I just talked to the kid, “I’m gonna steal your shit, man.”

So I was like, I’m gonna get the right to a Buster Keaton film, and I’m gonna project it on a wall, to let everybody know out there we’re making a fun action movie. We’re gonna tilt down off that, we’re just gonna see it fucking crash, and we’re gonna get right into it with “What the fuck is going on?” And then we want to do what I call The Shark and The Fish. We’re gonna design the music so it’s, “Da, da, da, da, bo, bo, bo, da, da, da, bo, bo.” So you see this little guy, “Why is he being chased by this car? Ahh!” And it’s like, “Oh my God, the shark’s chasing the fish. What’s going on? What’s going on?” And then we’re just gonna slam them in the car, and everybody goes, “Whoa.” And then John Wick’s gonna get up. All right cool, that sounds like an interesting way of doing it. But that’s not it, we’re not gonna show his face, and you’re gonna go, “Who the fuck is this guy?”

And then we’re gonna get into, let’s see who can we get? We need a very mythological, we need an orator, we need an Ian McShane. And Keanu is friends with Peter Stormare, and like I’d work with Peter on Constantine, and we’re like, “He’ll never do it. I know he’ll never talk to us.” And Keanu’s like, “Actually, Peter came up to me in the gym the other day and goes, “Why am I not in John Wick 2?” So, I’m like, “You’re kidding?” Keanu’s like, “No, no, I’m serious.” I’m like, “Don’t fuck with me. You’re serious?” He’s like, “No, no, no, really you should call him. Call Peter.” “[Stomare voice] Chad, what’s going on, my friend, I’d love to be in your movie.” We’re like, you’re shitting us. I said, “Okay, well I tell you what, you’re gonna be the orator, you’re gonna introduce John Wick to us in this.”

Derek, I, and Keanu all sat down, and we wrote, “The man, and the myth, and the legend.” And we wrote this little intro about how to recap the first movie. “He killed my brother, my nephew.” We wrote that. We’re just gonna do it as a cool little intercut.

What it’d take to get the rights to the Buster Keaton film?

Phone call.

Just a phone call?

I have a great line producer, a guy named Jeff Waxman, who literally went in and said, “Are you’re sure about this?” I was like, “Yeah!” A couple of phone calls, and we paid the licensing rights, it was very, very easy. Actually, I was shocked, too. I was like, “Really, it was that easy?”

Derek mentioned some other story ideas for Chapter 2. What other ideas did you all discuss? 

Oh my god, brother, you don’t have enough time. I think we started talking about a sequel in January, like literally right after the holiday. The movie opened in October. We were working on different projects at the time trying to finish our second unit career. We didn’t know the first one was gonna do good. So that Basil Iwanyk, the producer, got us all on the phone and said, “Look, we gotta start talking about this. The studio is very interested in a second one.” We had committed to engage it should we find an idea that was was worthwhile. It wasn’t gonna make a mockery of what we had done in the first one, which is always the fucking danger, right?

Right after the holidays, we started getting together. We all had ideas of cool characters and stuff, that was no problem. The world development, great. I already had like ten pages of notes. Storywise, was John Wick saving a cat, were we killing a dog, were we rescuing a baby, does he fall in love? We really got into the plot side of things. And to tell you the truth, six months later in June we still did not have a coherent plot. We were kinda shitting our pants. The studio was kind of pressuring us to start shooting that fall. And we were adamant that like, look we’re  — and I mean everyone, even the studio — not going into this with just a B action plot, like it’s gotta be something that fits our world.

The ideas that had been chucked were anything from comical, to absurd, to kind of cool, just not us. Like, in any other action movie that was grounded it probably would have made sense. You know, about money, about taking over the city, about all … it just felt false to us because it wasn’t mythological. It didn’t sound larger than life.

Then we were bitchin’ to Keanu one day going, “Fuck, dude.” He’s like, “Look, what did you like about the first one?” “What do you mean? You know what I like about it, you were there. What are you talking about?” He’s like, “What did you like?” I was like, “It was super simple, and it was based on a myth. It was a Greek myth. It was, you know, dog, love lost, karma, go kill people who killed dog.” He was like, “Enough said. Figure it out.” You know, yeah, the fucker’s right. Keep it simple.

So Derek had introduced this idea about a marker, about a story we had told about in the stunt community, and it had happened once when I was in a stunt group. One of the older stunt guys had passed away, and they did something called a remembrance coin. It’s about a silver dollar size, it has the guy’s name printed on it and says, “In loving memory of ‘individual’s name.'” And when the stunt guys would go out and drink, one guy would pull out the coin, whoever didn’t have the memory coin would have to buy the round. Just a, you know, goofy way of remembering somebody, whatever it is.

And Derek took that a step further to something called The Marker, and we took that as a bond on life. So it was like a favor, it’s a bond, it’s a check you write with your life. It was taken in a different way. He wanted to use it in a different way, and we’re like, we love that idea, there’s something mythical that it’s a talisman. There’s something cool about that. You trade your life for a favor. And we’re like, well, wait a minute. John Wick got out. We’re not doing a prequel. We wanted to, just didn’t fit quite where we were at. We’re like, okay, he gives that for the favor he did to do the impossible task to get out, and we’re gonna hold that. So if the first one didn’t have it, and the second one didn’t have it, that’s very karmically apt to what the kind of mythology we’re doing. So we just kind of ran with that in creating a very, very simple story, like John owes someone a favor.

The sequel builds on ideas from the first movie. It’s not like some of the standalone Bond films or other sequels. Do you see these chapters telling one story?

What you’re talking about is the episodic theory, like Magnum P.I. The story is Magnum’s doing something, bad guys do something, solves the case by the end of the show. Or, nowadays TV is it’s three seasons of day to day to day continuing the story. I’m a fan of both ways, depends on the project. This I see 1, 2, and 3 is part of the same ongoing story, where we find him now. Granted, 1 and 2 take place within the same week. Number 3 may be a little bit more of a duration for John to get lost in the world then come back.

We basically almost have a prequel written, but we’d save that for other aspects of the property. Lionsgate is very interested in doing a John Wick TV show, and that seems very appealing to us to give those creative ideas to that entity. I think that TV could really expand on what that is, great, than we could in just a two-hour film. We’d like to wrap up the story we’re telling now and then maybe save all our prequel ideas and our impossible tasks for that medium.

You mentioned you had pages and pages of notes before Derek started writing. Were there any memorable ideas in those notes that didn’t make the movie? 

Oh my god, about nine pages of it. Nine or ten pages, so plenty for number 3. One of my favorite things, and definitely Keanu’s favorite scene, happens in Rome. Before he goes to all the other assassins, he goes to a very Vaticanesque-looking building where he asks permission from certain clergy, religious clergy. We’ve tied in the ancientness and the mythological world of religion into our thing. It just bumped a little bit on the overall plot, because it was a little too ambiguous, so it was taken out. We also had a B-plot when we shot the film about how Santino was trying to control the flow of gold coins. Tied into those scenes,  there’s a great scene between Riccardo Scamarcio and John Leguizamo.

Unfortunately, when we thinned down and really streamlined the plot, that B-plot didn’t fit, so we had to lift the scene. It was a really fun scene between John Leguizamo and Ricardo Scamarcio, but that scene didn’t quite make it. It was in Aurelio’s garage. John Leguizamo gave a fantastic soliloquy that unfortunately, we didn’t get to keep in the film. There are two characters that I can really expand on in the third one, one is John Leguizamo’s character, Aurelio, because he’s such a big part of the first film, and Lance Reddick character, as our concierge in The Continental.

The major second act action scene in Rome is almost exhausting, in a good way. What did it take to prep that sequence? 

One thing, I love music, to the point of ridiculousness. That’s why we did the club scene in the first one. I think music is a great motivator, especially when you’re in a, not just a club scene, but music in general I think can tell a lot of the story. It can give it tone. And number two, we have a shitload of classical music that’s been electricized a little bit. Like, the last scene in the museum is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Summer, I think. That was done through synthesizers and actually done with firearm percussion, instead of drums. We use Haydn, we use Chopin… there’s a ton of different classical music in this.

I always wanted to do like an opera, but when I said opera, I think the producers thought I meant more classical opera. No, I want to do like Tommy, like a rock opera, and I want to do a gunfight. I don’t want to do a club scene, like the first movie, I want to do a coronation, and we wanted to design something that was about live performances, and only for our underworld. Whereas in Collateral, Tom Cruise would fire a gun and everybody would run for cover, this is all our world, so if somebody’s shot in the head, they’d cheer. This is like surreal, and like everyone’s staring at me like, “What the fuck? Is this a Dr. Seuss fucking LSD thing?” I’m like, no man I want to do a rock opera.

Cassandra [Nostalghia], the girl we see doing the opera, she’s the girl that did the vocals in the first movie for a lot of the soundtrack, for a lot of the score. So I asked, “How’d you like to do the performance?” And the wacky guy playing the guitar, that’s Tyler Bates, he’s my composer. He’s the one who did all the sound effects for Guardians of the Galaxy, 300, and John Wick. I was like, “So, why don’t you guys fly to Rome? We’re gonna put you on stage for the concert, you’re gonna do that, and in the middle of it, John Wick’s gonna come through and we’re gonna have a gunfight.” They’re all staring at me. And on top of that, it’s gonna be in 2000-year-old ancient Rome. It’s like, you’re never gonna find a place [like that]. It’s like, ah, get my line producer, we’ll fly over to Rome, we’re gonna talk to everybody.

The Colosseum was off limits, the Vatican was off limits. We go to Caracalla Baths, which is one of the oldest ruins in Rome. Our local producer there, a lovely man, took us in to meet the curator. They have a lot of events there. The Boston Symphony’s been there, The London Opera’s been there, so we thought maybe there’s a chance.

As she’s walking us through it, we’re like, “Look, we would like to do a big stage right here. We want a lot of light towers. We want to put 500 people in here, and then we want our lead character to run through this.” She’s like, “Oh great. What’s he doing?” “Well he’s going to be running from bad guys and he’s gonna be shooting two, three dozen people in the face the whole time.” She’s like, “Okay that’s great, that’s great. Just try not to step on those ruins coming through the grass here.” “Okay. Oh … you sure?” She’s like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s great. Sounds fun.” “[Confused] Okay, um. We were also looking for this place. We kinda had this image of him going through Ancient Rome, the sewers, the catacombs.” She says, “Oh yeah, come with me right downstairs.” “What? In the same location?” “Yeah, you’re standing right above them.”

So where you see that stage in the movie, directly, in the real world, those catacombs are directly under that stage. In movies, that never fucking happens. You gotta do like three or four locations to put it together on film through editing. We’re like, “Really, we go around that stage, step through this hole, we’re in the …?” “Yeah.” “All right well down here we want to kill two or three dozen more people, but with automatic weapons and a shotgun.” She’s like, “Yeah.” “How old are these?” “Oh, 2,000 years.” “Okay, well this isn’t …” “Oh yeah, this is one of the oldest places in … This a sacred place.” “But you …?” “Yeah, yeah, try and just … You can’t dig. You can clear, but you can’t move any ancient stones.” “Can we put lights on here? Can the stunt guy… But you don’t understand when you shoot something …” “Oh yeah, it’s been here 2,000 years. You ain’t gonna break it.”

Like, we couldn’t move a leaf in Central Park. But now I can throw 20 stunt guys against 2000-year-old ruins with a shotgun. That’s kind of how that sequence came about.

To me, it was one of the funnest moments ever in my film career. Standing on that stage looking out over, having Tyler Bates and a real rock band behind me, playing music as all the extras are having a good time. Just kinda like, “Holy shit, somebody pays me to do this.”

When John Wick goes underground in the tunnels, it’s dark but, unlike a lot of action scenes set in the dark, you can tell what’s happening. 

We have a fantastic cinematographer, Dan Lausten (Brotherhood of the Wolf), who spent two weeks down there with the action team coming up with a lighting scheme that was … I like shadows. I like dark, but as you brought up, sometimes dark means you can’t see. We did movie dark, which means you can see, and we did that with different shades of blue and green, as you saw down there. So you can see into the black.

The movie is gorgeous, by the way. 

Dan and I spent about four months designing the colors. I learned more from that man in a show than I’ve learned in my whole career.

What did those four months involve? 

I do something called the lookbook. I do pulls. I go on the internet, and I found every art, photography website that you can possibly access in the time allowed to a normal human being. Bring out colors, and palettes, and set pieces that are aesthetically very pleasing to me. Then I hand, literally, 8,000 photos to my cinematographer and we spend weeks going over each one. Then we devise a color chart, and what the scene means, and where we want to do it. Dan and I get on every plane and find these locations. He starts designing, and designing, and designing and then he’s gotta make it happen on the day. He’s worked a lot with Guillermo del Toro, who in my estimation is one of the best world creators in the business. What was the Guillermo del Toro movie came out right before we came out?

Crimson Peak.

Crimson Peak, yes, thank you. I didn’t overall love the film, but the look of the movie and what he had done with color, and how everything could be so black but yet you could see so deep with the little of blue or red. I was just mesmerized. Again, we look a little too critical at things, so you can’t really enjoy the film. Sometimes you’re so busy looking at how it was done. I remember watching Crimson Peak completely taken out of the movie by how good the lighting and the world was. I was mesmerized, like who the fuck lit this thing? It’s beautiful, and it was Dan Laustsen. I was like, how do I get this guy? I was amazed. I figured if he could do that with just simple set pieces, what could he do with old ruins and action?

Dan was an incredibly collaborative man who just loved to light, what we call now, in camera. There’s a lot of lighting process being done post, in something called digital intermediate. You know, computers. Dan lights as if he’s lighting for film, very, very much in camera and on the day. So when you’re looking through the camera, you’re looking at what you will get. To find that kind of artistry nowadays is fairly rare.

How about the final action sequence? I imagine with those reflections and those tight spaces it was a challenge. 

Six months of prep. From development to actualization, and then another six months of post, meaning visual effects on how to get people out of reflection. It was a little tricky. We absolutely knew it was going to be difficult. It was a huge process between myself, Dan Laustsen, cinematographer, and Kevin Kavanaugh, our production designer. I could tell they were the right guys when I hired them.

I said I wanted to take Enter the Dragon and twist it on its head and add in lights and color, and neither one batted an eye. Like they go, “Ah, cool. We should do this.” And Kevin was, “All right, well let’s do it three dimensional. Put a stair, you know, [M.C.] Escher …” A very famous architect, or conceptual drawing artist. We want to do an Escher staircase, an infinite staircase. I’m like, “Well that’s a great idea.” And Dan was like, “Well, mirrors are boring, let’s put LED lights everywhere, and we’ll change the color, and we’ll project.

We all went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and there was this video exhibition. We’re like, well not just lights, let’s put a video in there that’ll change colors and flash and make it all weird. We’re like, yeah, it’ll be like a disco. It was just a bunch of really smart, creative men putting their heads together and coming up with something really cool.

[Spoilers Ahead]

Are there any scenes without action that took extra time to get right in the editing room?

I really like, and I don’t think it was the hardest, but I like the Gianna bath scene, just because it was so uncomfortable, and to try to do it tastefully. You know, the whole point of that, even the music, was meant to make you feel uncomfortable. When she slits her wrists and all, it’s supposed to be, “Ooh, I don’t want to look at this.” But, it’s cool, and it’s also making you see a little inside to who John Wick really is.

You see him be compassionate. 

Yep. To bring something out, yet hard but soft … It was tricky. That was probably the hardest thing for me to nail tonally. I’m happy with he way it came out. Did it work? We’ll see. The Central Park scene was fun.

You’re as interested in that character as the world, which is a part of why I think that scene works.

And that holds a lot to … I find that interesting about Keanu, and anything he does. The trick is now that I know Keanu has a quality that people like to watch, how do you express it? Dan and I were very, very aware of that and how we shot Keanu, and how we wanted to track with him, and how we always wanted to put him in between things, and how we wanted black to go as red and red to go as black. You know, we’re very self-aware of that, and hopefully, that comes across.

How do you and Keanu Reeves prepare for a moment like the bathhouse scene? Do you both have many discussions beforehand? 

Yes, but it’s usually not on the day. Again, being a newer director, I wasn’t sure on the process. Keanu gave my partner Dave and I a great deal of education on the first movie. Pretty much, “Hi boys, I love you, but this is how you talk to actors.” Because we were used to stunt talk, which was, “Fuck you, move your ass. Hit this mark. Don’t fuckin’ miss. Left, right, up, down, now.” Very direct so you cannot be misunderstood because people’s lives are at stake. That’s not the best way to talk to actors.

Keanu taught us how to workshop, and how to really work a scene, meaning, for the Gianna scene, Claudia Gerini the actress, we brought her to set a week ahead of time, showed her the set roughly before it was really built, brought her back to the hotel and spent the next two days just going over [the scene], rehearsing, just in the hotel room, and talking and laughing, and figuring the best way to do it.

Before that even happened, Keanu, Derek, and I had spent weeks working on the scene, what’s important to say, what it is. The scene was much larger. What you’ve seen is the whittled down, right to the point version of it, which I think is even better. We usually start with much bigger scenes and try to get through what is important and what helps the audience stay true to the character and what rings true to the audience.

Keanu is very, very good at workshopping. He’s very good at talking about a scene. When you engage in Keanu Reeves, or with Keanu Reeves, from day one of development ’til this coming Monday when we premiere, he’s involved. We may be shooting the Laurence Fishburne scene, but when he’s on break, he’s like, “Okay, now let’s talk more about the Gianna scene.” He’s very, very involved, which is great. So by the time you do show up, just like the action, we know what we want to get out of it. Then if something’s not working, again, you’re not trying to get it done, you’re trying to buy yourself time creatively so that you’re not getting it done, you’re creating it, you’re getting it better, you’re workshopping it.

By the time we go there Keanu can come up and go, “This isn’t really working for me.” “No, it kinda is, but maybe we should just shorten it, and maybe you should try to walk over here, say this, and then hit him with that line.” Then that may not work, but then it gives Claudia an idea to go, “You know what, that may not work, but what if I took off my dress here and I give the line about Helen here, and then I get in the bath.” And Keanu goes, “Great. And then I’ll walk … Okay, I get it. So rather than me say it, let me come over and hold your hand.” And that’s how that little piece [went], you know. Rather than anything else Keanu wanted to sit by her, but look, he’s changing the gun hand, and then he holds [her hand], and then he still shoots her, without changing a facial expression. Those are ideas that are all in there, but how they get developed is through a lot of talk.

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