#maybe what i should do is watch the suicide squad movie. the james gunn one. maybe that would fix me actually

[themyscirah]

I think that comic creators should be forced to read the entirety of Ostrander & Yale's Suicide Squad run before they even THINK of using Amanda Waller in anything actually

[bbyboybucket]

what is going on with thunderbolts??

Several things bestie. I’ll try to keep this as concise and calm as possible:

- if we’re first talking about real life, there has been stuff going on for a while because the script was rewritten twice and changed directors months ago. And It keeps getting delayed for reasons the now unrelated to the strike.

- Second real life issue is apparently something about it just sucks, because three actors have dropped. A long time ago, the person who plays Ava Starr, Hannah John-Kamen supposedly dropped out. However, there’s rumors that Goliath is in it so it’s unclear if maybe they negotiated to get Hannah back in the cast.

- Steven Yuen was supposed to be the main antagonist, he dropped out of it recently and marvel went to several actors to take his place, and multiple rejected it. Now, Ayo Edebiri (who was supposed to play Val’s assistant) has also dropped the movie. These are confirmed by the actors themselves.

- They are very obviously trying to recreate James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad after they seen how successful it was, however they’re very blatant about it. It’s barely hidden that they’re actually trying to create their own version of what their competitor made but the issue is that they aren’t actually thinking or trying to make a good, compelling story here. It’s solely cash grab and trying to get hype. That’s it.

- Bonus for real life issues: This isn’t talked about a lot and it’s messy, unclear situation, but essentially the team of people writing and directing Thunderbolts are actually proud rapist defenders.

Now let’s get into the issues with the movie itself and why I (and many many others) think it’s gonna be awful:

- Just to give a basis, other than some people here on tumblr, majority of the rest of the MCU fan base does not want this movie to be made. It’s a pretty general consensus amongst everyone that what they’re doing is not good. And I’m saying this just so you know I’m far from the only one with these opinions.

- The villain of the movie is Sentry/Void. Which is an absolutely awesome character but it makes absolutely zero sense for him, one of the most powerful characters, to be the antagonist against a team of 3 super soldiers and 3 regular humans. Realistically he would obliterate them, and for the thunderbolts to beat him, it’d take a lot of plot armor. And to me, that’s not only a waste of Sentry as character but also a waste of a movie. Because me and most others, don’t want to watch a movie where the protagonists only win because of plot armor. I wanna watch something thought out, engaging, where the threat is real and the end battle is hard because they’re on par. This is not that. And Sentry/Void could be used with other characters in such a cool way, there’s so much potential that’s been thrown out by doing this.

- With him being the villain, what’s been confirmed to happen in the third act is that Sentry will become Void, but the void is a new dimension in the multiverse. That’s literally what he becomes and the thunderbolts have to enter it. For one, that makes absolutely no damn sense to do for this movie and two, they already have a dimension in the mcu called the void. It’s in Loki.

- If they are gonna have team with only hand to hand combat abilities, then it should be a grounded, more street level movie. And it’s not. And it’s fucking stupid.

- There’s no power/ability diversity on the team which makes it kinda boring for one, but two, if they’re gonna have an extremely powerful villain, they need a team that’s not just people who know combat. There’s so many characters who should be Thunderbolts that would be more fitting and make the movie more interesting. White Vision should absolutely be there, especially considering that he’s government property. It makes no sense that he wouldn’t be on a government team and he alone would bring some uniqueness to the skill set. Abomination should be there. Zemo, despite being a normal human, should absolutely be on the team considering he was the actual founder and primary leader of it in the comics. For fucks sake they could introduce a new character or two just to give the team some interesting abilities.

- I’ve been saving this for last. As a Bucky fan, obviously one of my biggest issues is that he’s apart of the team. I’m gonna try to keep this short, but he doesn’t belong there, it doesn’t make sense for him to be on the team after the past ten years of his arc and development. All this time he’s been the good guy victim who’s overcome the fact that he was manipulated and used by the villains. But now, they’re pivoting into villainizing him, which is not speculation, Feige and other people involved have made several quotes now claiming he’s bad.

- Even if it’s technically comics accurate, Bucky is a very different character in the MCU than he is in the comics. He’s a much more violent and rough character in the comics because that’s all he’s ever known, he was raised as a child soldier then became an assassin. In the mcu, unlike the other characters on the team, he is not morally grey. Yes, what he does have in common with Yelena and Taskmaster is that he was mind controlled and is now a hero, but it’s a very different situation. Yelena and Taskmaster were from birth raised as assassins, even if they’re reformed and free now, the only thing they have experienced and been taught is violence, they have a rougher edge, they’re very much morally grey because of it. Bucky on the other hand, lived a normal life until he was nearly 30 years old. He was grown man when hydra took him. In those 30 years, he developed a strong moral compass and I’d say it’s close to that of Steve’s. Take Hawkeye as an example, even though Yelena is a good guy now, she was still perfectly fine with killing Clint because she viewed him as a bad person. She’s not afraid to kill someone if she deems it necessary. Bucky, on the other hand would not do that. He consistently talks about how he doesn’t want to kill or severely hurt anyone, whether they’re a villain or not. And in TFATWS, he even pulls his punches. Also he doesn’t kill Zemo when he has the opportunity, Yelena (and definitely any other team member) would have. That’s a big part of where the difference lies and how they’re not following what’s been established for his character.

- Also it’s claimed that Bucky is supposed to be the leader of the team which is another thing that’s out of character. For one, he’d never willingly join this team and lead it. Basically the only way is if he was forced by conditions of his pardon. Two, he doesn’t have the leadership skills, he’s not a natural leader, he’s always preferred to be the side kick and let someone else take the lead. Three, there’s no way in hell he could actually manage that team and get any one of them to respect him and follow his authority. I’m sorry but they would absolutely all brush him off as a joke. Even TFATWS, John Walker uses Bucky as a damn doormat yet I’m expect to believe he and other people like him will listen to what Bucky says? No.

For your sake, this is all and this is the simplified version of my thoughts because I don’t wanna make this longer than it already is. But yeah, I don’t know if you’ll disagree with me, but I think this is just a damn mess of a movie that either needs to be entirely scrapped or be revised top to bottom.

[anxiouspotatorants]

It is time. It is finally time for the new Suicide Squad rant (and spoilers will be plentiful):

As someone who was into DC Comics and comics in the mid to late 2010s and had so much hype for the first Suicide Squad movie only to be let down, I was so nervous for this one. I knew it was going to be a roller coaster, but whether I would come out happy or disappointed was up in the air. Having just seen it I will say this: I have no idea if this was a good movie-movie. It was insane. The comedy. The violence. The high emotion. I’m still trying to take it all in. But one thing I do know is that this is an amazing Suicide Squad movie. Gunn and co took the best parts of the comic concept and went batshit with it and that is how this property should be handled (in my opinion). Screw edgelordisms, we need full on insanity free of aiming for shock-value or sexy brutality we want chaos baby.

Starting the whole movie as they did, with Savant as the POV for a mission (or part of the mission) that just goes to hell immediately and kills off so many before the title arrives is the perfect way to start this movie. Like the second I realized this was how they were doing it I was just smiling from ear to ear, this is the spirit of the property.

Part of me wishes we got more Amanda Waller, but what we had was impeccable. Then again, this is Viola Davis we’re talking about, and if she was born to play any character in a superhero story, it is Amanda Waller.

And points to her tech team, introducing them with the death bets was just a lovely way to show how regular this is and how awful everyone is in this movie.

I’m not going to pretend like Deadshot and Bloodsport didn’t have the exact same character- and plot premises… but I will say that Bloodsport felt better executed.

I love that they kept some of the past members and not just Harley. Rick Flag got to have a full personality and interactions with his team members and to be a true leader and it made me so happy for someone who initially did not give a single shit about his character. The Harley friendship? The Dubois friendship? The friendship with that guerilla leader? Amazing. The one American soldier in fictional media I genuinely like. You go Mr Flag.

The new members were… they were insane in the best way. Gone are the shitty stereotypes and present are some of the wackiest creations to ever grace the mainstream movie-sphere (aka the slightly less normal comic creations): A man who has to shoot out polka dots two times a day so as not to die from a space virus. A giant child murdering weasel. A guy who detaches his limbs and slaps people with said detached limbs. King Shark. The second person to command rats with a fancy gadget. They are all crazy and all weird and all more or less morally repulsive people and I love them.

The amount of times I did a double take over the soundtrack I swear. Jessie Reyez? The Pixies? It was so much fun to pick up on once I did.

Was the depiction of a vague Latin American country stereotypical? Yes. Was the secret American involvement predictable and felt mildly patronizing from a non-American, part Latina point of view? Yep. But damn it if I didn’t have a good time with those stereotypes and laugh my ass off at how well executed some were. I don’t know if it was meant as parody, but that one secretary has me thinking so — and if so I am pleased.

Speaking of Latino dictators Harley’s one day romance with one of the villains was something I never knew I needed. Like it was so perfect for Harley that when it happened I almost hit myself for not realizing that this kind of plot should be a normal thing for Harley. And the end of it? Perfect not only in this standalone movie, but also in conjunction with the first and with BoP.

The Taika Waititi cameo??? Oh my god??? I did not expect that and I love it?? Sir, What We Do in the Shadows is impeccable.

Rick Flag’s death actually surprised me. It shouldn’t as this is Suicide Squad, but I kind of expected him to be on Harley’s level of unkillable (because let’s face it, no one kills Harley). What I will say is that his death was good and his final words and actions made me love him all the more. I hope this spawns more Rick Flag content, or at least inspires me to look at what already exists, if he already is as this movie made him (it’s been ages since I read one of the Suicide Squad reboot comics okay).

Starro. How can a villain be so wacky and so terrifying at the same time? I did not expect a literal alien starfish to have more terrifying powers and a more tragic plot execution than Enchantress. But here we are. And that damn star just wanted to be floating in space, and instead it was stuck getting revenge by killing and puppeteering human corpses. Wow that thing was creepier the more you think about it.

I don’t know what I think about Polka Dot Man. I loved watching him on screen but also damn those mommy-issues were on a new level. Not just in his backstory but how he literally sees her in every person around him that was insane. Very funny but like also the kind that makes you laugh just because you’re uncomfortable and don’t know how else to releive the tension.

When Waller got knocked out by a staff member I immediately thought «oh my god Amanda Waller is going to kill half the staff for this», so I’m mildly surprised and disappointed that I didn’t get to see that happen. But also I should maybe expect something like this in a potential future Suicide Squad movie. We can’t have everything in a movie as packed as this.

Peacemaker was very horrible and worked really well. Don’t really have much to say about him, not because I didn’t enjoy him but because I already feel like the film itself has said it for me. But the planting and payoff for his death? Chef’s. Kiss.

Harley’s wardrobe was beautiful. Ratcatcher 2’s combat outfit felt like a steampunk plague dream. Bloodsport’s mask was supercool. Rick Flag’s t-shirt was amazing. But the best little outfit was the Mafalda-keychain and her red dress, hands down. Oh and King Shark’s fake moustache finger moment.

King Shark is shaped like a friend I don’t care how many people he ate alive on screen he looks so huggable. It feels like wanting to pet a bear. You know it will kill you but damn it look at those paws and those cute eyes!

I really need to give it to not just James Gunn but the entire production team for this movie. The aesthetic was perfect. The story was the right blend of whimsical and violent. The finished product was a literal rollercoaster and I mean that in a good way. If superhero movies have to be like amusement parks, I hope they’re more like this one and BoP.

I’ll finish on the note that while I think this movie was great and hopefully a step in the right direction for the DCU/DCEU (as in stop trying to play Marvel’s game and just do your own thing/ let your creative teams run wild and free), it is not the first step. Cathy Yan, Birds of Prey and the production team for it took a step first, and they deserve due credit and attention. If you loved this Suicide Squad movie and haven’t watched BoP yet, do so. Because they really are in the same ballpark while doing things in slightly different ways. And any good DCEU movie deserves more attention so the studios know that creativity and risks should be rewarded. I want more DC movies like this, not necessarily in genre but in creative risks. I want a Black Canary rock movie. I want Alfred in a reverse heist movie alone in the batcave against Gotham villains. I want Gotham Academy on screen play by play from the comics. I want a fully animated psychedelic-like Khalid Nassour as Dr. Fate movie. I want elevated horror movie Constantine. I want weird ass Lois Lane journalist movies with a heavy side of Superman. And I want DC movies I didn’t even know I wanted.

Support creativity in mainstream comic movies. Help me become a DC fan and happy about it again.

[mostlymovieswithmax]

Movies I watched in July

Once again I’m doing my monthly round-up of movies I’ve watched. This was a good month for the cinema getting back on track and seeing new releases including the new M. Night movie, Old and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Pretty sure Marvel put out a new movie also. I’m hoping that this list can help in guiding a decision about what to watch (or what to avoid) and introduce people to movies they may otherwise not have heard of or bothered to see. These short reviews are my own subjective opinions on each individual movie and maybe a more informal approach to movie criticism can help include others who are just passing through. Here is every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of July.

Bridesmaids (2011) - 4/10

Off to a good start. I won’t say Bridesmaids is a terrible movie but I don’t think I’m exactly the target audience. As far as I know, this is a beloved comedy but I just can’t get on board with all the boring, juvenile humour; with Maya Rudolph shitting in the street, with Rose Byrne and Kristen Wiig trying to one-up each other at a toast that went on forever, with Melissa McCarthy shitting in a sink… the conflict is so done to death and makes the movie feel unspecial. I do understand the appeal of the film, especially for women in that before this movie the likelihood of seeing something like this, where women play up the more crass and gross side of comedy, was probably few and far between. But the story is very tired and while I did appreciate some moments, namely a couple of decent jokes and some of the more intimate scenes, for the most part it felt like they wanted to corner a more quiet type of line delivery in a way that was supposed to be understated but very funny so as to not rely on over the top body language or musical cues, and it ended up being super dull.

Spectre (2015) - 7/10

As far as I can tell, a lot of people don’t like this instalment of the James Bond franchise… but I really enjoyed it! I’ve really taken a shine to these Daniel Craig-era Bond movies and while I can’t say any of them are the most amazing thing, I have a lot of fun with them. The biggest problem I have with Spectre is the villain being utterly pointless and uninteresting in basically every way. The idea of every villain Bond has fought before being tied to this one organisation controlled by this one guy is ridiculous, and what makes it worse is that the villain is barely in it! There’s so much that doesn’t come together in this but as it goes, I still had a really good time. Daniel Craig holds the whole thing together; he is excellent as 007 and the main reason I’m up for each of these movies is because of him. Sam Mendes directs again after the previous instalment and for what it’s worth I do think he does a good job with some of the action set pieces and the locations. I’m so ready for No Time To Die.

Shazam (2019) - 7/10

Shazam is a genuinely fun superhero movie that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. I was having a great time throughout and while it could conform to some of the same tropes we’re used to with these kinds of movies, it still remained playful and used the character of Shazam to his fullest potential in a way that showed an understanding of just how silly the idea of a kid who can turn into an adult and shoot lightning out of his hands is.

High School Musical (2006) - 6/10

So as you may or may not know, I co-host a podcast: The Sunday Movie Marathon. It’s a film podcast and every week I get together with my other co-hosts and watch movies. For episode 38, we watched the High School Musical trilogy. This first movie blew me away. I was really surprised with just how much fun I had, and if you want to hear more of my thoughts on the film, please listen to episode 38 of the podcast.

High School Musical 2 (2007) - 4/10

We then jumped into the second and while it’s certainly not as good as its predecessor, there are still some brilliant songs that manage to top the last movie. Again, more of what I have to say can be heard on episode 38 of the podcast.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008) - 3/10

Senior Year was pretty hard to get through. I don’t remember it being as bad as it was, but then I didn’t really remember it anyway. It did however have one redeeming quality, which you can discover on episode 38 of the podcast.

The Piano Teacher (2001) - 9/10

What the fuuuckkkk. The Piano Teacher is horrendously affecting and I was so upset when it ended, maybe not because it’s not what I wanted but because it’s just so fucking dour and unrelenting. This is the second Haneke movie I’ve seen (after the original Funny Games) and I’m so impressed with how well executed it is. Following a woman who teaches piano, we get a glimpse into the life she lives, how sheltered she is from living with her mother at an age where you’d reasonably expect a person to be living alone or with a partner or friends (even going so far as to be sleeping in the same bed as her), and how repressed she is sexually. It’s clear she’s never experienced any kind of sexual interaction or romantic love with another person, so she goes out of her way to take control and make that happen. The upsetting nature of it comes from just what she does in pursuit of it or as a result of her repression, and what is done to her. It is by no means a movie to recommend to your parents but The Piano Teacher offers so much in terms of the ideas it presents (and I’ll admit there seems to be a lot more going on than I think I picked up on a first go round) about women in modern society, and about the portrayal of sex and expectations of people when it comes to how that is represented in a person’s character depending on their gender. I really enjoyed this movie but it is not for the faint of heart.

Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure (2011) - 1/10

My podcast co-hosts decided it’d be a right laugh to add Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure to this episode and that might have been a fun idea for them because they got to watch it together, but I was just watching it alone. Just a 24-year-old man watching Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure alone and having a miserable time, I might add. But for a short and sweet ramble on what we all thought, please listen to episode 38 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

Dr. No (1962) - 6/10

A lot of very iffy parts of this movie. A lot of discomfort arising from how black people are portrayed that really didn’t sit right with me. As far as a Bond movie goes, this first instalment in the series is one I’ve seen before and it’s not wholly engaging but it plants the seeds for the rest, with Sean Connery breathing life into the role and making an otherwise lacklustre plot bearable.

Black Widow (2021) - 6/10

I think probably the best part about Black Widow is the experience I had while watching it. It was great being back in the cinema with a couple of friends in a packed theatre. The energy was high and I’m sure for a lot of people, this is the first time they’d been to the cinema since Endgame. For what it’s worth, I did have a lot of fun with Black Widow and I’ve explained more of what I thought about the movie in episode 39 of the podcast.

The Climb (2020) - 10/10

The Climb was added to Now TV recently and I already knew I loved it, having seen it in an empty cinema theatre last year, which I had an absolute blast with. The Climb details the years of a rocky friendship told over scenes filmed as one-shots. Not only is the presentation something to gawk at, but the performances by the two leads playing these friends with a terrifically dysfunctional dynamic is truly captivating. They’re both trying to figure out their own lives and where one can come across as being rather selfish, the opposite is true in his counterpart, whom everyone loves. This is a truly funny and heartwarming movie with a lot to say about how we choose to live our lives and who we choose to be with. It’s a shame the distributors of The Climb didn’t do a very good job because if not for it being available on Now TV, it would be near impossible to watch without forking out more money than is necessary to purchase a film.

From Russia With Love (1963) - 5/10

The second Bond movie. I thought perhaps I’d change my mind on it with another watch, having seen it for the first time maybe a year ago. But no, it’s still largely boring and it treats women like absolute garbage. From Russia With Love is one of those movies I forget as I watch it, and I was trying very hard (in the middle of the day!) not to fall asleep.

The Good, The Bart, and The Loki (2021) - 1/10

I don't usually talk about the short films I watch but for this I'll make an exception. As we all should know, Disney owns The Simpsons now, through their acquisition of Fox, so, coupled with another of their properties, that being Marvel, they decided to make a six-minute animated film wherein Marvel’s Loki is stranded in Springfield. This felt as though it was a minute long due to the horrendously jarring pacing; it is a movie that feels adamant that it needs to exist, while trying as hard as it can to be over as soon as possible. It serves only to stare the audience directly in the face and say “look, characters from The Simpsons are dressed as Avengers”, shit out three credit scenes, then end before you’ve even processed the atrocity you just bore witness to.

Russian Ark (2002) - 8/10

For this next episode of the podcast, we watched a few Russian movies, starting with Russian Ark, a film shot completely in one take as the camera moves about a luxurious museum in a first-person perspective as this main character watches what is happening around him, seeing people moving about the place but unable to interact with them, guided only by another man who seems to be just slightly out of his own perception of reality. This is a tremendous feat in filmmaking and more can be heard about what I have to say in episode 39 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

Ivan’s Childhood (1962) - 7/10

For my own pick of Russian movies to discuss on the podcast, I chose the debut feature from one of my favourite directors, Andrei Tarkovsky. It’s amazing that while this is not his best film by far, Ivan’s Childhood is still such a stellar debut, jumping around in its timeline as it details a child’s experience in the second world war. Again, I do go into more depth in episode 39 of the podcast, so be sure to check that out.

Outlaw (2019) - 1/10

The third movie chosen for this marathon is apparently the fourth Russian LGBTQ+ movie ever made. I’m unsure of the ultimate goal of this movie but what seems to be clear is that it hates the LGBTQ+ community. This is perhaps the worst film we’ve discussed on the podcast to date, so listen to episode 39 to understand exactly why it’s such trash.

Almost Famous (2000) - 7/10

I too love heavy music and also studied journalism so it stands to reason that a movie about a teenager who makes his way onto a band tour, following them through America and interviewing them as they hang out and play shows is going to be a premise that resonates with me. This certainly did. I enjoyed Almost Famous a lot; this kid is living the dream and I was so along for the ride, seeing a lot of myself in what was being portrayed. That said, the story itself is at times a bit by the numbers and I really would’ve been more on board if the visual component was more interesting. For what it is, technically it’s fine enough but nothing in that department ever jumped out at me.

Minari (2021) - 8/10

It’s crazy that this didn’t get a theatrical run where I live in the UK. It feels as though I complain about film distribution all the time but I really don’t understand the process by which a movie gets no cinematic release and yet, months later will pop up on the front shelf of hmv, taking pride of place. But of course I got the blu-ray straight away. Minari has a lot to say about the immigrant experience, specifically in America as a family comes over from Korea and tries to start a business and make something of themselves. You get to see a lot of what you might not think twice about when you think about immigration: the hardship of coming from a place where you know everyone to somewhere rural and sparsely populated, having to make friends with locals and integrate within the community; the strain it can put on a family and on a marriage where this idea is presented about the importance of making it on your own in order to live and not just survive, while also taking into account why you’re doing it in the first place and the value you place on being part of a family that you decided to make because that was more important than money, than economy, than proving you were good enough to make it in a place that gave you very little advantage from the offset. This concept of the promised land, of the American dream is a construct. There are times when it’s not pretty, when you have no running water, or you’re in debt, or a family member is dying and it just feels like you’ve been dealt as bad a hand as you can get. But it is better to know you’re not facing all that alone.

Roma (2018) - 10/10

This was my recommendation for the podcast episode on Alfonso Cuarón movies. Roma is as beautiful as it is heart-wrenching and I would recommend listening to episode 40 of the podcast to find out more about my thoughts.

An American Werewolf In London (1981) - 8/10

In all fairness, London is enough to make anyone a little crazy at the best of times. An American Werewolf in London showcases some fantastically grotesque effects, akin to something like Carpenter’s The Thing, in showing the dead brought back to life and a horrifically gory transformation scene. Although the film is from the perspective of an American protagonist, directed also by an American, the depiction of British culture and climate is something I’ve not seen many films pull off quite so well, and I was pleasantly surprised at the more comedic tone the film has overall, which is something that works more in its favour than straight horror would.

The Party’s Just Beginning (2018) - 6/10

Karen Gillan’s directorial debut is… pretty good! There are a lot of ideas I like in this movie: a woman living life and through convenient circumstances, is confronted with death in many ways. Gillan obviously knows her homeland as well as she can, imbuing the whole thing with an intensely Scottish vibe (though maybe not in the same vein as something like Trainspotting) that makes it a bit more unique than a more run of the mill movie of this ilk, backed up in no small part by her own main performance. The plot itself is no great diversion from the kind of story I’m used to with these smaller movies and for something that’s trying to include messaging about transgender issues and suicide, it probably could have been handled better or done in a different way.

Solaris (1972) - 9/10

Another Tarkovsky joint, one I thought I’d revisit to see if there was indeed more to get out of it a second time. Well, it’s no surprise that yes, there was certainly more to get out of it. Solaris is a crazy trip of a movie and I would liken it to Kubrick’s 2001 in terms of how grand the scale of it feels. Yet this is a film that comes across as deeply personal, choosing to focus on a specific character as he goes to a space station to help those on board who are experiencing some kind of emotional crises, only to feel the effects of the planet, Solaris invading his own mind as it has the crew. To many, I can see this lengthy Russian sci-fi being a tad slow but my personal experience is one of deep engagement. Solaris pulls its viewer in a lot of different directions and it is always doing something unexpected in terms of where its narrative goes. There’s a lot to think about with the movie and thankfully it’s no chore to watch again.

Y Tu Mamá También (2001) - 9/10

Another recommendation for the podcast episode on Alfonso Cuarón movies. This is a very relaxed experience, following three young people as they go on a road trip, visit different places and have sex. Listen to episode 40 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast for more of my thoughts.

Children of Men (2006) - 10/10

My favourite Cuarón movie, one that never stops being tense as its characters are constantly moving towards the end goal. Set in a future where humans are infertile, the oldest living person is 18, and London is the last city in the world that’s still keeping it together, somewhat. This is masterclass filmmaking. Listen to episode 40 of the podcast for more insights.

Minority Report (2002) - 5/10

I’m really not the biggest fan of Spielberg… Minority Report is an interesting movie in terms of its concept of stopping crimes before they happen by way of prediction, but I just didn’t connect with the heart of it. The colouring is way too overexposed in a way that’s supposed to be eliciting a futuristic vibe but instead feels so early-2000’s in the worst way. My biggest problem with Minority Report is just how long it is, clocking in at two hours and twenty-five minutes which allows for a lot of meandering, all while never quite developing characters enough for you to care about.

Caché (2005) - 9/10

Oh god! Another Michael Haneke movie! Here we see a couple periodically sent video tapes featuring hours of footage of the outside of their house. The anxiety ratchets up and the mystery gets deeper with every minute. There’s always at least one moment in any of his films that have so far made me realise just how out of my depth I am. Caché is no exception, and I won’t spoil anything here because I think it’s better just to watch the movie and see for yourself. He is a director that wants the audience to know something and that something is never what is explicitly shown at face value; it is pressed into the fabric of the film - plainly evident, yet hidden. Caché is so stupidly clever in displaying its themes and messaging - making reference to the Siene Massacre of 1961 as well as a deeper study of colonialism - and there’s no way to change a single detail of it without risking the Jenga tower crumbling to the ground. It all works in tandem. It is passion and fury and haunting.

Coco (2017) - 7/10

Pixar had a string of around seven forgettable movies before this point so thankfully Coco emerged to show the company still had something good in them. Coco deals a lot with themes of death and legacy, remembering those who are gone in order to preserve them and while its plotting is quite basic and there are certainly moments that either drag or cannot escape the same Pixar formula, most of what the movie has to offer is a lot of fun, with creative, colourful animation and emotional beats that resonate the way they’re supposed to.

Incredibles 2 (2018) - 5/10

Oh, they almost had it! There's a lot here that could have been explored in far more interesting ways. Setting Incredibles 2 directly after the events of the first movie was not a good idea. If it had taken place five or ten years after, the characters could have been in different places in life and it would feel as though they'd actually changed and developed. But instead of trying to be a film that actually cares about its characters and the journeys they go on, a lot of the film is wrestling with the idea that Bob isn't supportive of his wife and Jack-Jack has to fight a raccoon… They have to shoehorn in a villain that in no way compares to the genius of the original. The ending of the original introduces another antagonist that gets wrapped up within this film's first ten minutes, except they don't catch him and he's never mentioned again. It's a real shame because the animation is fantastic and the acting is superb and there are great ideas sprinkled throughout. It just doesn't come together.

Toy Story 4 (2019) - 6/10

I was rather reluctant to watch Toy Story 4 because from the get-go I’m not really here for sequels being made just for the sake of it. Everyone loves Toy Story and making another one is a sure fire way to make money. This is the first time I’ve seen Toy Story 4 and for what it’s worth, I did enjoy it. The animation is immaculate and that alone feels like a huge flex from Pixar who tend to step up the game when it comes to animation in film, despite not having the best track record for films generally at this point. While it was nice to see these characters again, I found a lot of them to be side-lined (namely Buzz) in favour of a story that focuses mainly or entirely on Woody, who I just don’t like as much as in the previous movies. Generally the movie is good and decent enough but there’s no real antagonist and the plot is quite loose… it doesn’t feel as though it needed to be made from a story point of view.

Onward (2020) - 6/10

And with that I have seen every Pixar movie. And Onward is a fine one to go out on. While I don’t think it compares to the likes of earlier Pixar it’s still pretty fun. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a medieval setting filled with bright colours and magic! Speaking of which, the animation was super and the medieval quest element is something that hooked me with the film. Again, plot-wise it does feel very familiar and I don’t know, maybe I’m past the point now of expecting Pixar to mix it up where their formula for story-telling is concerned but the movie is quite predictable. Nonetheless, while I’m not rushing back to see Onward I would hardly turn it off or refuse if someone wanted to watch it.

Old (2021) - 3/10

Oh boy! New M. Night movie dropped and my word, was it fun! For more of my thoughts on this… masterpiece (?) of a movie, please direct your attention to episode 41 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

T2 Trainspotting (2017) - 5/10

Trainspotting is perhaps one of my favourite movies and I had never bothered with the sequel, 20 years on, because the ending of that first movie is so conclusive. T2 felt more an excuse for these guys to get together again and in that, I probably would have preferred a couple of pictures on Twitter of the main cast and director, Danny Boyle having dinner or something. This is a fine movie - very arty in its presentation but meandering and dull in its story that doesn’t offer much in the way of proof that it had to exist.

Taste of Cherry (1997) - 9/10

What makes life worth living? This is a central question and theme of Taste of Cherry, and one that leaves such interpretation not only up to its central character but to the viewer as well. This film got me thinking about times in my life when I truly have had no answer to hard questions. Because it’s hard to convince people of things they are so adamantly against and harder still to rationalise what you believe if you’re not even entirely sure why you believe it in the first place. We are all of us alive and in recognising that, does that make it precious? And if indeed living is not a happy thing, why then should we fight so hard to preserve it? I felt upset as I watched this movie because I’ve been asked these kinds of questions before and it makes me feel stupid when I’m unable to answer. But the only real answer I can give is, everything. And if you can’t see the point then you’re not looking hard enough. Taste of Cherry is beautiful in its exploration of these topics and in its overall presentation, offering some of the best visuals in any movie I’ve seen - fitting for a feature with so much to say about the beauty of life - and an ending that as much pulls the rug out from under you as it does pull you out of the dark and make you realise just how lonely you’ve felt.

Bones (2001) - 2/10

Snoop Dogg is Jimmy Bones! This film is super funny but I’m not sure it’s trying to be and I really didn’t love it overall. But I do talk more in depth about it in episode 41 of the podcast.

The Duchess (2008) - 5/10

Another recommendation for the podcast. The Duchess was pretty much exactly what I thought it was going to be and there’s a lot to like about it but generally it’s a bit sparse. For more chat on the movie, listen to episode 41 of the podcast.

The Man With One Red Shoe (1985) - 1/10

This was another one for the podcast and man, was it awful. We had to watch it at 1.5x speed towards the end because it just wasn’t getting finished otherwise. To find out more, make sure to listen to episode 41 of the podcast.

The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) - 7/10

Pull the lever, Kronk! Haha! Slays me. I do quite miss this era of Disney, where the animation was hand-drawn and the stories were actually compelling and funny. The Emperor’s New Groove is vibrant, it’s got great characters and memorable moments that will forever be ingrained in the memory of culture. All in all, it’s just a solid flick that doesn’t waste time, developing the standard fall from glory type of arc but smoothly and in an entertaining way.

The Suicide Squad (2021) - 8/10

Oh, bloody hell! They actually made a good one! The Suicide Squad is not only better than the ‘Suicide Squad’ of 2016 in every way, it’s a genuinely great film! This time, James Gunn (director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies) is at the helm and it seems clear that Warner Bros. basically let him do what he wanted with the movie, as it doesn’t seem to bog itself down with the restrictions of a more family-friendly rating. The result of this is a far cleaner, colourful film with a clearer vision that takes from early Vietnam movies and uses that style to craft a superhero/villain movie that differentiates itself among the copious amount of existing films of the genre.      The Suicide Squad wastes very little time, introducing fun, crazy characters we’ve not seen on the big screen before and isn’t worried about killing a whole bunch of them, with standouts being Elba’s Bloodsport, Melchior’s Ratcatcher 2, Stallone’s King Shark (expertly rendered with fantastic visual effects), and Robbie’s returning interpretation of Harley Quinn.      A lot of Gunn’s trademark sense of humour is laced throughout and more often than not, it hits. The audience at the cinema were truly loving this movie and I’ll admit, I was right there with them. This mix of the gritty, gory and absurd is not something that should work as well as it does but the basic premise of the film is already so silly (and boy, do they know it) that it just works! Certainly one of the best DC movies since The Dark Knight and one I’d be more than happy to watch again. This is what the modern comic book movie should be: just balls to the wall fun!

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Just watched the trailer for “The Suicide Squad”. My thoughts:

1) Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room. So back in 2016 when the first Suicide Squad movie was released, it became infamous that the movie was re-edited and changed due to the backlash to “Batman v. Superman”. Also, while this is more of a conspiracy theory, it felt like WB wanted Suicide Squad to be the DCEU’s Guardians of the Galaxy with the new tone of the movie. It was now goofy and crass, unlike the original teaser which was going more for a dark and gritty tone. The end result was a mess, with the movie unsure of what it wanted to be. At times, it was dark and gritty and at other times, it was Guardians.

So, I can’t really ignore the fact that for this movie, WB brought in James Gunn as director. It feels like WB thought to themselves, “Well, we wanted Suicide Squad to be our Guardians of the Galaxy. So, might as well bring in the guy who actually made those movies.” And, as expected, the trailer does feel like a R-rated Guardians movie, right down to the humor, the bizarreness, and the focus on misfits trying to get along.

The difference here is that, unlike Suicide Squad 2016, the tone feels more natural. It doesn’t feel like I’m watching this lab experiment that’s been torn apart and stitched together by the editors and producers. Which, honestly, makes sense since this is James Gunn’s style. Not sure how the Snyderites will react to this movie since this is still going against the original tone of the DCEU but at this point, I just want a good Suicide Squad movie. I feel like I’m not alone in this regard.

2) King Shark! He looks so...dumpy. I don’t mean that in a bad way either. He’s like if Korg or Groot was turned into a shark. 

3) One of the things I am concerned about is how they’re gonna handle Rick Flag’s character. Because in the original, he was the straight man of the group, there to contrast against all the bizarre characters he had to work with. Here, he’s a lot goofier, which makes sense since this is James Gunn, but does make me question how he’ll turn out in the final cut. I just hope the movie doesn’t change him too much since Flag is supposed to be the “normal” one of the group.

4) Death predictions (only from the team): Everyone who is NOT Rick Flag, Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Peacemaker, and King Shark. Boomerang is a maybe. Weasel is also a maybe since he’s being played by James Gunn’s brother.

5) I’ve been wanting to see Starro in a live-action movie ever since I was a kid. I have no idea how they’re gonna use the character in this movie but, holy shit, I’m stoked. 

6) This might be me giving too much praise to this movie but I feel this is already a better use of the team compared to the 2016 movie. The Suicide Squad are composed of supervillains being forced to do Amanda Waller’s bidding; they shouldn’t be out there saving the world, they should be doing covert missions that raise questions about legality and morals. Saving the world is more of a Justice League/Teen Titans story. 

[agent-bumblebee]

The Suicide Squad (2021) Review:

(SOME SLIGHT SPOILERS)

I cannot describe how hyped I was to seeing this movie.

It was definitely my most anticipated movie of the year. (Well that, and the upcoming Shang Chi, but still.)

And now that it’s here, what do I think of it?

Fucking great.

Like I’m not kidding, it was really good.

James Gunn really gave us something that we’ve never seen before in a DC movie: a sense of joy sprinkled in with a bunch of fucking mayhem.

That what this movie is to me, pure lunacy.

You can tell that the people behind this movie had a whole load of fun when making it.

But anyways, enough rambling about what I think about this movie, let’s talk about the aspects of it that make it really good.

The cast did a great job, each of them brought something to the table, all of the characters were properly developed, and even well written.

And the marketing did not lie when the say that you should not get attached to any of the characters, because yea, some characters die, not all, just some, but there at least 2 of the members of the team who thought were killed, but somehow survived, but I ain’t telling, go watch the movie to find out.

The action is pure madness, something I’ve never seen in a DC or Marvel movie (except for Deadpool 1 & 2), I’m talking people being sliced in half, a bunch heads being blown up, limbs detaching, and faces getting eaten.

It’s so over the top, that I love it.

The jokes also land, the comedy was definitely good in this, there were times were I not only chuckled, but even laughed as well, which I haven’t done ever since I watched Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.1 and 2, Deadpool and Shazam.

The music is also good in this, I love how even the music is clearly playing in the background, they managed to incorporate it in scenes where you still hear it (like it could be still playing in the radio or in the speakers, etc.) and that’s something I haven’t seen, since Guardians Of The Galaxy (another James Gunn movie, ayoooo)

And speaking of incorporating things in the background, the visuals are also good, with the best one being how the each of the scenery in the background, creates a text which looks like a chapter in a comic book or just a book, and that’s something that hasn’t been done in comic book movie. (Or maybe there is one that uses it, but I’m not gonna bother looking it up.)

And finally, the fact that it had a ton heart in it, is very James Gunn, I mean this is a man who has the ability to tug your heart strings, even at the wrong time.

(Especially with Ratcatcher 2’s backstory because, wow, that almost made me tear up.)

Overall, it’s pure madness, and very chaotic, and I love it.

Would watch again.

9.5/10

(Oh btw, King Shark is such a pure boi, would hug.)

[agentnico]

A Quiet Place Part II (2021) Review

This film series is starting to remind me of The Walking Dead. Unfortunately, that is not a compliment...

Plot: Following the deadly events at home, the Abbott family must now face the terrors of the outside world as they continue their fight for survival in silence. Forced to venture into the unknown, they quickly realize that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path.

In a nutshell this sequel picks off straight after the events of the first film. The first film being a huge surprise that featured an original idea for the horror genre and the overall cinema viewing experience (yeah, try and slurp on your slushies loud now, ya bastards!!) and featuring a great blend of tone and tension with no release where you’re clinging to your seats real TIGHT. John Krasinski directed the hell out of that movie. He directed it FIRMLY and he directed it HARD!!… Sorry, I’ve recently been rewatching The Office (US) (ironically also featuring Mr Krasinski!) and now I’m all about ‘that’s what she said’ jokes. Anyway, naturally the first film was a huge success and garnered enough revenue for a sequel, and then the COVID pandemic hit which postponed this movie to this year and then it came out and I didn’t watch it because look, your geezer here has a busy life, he ain’t got so much time on his hands like he used to, he can’t just swashbuckle and see every cinema release on the planet, so I don’t apologise for this very very late (by numerous months) review of A Quite Place Part DEUX which is French for learn some French!!

A Quiet Place didn’t need a sequel. Yes you can say the first one ended on a cliff-hanger, but it was the kind of cliff-hanger which didn’t necessarily needed to be answered. The result is now we have a sequel which, though still filled with moments of tension and good performances, comes off as unnecessary. There’s a bit more world building however it is limited, and the plot progression is near to none. Following the discovery of how to kill the monsters in the first film, in this one we go ahead and learn... how to kill the monsters from the first film. Give them tinnitus, get a shotgun and George Ezra them in the face!! Rather than grow the story, they went in a circle and rehashed the same story on a slightly bigger scale. Heck, even the introduction of Cillian Murphy’s character is mainly for the purpose of replacing the father figure that died in the previous film. Even has the beard and all! There’s a reason I referred to The Walking Dead at the start of this review. There doesn’t seem to be an end goal. It’s just the same thing over and over again and honestly it drags, This movie isn’t particularly long and yet it feels long. 

I should also talk about the characters. In the first film they all seemed more intelligent. They were aware of what they could and couldn’t do, so they behaved themselves sensibly and carefully. I mean, yeah, it all went to crap at the end, but that was more due to a load of heavy bad luck. In this sequel however all the characters fall into the horror movie trope of making purposeful stupid decisions. Characters now think it is okay to go around and take unneeded risks every now and then. For example, our central family split up early on in the film due to the deaf girl deciding to go on a solo suicide mission which makes me wonder why James Gunn didn’t cast her in The Suicide Squad. And yes, I’m going to keep referencing that movie in my reviews, I loved it, it was great, all hail The Suicide Squad!! So yes, deaf girl does her thing, the mother decides to take a detour and visit her son’s grave because, you know, who cares if monsters are lurking about and then the son decides to become young Sherlock Holmes and go out and about and investigate whilst everyone else is out cause you know, monsters don’t eat kids apparently. Cillian Murphy’s character to be fair seemed like the more logical thinker this time around and I warmed to him quite quickly, and Murphy delivers the emotional baggage of his character well. We also have Djimon Hounsou pop up in a role which literally reflects how stupid characters are in this movie. 

It’s evident that this sequel was rushed and that John Krasinski originally only had a plan for one movie and a very good one in all honesty, and then business meant business meaning they wanted more dollar dollar bills and hence here we are. I don’t want to say that A Quiet Place Part II is terrible. The sound design is still incredible and as I said, there are real decent moments of tension that will tinker with your nerves, but overall I found myself to be disappointed with this one. I hear talk that they may be planning further sequels, and that’s all well and good, but I hope they take more time on them and maybe consider actually moving the story forward.

Overall score: 5/10

[aion-rsa]

Does The Suicide Squad Box Office Hurt Future of R-Rated Superhero Movies?

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There are many ways to look at the box office returns for The Suicide Squad from this past weekend. Perhaps the most rose-tinted one is to note that it earned more than any other R-rated film since the COVID-19 pandemic first shut down movie theaters in 2020. But then, there’ve been few R-rated wide releases since then, and those that did open weren’t starring Margot Robbie in her most popular role, nor were they perceived as a semi-sequel to a movie which opened to $133 million in 2016. They didn’t even have to be compared to the anemic debut of Birds of Prey, which also underperformed when it opened to $33 million in February 2020.

There is no kind way of saying that The Suicide Squad fell way below expectations, pre or post-pandemic, when it opened at an estimated $26.5 million this weekend. This comes in lower than even the $30 million floor the industry placed on projections for the James Gunn movie. These are not the kind of numbers that get sequels made. In fact, when accompanied with a $185 million production budget, it looks more like a number that will scare studios away from anything remotely similar.

Which was of course the immediate takeaway for many prognosticators: The Suicide Squad, and to a lesser extent Birds of Prey, prove the folly of R-rated superhero movies, and that something as wild and demented as Gunn’s filmmaking voice (or Harley Quinn’s persona) should be filtered only through the prism of PG-13 studio mandates, and all the edge-smoothing committees that implies.

Unfortunately, this runs the risk of being the same type of knee-jerk conventional wisdom that prevents studios from gambling on outside-the-box projects like the mere concept of Suicide Squad, which was profitable, or R-rated superhero movie success stories like Deadpool and Logan. In fact, it begs the question of whether the R-rating really is a major factor in The Suicide Squad’s box office failure?

There are several significant factors that likely contributed to The Suicide Squad’s underperformance. The first major one is the elephant in the room which media companies would prefer go ignored: day-and-date release strategies, which cripple the box office potential of films also immediately available for streaming (and thereby piracy). It’s barely been a week since Scarlett Johansson filed suit against Disney over an alleged contract breach by releasing Black Widow on Disney+ the same day it opened in theaters. While that PG-13 superhero movie had the biggest opening since the pandemic began with more than $80 million, Disney earned almost as much behind Disney+’s Premier Access paywall—revenue that Johansson alleged she has not seen a cut of, and which she’s claimed the company ignored overtures to discuss.

That movie had a relatively luxuriant price tag of $30 on its streaming release, and yet Black Widow’s staggering 68 percent drop in its second weekend (a relative anomaly among Marvel movies) shows the limits that streaming/piracy puts on a theatrical releases. As does the fact that despite opening domestically smaller, Universal’s F9 is on track to earn nearly double what the Disney superhero movie did. And F9 is only available in theaters.

Also unlike Black Widow, The Suicide Squad opened on a streaming service with no paywall via HBO Max. While the day-and-date model for HBO Max has had some silver linings, most notably Godzilla vs. Kong earning $31.6 million in March, back when theaters and distributors were terrified audiences would never return to cinemas, those numbers always come with an asterisk. In truth, there seems to be a relative ceiling on the HBO Max hybrid model, which might have undercut In the Heights. Despite lots of industry buzz and glowing reviews, that musical flopped when it opened at $11.5 million in June. In the same month, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It somewhat underperformed with a $24 million opening, despite the previous direct film in the franchise earning $40 million during its U.S. debut.

Honestly, it’s worth wondering if there’s a cap that HBO Max streaming releases are creating for these Warner Bros. movies. So far no other hybrid release has topped GVK, which opened at a time that many theaters were still closed, and the only one to come close is Space Jam: A New Legacy. That animated sequel premiered at $31.1 million. Perhaps that’s why HBO Max chief Andy Forssell sounded like he was whistling past the graveyard when he announced that The Suicide Squad is HBO Max’s second most viewed WB release, just behind Mortal Kombat.

“As the country faces new challenges due to the COVID variant, we’re happy to continue to offer fans the option of viewing movies in their homes,” the executive said. “Many chose to do just that as Suicide Squad emerged as the second most viewed film over an opening weekend on HBO Max since we began day-and-date releases with theaters.”

There is also the question of whether the legacy of the franchise itself is wholly tainted by the 2016 movie. While that earlier movie opened at a staggering $133 million, it was during a period where superhero movies seemed like they could only grow in popularity. Just as the word of mouth and the overall quality of the same year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice came back to haunt its sequel, Justice League, the legacy of Suicide Squad ’16 has lingered on the brand despite rave reviews.

One might even wonder if those memories, coupled with emerging anxiety about the COVID delta variant, led millions of people with an HBO Max subscription to pick watching the new flick at home in spite of its rave reviews? HBO Max apparently had a good weekend, if few others did in relation to this rollout. Meanwhile sequels to movies that audiences actually liked the first time out, such as A Quiet Place Part II, can still clear $58 million over Memorial Day weekend.

It is ultimately impossible to really know how much each of these factors contributed to The Suicide Squad’s failure, but I would argue it seems shortsighted to suggest that because Birds of Prey and Gunn’s movie were rated R, then superhero movies demonstrably don’t work at that level. Deadpool opened at $132 million with a much smaller marketing push than The Suicide Squad, and with a character audiences hadn’t proven they were already interested in. In fact, some of the problems the first Suicide Squad ran into included that movie being reshot and reedited to better resemble recent hits like Deadpool.

It was the strangeness of the basic concept for this franchise, as well as elements that surprised audiences back then like Robbie’s Harley Quinn, which became that year’s most popular Halloween costume, that won audiences over. Did the PG-13 rating help at the box office? Most likely, but the movie was ironically not marketed like a PG-13 superhero flick.

Read more

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The Suicide Squad Soundtrack: The Songs James Gunn Picked First

By Mike Cecchini

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The Suicide Squad: Amanda Waller Is The Greatest DCEU Villain

By David Crow

At the very least, we hope these numbers don’t mark the last time we see these characters. Encouragingly, Gunn is already making a Peacemaker HBO Max series with Cena. And with any luck, if WB decides Harley Quinn’s fanbase is too limited for a major blockbuster (even though the initial enthusiasm for the 2016 movie begs to differ), maybe Robbie would agree to an HBO Max series herself? It certainly would be easier to have more creative control if she didn’t have to worry about how certain foreign markets would react.

This was a bad weekend for The Suicide Squad franchise. It shouldn’t become a worse one for the genre where the wrong lessons are learned.

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from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3lLSN8h

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 8/6/21 - THE SUICIDE SQUAD, FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL, VIVO, ANNETTE, AILEY, NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL, JOHN AND THE HOLE, and More

After a week with three new wide releases and others coming up in August with three and even four (!), it’s kind of nice to get a “quieter” week with only one wide release, plus it's one that I’ve already reviewed. Yay!

With that in mind, that allows me to start things off with two film festivals that are near and dear to my heart, the first being the 25th annual installment of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from this Thursday, August 5 through August 25. That’s three weeks, which is sort of the norm, although it will be a festival that blends virtual with in-person screenings making it a true hybrid festival. Personally, I would love to be up in Montreal for some of the in-person screenings, as they tend to be quite rousing and rowdy events -- and that will include an early preview of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad this Thursday -- but I will have to settle for the fest’s vast screener library inste ad. Not that I’ve actually had time to watch much as I watched my entire weekend and free time slip away in order to watch and write about other things, but there’s some good stuff.

For instance, they’ll be premiering Donnie Yen’s new movie, Raging Fire, directed by Bennie Chan, next Tuesday, a few days before it gets a theatrical release across North America. (Its International Premiere is actually taking place at the New York Asian Film Festival, which you can read more about below.) Fantasia will also have the World Premiere for Rueben Martell’s Don’t Say Its Name, a horror movie featuring indigenous talent both in front of and behind the camera. Let Me Make You a Martyr filmmaker returns with his new crime-thriller Ida Red, starring Joshua Hartnett, Frank Grillo and Melissa Leo.

This year’s Fantasia is going to close with The Great Yokai War - Guardians, the sequel to Takashi Miike’s The Great Yokai War which opened Fantasia way back in 2006. In fact, Miike has probably been one of Fantasia’s most consistent guests, having many movies playing at the festival that never get released in the United States in any form.

It’s going to be an interesting mix of in-person screenings and on-demand virtual ones, and as in the past, it’s almost impossible to see everything. I think my only issue with Fantasia is that there are so many great genre films played there every year that it’s very hard to figure out which ones to watch when you’re not actually there on the ground.

And then closer to home in New York, another personal favorite, the New York Asian Film Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary in a combination of virtual and in-person screenings running between Friday, August 6 and August 22. Sure, there can be a bit of overlap between the NYAFF and Fantasia, particularly in the Asian content, but there are also a few distinct things, like the festival’s opening night film, Escape from Mogadishu from South Korea’s Ryoo Seung-wan, which covers the same Somali civil war as Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down but from another perspective. It will also be released in theaters this Friday. Chinese actor Chan King Long’s directorial debut, Hand Rolled Cigarette, will also premiere this Friday, as will Aimee Long’s directorial debut, A Shot Through the Wall, both of them debuting at the Walter Reade Theatre (the latter on Sunday).

And there’s just a slew of virtual screenings of some of the latest and most recent Asian films, many of which will never get any sort of release in the United States. That is probably the best aspect of the NYAFF, because while there are many filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho, who will eventually break out here, many of the biggest Asian filmmakers first got their start with movies at NYAFF. That’s why those interested in international cinema should definitely be giving the NYAFF some of their time and money every year, since it’s such a terrific discovery festival… plus it’s also a lot of fun. I’m half tempted to go up to see some of the in-person screenings myself, this weekend.

I’ve never attended Geena Davis’ 2021 Bentonville Film Festival, but thanks to it also going semi-virtual or hybrid, I’ll have a chance to see a few movies I might not have otherwise. There are a few great films by women directors that have already played at other festivals and will be released soon, such as Sian Heder’s Sundance award-winning Coda (which opens next week!) and Natalia Morales’ Language Lessons, both excellent films that have played festivals this year. Other films I’ve seen and liked that are playing Bentonville, including the Van Jones doc, The First Step, and the comedy, 7 Days.

I’m also interested in the World Premiere of The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu, directed by Anna Chi; Waikiki, Christopher Kahunakana’s feature debut about a Native Hawaiian hula dancer trying to escape an abusive boyfriend; Edson Jean’s Ludi; and Andrew and Joe Erwin’s doc, The Jesus Music, which looks at Christian Music. Bentonville tends to be another great discovery festival. This is obvious when I look at winners from past festivals like Yellow Rose and The Garden Left Behind.

As mentioned above, there’s only one new wide release, and it’s James Gunn’s THE SUICIDE SQUAD (Warner Bros.), a semi-sequel to the 2016 blockbuster Suicide Squad directed by David Ayer that includes a few of the original actors but a few not of others, although it’s still the same general principle, only done in a far more comedic way. Got it?

In case you missed all that (or the original movie), The Suicide Squad is based on the DC Comics superteam, of sorts, made up of DC villains who are seen as expendable as they’re sent on missions by Amanda Waller (played again by Viola Davis). If they fail or try to escape, their heads get blown up by explosives planted at the base of their skull. Fun, huh?

The original movie opened with an amazing $133 million and grossed $325 million In North America alone and another $422 million overseas, although reviews were less than kind and the fans, maybe a little less kinder. Sure, some people liked parts of it, but there were other parts that were just a disaster, so the movie grossing over $300 million was astounding (similar to the “Transformers” movies, in fact.)

Along comes James Gunn, freshly fired from the third Guardians of the Galaxy, which he will be doing next…. After a Christmas Special next year, and a Peacemaker HBO spin-off from this movie that hasn’t even been released yet. Warners snapped up Mr. Gunn, hoping that he could do for their property what he did for Guardians. While this may not be the most important IP in their drawer but has already proven to make enough money that you couldn’t just leave it in there forever. Fortunately, Gunn convinced Warner Bros. to let him make the R-rated Suicide Squad movie that the first one should have been and without the reins of a PG-13 Disney-released movie, Gunn could go absolutely nuts, and he did.

Some might be worried about WIll Smith not being in the sequel, because let’s face it, Big Willie is indeed an A-list star with a wide variety of fans of different ages, creeds, and colors. The fact that Will Smith could help turn an Aladdin movie directed by Guy Ritchie into a significant hit for Disney, well, that shows his power.

Even without Smith, Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn, who was last seen in last year’s Birds of Prey, a movie that was expected to do a lot better than its $33 million opening last February, before it got completely hobbled by the rise of COVID in March. It ended up grossing just $200 million worldwide, less than half of that in North America, and it might have put a damper on DC doing another R-rated superhero movie… except The Suicide Squad was well under way. Also back is Joel Kinnaman as Col. Rick Flag, a regular in the comics, and a decent actor but not someone anyone could seriously consider a box office draw. Other than Suicide Squad, Kinnaman has starred in quite a few bombs including a Robocop remake that tanked with $58.6 million domestic (it did better overseas), and then Run All Night, directed by Jaume Collet-Sera of last week’s Jungle Cruise, which made half that amount.

More importantly, the movie introduces a lot of new characters, including Idris Elba as Bloodsport, replacing Will Smith’s Deadshot, which might seem like a bit of a stepdown considering that Smith may be one of the top A-list stars on the planet, while Elba is popular but nowhere on the same level. Hey, it’s truth. Granted, Elba played Heimdall in Marvel’s Thor and a bunch of his sequels, and he’s provided his voice in quite a few Disney hits, while also appearing in a few odds and ends in terms of genre films like Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (which hit the $100 million mark) and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which did a little better. Still, Elba has created quite a fanbase around him for shows like Luther and The Wire, and his role in The Suicide Squad should help him line up more leading roles in bigger movies. I wouldn’t expect him to play James Bond but he’ll be around a long time.

After that, there’s sometimes-wrestler John Cena as Peacemaker, another less-than-known DC character, but Cena also brings his fanbase (sort of) from wrestling, to which he’s returning for WWW SummerSlam in a few weeks. Cena hasn’t necessarily made huge waves on the big screen, although we can’t forget that he was just in F9: The Fast Saga, the latest in the unstoppable franchise that’s one of the biggest movies of the pandemic year. He also starred in Paramount’s Bumblebee, adding to his franchise cred. As mentioned above, Cena already has warranted his own HBO Max series, so obviously, someone at Warner Media felt he was doing something right.

Other key roles include Sylvester Stallone voicing King Shark, David Dastmalchian from Ant-Man playing “Polka Dot Man” (about as D-list a DC character you can possibly get but used hilariously in the movie), as well as Ratcatcher 2, played by Daniella Melchior, not be confused with her father, Ratcatcher 1. Oh, and of course, Viola Davis, the Oscar-winning goddess who should have won another Oscar for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, but no, I’m not bitter that it screwed up my oscar pool. There’s a lot of other actors, many from Gunn’s other films like Mike Rooker, brother Sean Gunn, and Nathan Fillian, and if they were in the movie for very long, I would consider them something to consider, though their presences does insure that this is indeed a James Gunn movie.

As has been the case quite a bit since I revived this column to discuss box office, we have to take two things into account, one being COVID and the fears surrounding it that have kept many otherwise sane people away from movie theaters. Also, The Suicide Squad will be premiering concurrently on HBO Max, so anyone who has the WM streamer could literally just turn it on Friday and watch the movie for no extra charge beyond whatever they pay per month. Unlike other movies that had this kind of release, Warners is allowing theaters to play the movie for Thursday night previews, so there’s a lot of money that can be made there (and all weekend) from those who choose to see it in theaters. (Honestly, I have no idea why anyone would want to watch this movie, especially it’s absolutely enormous last act, on a computer or television, but welcome to 2021. Whine whine whine.)

I was ready to go north of $60 million on this one because it seems like the kind of movie that could get people back out into theaters, especially when you realize how much the original movie made and how the idea of heroes whose heads can be blown up at any moment (and in that case, the R-rating helps). Then I remembered Birds of Prey and how that came out pre-COVID and couldn’t even open over $40 million, so I had to lower my expectations, although I still think this will fare very well even with HBO Max and COVID in play, so I’m going with somewhere in the mid-$50 million range.

You can read my review of The Suicide Squad over at Below the Line.

This is how I see the Top 10 playing out at the box office:

1. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros.) - $55 million N/A

2. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $17.5 million -50%

3. Black Widow (Marvel/Disney) - $3.6 million -45%

4. Stillwater (Focus) - $3.1 million -40%

5. Old (Universal) - $3 million -56%

6. The Green Knight (A24) - $2.8 million -58%

7. Snake Eyes (Paramount/MGM/Skydance) - $2.1 million -52%

8. Space Jam: A New Legacy (Warner Bros.) - $2 million -53%

9. F9: The Fast Saga (Universal) - $1.5 million -45%

10. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (Sony) - $1.3 million -42%

Hitting Netflix on Friday is the animated musical, VIVO (Netflix), which was produced by Sony Pictures Animation but then sold to Netflix rather than trying to make it work in theaters. Directed by Kirk DeMico (The Croods) and Brandon Jeffords, in features the voice of Lin-Manuel Miranda as the voice of the title character, an organ grinder’s monkey in Havana, Cuba with his organ grinder Andrés, voiced by Juan de Marcos González (Buena Vista Social Club), who desires to be reunited with his long-separated love Marta (voiced by Gloria Estefan), who went off to fame and fortune as a singer because Andrés didn’t want to express his feelings for her in fear of her giving up her singing career. Vivo ends up in Miami and decides to try to find Marta and reconnect the lovebirds.

Just really catchy numbers written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, so if you like his work from In the Heights and Hamilton and Moana, etc. etc, then there are more songs he wrote, which he sings… mostly in the body of an animated monkey. The story itself isn’t particularly great, as the movie takes what would be a unique and novel setting i.e Cuba and introduces a number of animated movie stereotypes, including the weird girl Gabby (Ynairaly Simo), who gets increasingly more annoying as the film goes on.

In general, I loved most of the songs and the musical production (other than Gabby’s theme, which I was not crazy about), more than the story or the actual animation. Because Vivo is a monkey, there’s a weird section of the film that talks about vaccines and quarantines, probably written before the pandemic, which just makes it that much weirder.

Vivo has some decent emotional beats and terrific songs, but otherwise, it seems very cookie-cutter in terms of the storytelling. It’ll be just fine for kids, but adults may have trouble staying very interested.

Speaking of musicals, the rock opera ANNETTE (Amazon), written by, and with music and songs from Russell and Ron Mae AKA Sparks, will hit theaters this Friday in advance of its debut on Amazon Prime Video on August 20. Directed by Leos Carax (Holy Motors), the movie stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as stand-up comic Henry McHenry and opera singer Ann, respectively, who get married and have a baby girl named Annette, who is actually a puppet that sings. (I did warn you that this is from Sparks and Leos Carax, right?)

Annette is exactly what anyone should expect from this collaboration between the quirky L.A. avant-rock duo and the French auteur, even if you believe the FFS song that “Collaborations Don’t Work” -- which you would know not to be true if you went to see Edgar Wright’s documentary, The Sparks Brothers, as I recommended last month! But instead of dubbing this a musical, it’s gotta be called for what it actually is… a ROCK OPERA. Annette reminded me a lot of ‘70s musical movies like Tommy and Godspell, where you knew there must have been some drug use involved (cause it was the ‘70s).

Driver’s stage performances are definitely some of the aspects that will divide audiences, because he veers from being an outrageous shock comic (think a mopeyer Sam Kinnison) to just being an insane and abusive jerk who drives even his devout fans away. The two extended sequences show Driver at his most emotive, but he’s also the kind of character that could push the movie’s audiences away as effectively as he does his fans. On the other hand, Cotillard is absolutely brilliant, even if she isn’t singing her own opera, as is Simon Helberg -- yes, that guy from The Big Bang Theory -- as her piano accompanist who later becomes a conductor, and then more.

The movie’s mood constantly shifts gears and direction, although it never is quite funny enough to be considered “comedy,” and if one really needed to categorize it, it would be placed in the realm of dark thriller… with music.

One thing that Sparks fans should know is that this is not a movie full of new Sparks songs, even if it is full of Sparks music. In other words, other than a couple actual songs -- like the opening overture -- there isn’t much of the music that might work separately or out of content with the movie or the story. Like in opera, almost everything is sung with very little spoken dialogue persé, and this was clearly a decision.

I’m not quite sure Annette will find either Sparks or Carax many new fans -- I definitely liked it more than Holy Motors, that’s for sure -- but for many, it’s going to be a strange experience to get through and maybe one they won’t necessarily need to see in theaters.

I finally got around to watching Jamila Wignot’s documentary, AILEY (NEON), which has been playing in theaters in New York the past few weeks and is expanding to other areas this Friday. Of course, the film is about legendary New York choreographer Alvin Ailey, whose work spanned six decades before his death in 1989 but not before he helped many dancers and other choreographers beak it into the contemporary dance scene.

It’s a little weird writing about this movie now, because just two weeks ago, I was writing about another dance doc called, Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters, about another specific work by a choreographer and the message it was sharing about AIDS. In fact, Jones also appears in this doc talking about the influence and assistance Ailey gave him earlier in his own career.

Ailey is a much more straight-forward portrait doc about Ailey’s life and career, and because of that, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Can You Bring It, but the two movies actually end up acting as nice companion pieces to each other despite being made by different filmmakers in different environments.

Lucy Walker’s documentary BRING YOUR OWN BRIGADE (CBSN) will play in theaters starting Friday and then on Paramount Plus and CBSN starting August 20. It looks at the 2017 fires that absolutely destroyed Paradise, California, and unlike Ron Howard’s Rebuilding Paradise, this is as much about the fire and how it affected people as the aftermath and figuring out how to rebuild. I thought it was pretty good, although it’s tough to

Incidentally, I wrote about and reviewed Edson Oda‘s NINE DAYS (Sony Pictures Classics) last week, but it’s going to expand into a few hundred more theaters this weekend, as well.

Legendary character actor Udo Kier stars in Todd Stephens’ SWAN SONG (Magnolia Pictures), which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival back in March, and I quite enjoyed it. It will get a limited theatrical release this weekend and then will be released digitally. In this comedy, Kier plays Pat Pitsenbarger, a flamboyant hairdresser who escapes from his Ohio nursing home in order to grant a former client her dying wish of having him design her hairstyle. Also starring Jennifer Coolidge, it will be in theaters this Friday and On Demand August 13, and hopefully I can write more about it next week, because I did quite like it but didn’t have time for another viewing.

Another movie from Sundance that’s finally hitting theaters (and digital) this Friday is Pascual Sisto’s JOHN AND THE HOLE (IFC Films), written by Nicolás Giacobone, who wrote Alejandro Iñárritu’s Birdman and Biutiful. It stars Charlie Shotwell as the title character, John, who traps his family in a bunker that he finds in the woods behind their home. I wish I could tell you that there’s more to the movie than that or that it offers something riveting or thought-provoking or something unforgettable, but I’d be lying. It’s not good.

It stars Michael C. Hall as John’s father and Jennifer Ehle as his mother, but Shotwell plays such a bland character that I just had a hard time finding anything that could really maintain my interest. The characters were boring, the writing was bland (which says a lot about how great a director Innaritu is), and there was just nothing I could glom onto. In that sense, the movie reminded me a bit of the first time I saw M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable in terms of all the boring conversations that dragged that movie down, and this has a similar issue.

There’s just no way around declaring that there really wasn’t very much that I liked about this movie, and honestly, the fact I tried to watch it a THIRD time after my first two attempts tell me that I’ve done more than my share of trying. It’s just not a good movie.

Unfortunately, my schedule this week got derailed quite tragically, so there were a few other foreign films I hoped to get to but just didn’t have the time…

From Korea (via the New York Asian Festival, as mentioned above) is Ryoo Seung-wan’s Korean war thriller, ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU (Well GO USA), as the movie is in Korean, but it’s about two Korean war correspondents caught up in the Somali war.

From Uruguay, Maxi Contenti’s THE LAST MATINEE is about an audience attending the last showing of a horror film in a downtown cinema that’s terrorized by a murderer killing them off one by one. (This is actually my kind of jam so I’ll try to watch and write something about it once I do. I just ran out of time this week.)

From Afghanistan comes Mariam Ghani’s doc WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED (Dekanalog), which takes a look at the state-funded filmmaking program during the country’s Communist era with a bunch of writers, actors and filmmakers talking about five unfinished and unedited projects made between 1978 and 1991.

The Film Forum in New York City is starting another film series (or rather, continuing it from when it started before COVID in March 2020) called “The Woman Behind Hitchcock,” starting this Friday, which is fairly self-explanatory, but it should be a great series with a lot of rare films being shown.

Also hitting Apple TV+ this Friday are the first few episodes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s MR. CORMAN, in which he stars as the title character, produces, directs and writes a bunch of the episodes. In it, he plays an elementary school teacher in L.A., who is trying to come to terms with a lot of portions of his life. I’ve seen about half the episodes in the first season, and it’s quite a different show than anything else out there. I’ll have an interview with the Cinematographer, Jarod Presant, over at Below the Line later today.

A few movies that I just didn’t get to this week, include: THE MACALUSO SISTERS (Glass Half Full) MATERNA (Utopia) FIREBOYS NIGHTDRIVE (Dark Sky Films)

Next week, it’s August 13, and we have three new wide releases! (See what I mean?) We get Ryan Reynold’s Free Guy, the horror sequel Don’t Breathe 2, and the Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect.

[miragerules]

The 10 Best Films of 2017 so far, and the 10 Films to look forward to in the second half of the year

Well it is now July 6th, and we are now a little past the half way mark of 2017, so I will delve into what are the 10 Best Films of 2017 so far starting with number 10.

10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: What is it with Marvel and their villains and climaxes of their films?  Sure there are exceptions like Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron and Civil War, but in general Marvel has a real villain problem as well as finishing off their films in a fully satisfying way.  That being said Guardians of the Galaxy is perhaps the most light hearted and funnest of the Marvel films thanks to director James Gunn, the score, and the chemistry/acting of the cast.

3.75/5 Stars 

9. The Wall: The Wall is a short, but a pretty gritty and intense Iraq war film directed by Doug Liman.

4/5 Stars

8. Ghost in the Shell:  I will always give credit to the likes of Akira and Ghost in the Shell for helping to make Anime popular in America making it easier to for Anime series and films to be release here, but I as never that impressed with Ghost In the Shell outside of its stunning animation.

I have never liked the original Ghost in the Shell as much as the other anime films that I was introduced to in the 80’s through the mid 90’s with the likes of Vampire Hunter D, Ninja Scroll, Patlabor The Movie and Robot Carnival among others, so I had no I high expectations with the remake except to get a good film that would hopefully do well box office wise, so studios will take more chances on live action anime films like in pre-production Robotech and the always talked about Cowboy Bebop film.

I think those reasons might have helped me enjoy Rupert Sanders Ghost in the Shell, and I really liked the film. I haven’t seen the original in probably over a decade, but from what I remember the film stays pretty close to the original with the biggest change coming to the Major’s backstory, which I loved.

I won’t get into what I believe are very overblown and unwarranted criticisms of whitewashing when it comes to Scarlett Johansson’s casting, and instead say Johansson was wonderful as The Major who effortlessly brings The Major to life.

The action and visuals/effects were really good. My criticism of the film is the lack of real character development outside The Major and maybe Batou. There were certain Section 9 characters I would have like to seen more of. Another criticism is that although I liked the story, themes and ideas in the film, the film doesn’t dive too deep, and instead spent more time on the visuals and action. I contribute both criticisms to the films short run time at only about an 1 hour and 45 minutes that includes both the opening and ending credits. I wish Sanders and the writers could have spend another ten minutes on the story and supporting characters, but that isn’t a huge criticism for me as it didn’t stop me from really enjoying Ghost in the Shell as much if not more than I did the original film.

I really hoped Ghost in the Shell would do well at the box office, and we could get more films, because Johansson deserves her own franchise. Scarlett certainly has proven to me with her role Black Widow along with starring in Lucy and now with Ghost in the Shell that she can solo lead a action film/franchise.  Unfortunately that most likely is not going to happen.  Ghost in the Shell broke even and made some money, but I doubt Paramount is going to green light a sequel.

4.25/5 Stars

7. The Exception: A great World War II drama/thriller film about the exiled German Emperor Wilhelm II played magnificently by Christopher Plummer and co-starring Jai Courtney, and Lily James.

4.5/5 Stars

6. The Red Turtle: All your should need to know about The Red Turtle to see the film is to watch the above trailer and know that it was made by Studio Ghibli the same company that made Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, and Kiki’s Delivery Service.  The Red Turtle is my third favorite Studio Ghibli film behind Grave of the Fireflies and Princess Mononoke.

4.5/5 Stars

5. John Wick Chapter 2: John Wick is the best action franchise since the first three Bourne films (I try to forget about two mediocre and bad sequels), and Keanu Reeves has found the role he was perfect for and meant for.

4.75/5

4. Logan: Logan might be classified as in the superhero genre, but to be Logan is a modern western with a small dose of sci-fi/fantasy elements.  Perhaps that is one of the reason Logan separates itsself from the rest of the X-Men films and the Marvel films along with its story, themes and tone help to make like Deadpool a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre.  Then there are Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart.  Logan is Jackman’s last film playing Logan whom he’s played since 2000’s X-Men, and Logan is most likely Patrick Stewart’s last film playing Charles Xavior who he’s also played since the first X-Men film.  Both actors give their best performances as Logan and Xavior as perhaps the last two X-Men alive in a world where mutants are all but extinct and being hunted down.  Logan truly is one of the best superhero/comic book films to go along with the likes of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Dark Knight, and Wonder Woman.

4.75/5

3. Wonder Woman: Personally I don’t understand all the criticism of Man of Steel and Batman Vs. Superman, but whether you agree with the criticism of the first two films of the DC Extended Universe and the really bad Suicide Squad the DC Extended Universe needed a win more critic wise than box office wise, and WB/DC got both with the excellent Wonder Woman.

4.75/5 Stars

2. Baby Driver: Baby Driver is a masterpiece of film making and a prime example as film as art.  I have never been as much as a fan of Edgar Wright as critics and my friends have, but what Wright has film with Baby Driver is magnificent.  Baby Driver is a high octane action, drama, musical that combines the cult classic Streets of Fire with the classic Heat.  The level of detail Wright, cinematographer, and stunt coordinators went through to match every song to each scene perfectly is astonishing and wonderful experience in the theater.  The acting by Jamie Fox, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, and even the relative new comer Ansel Elgort whom I had never seen before did an excellent job in the film.  Baby Driver is a film to be seen over and over again to fully appreciate the how great film Baby Driver is.

5/5 Stars

1.The Lost City of Z: It was hard for me to chose between Baby Driver and The Lost City of Z, but if there is one film that is better than Baby Driver than it is the Lost City of Z.  I am a sucker for historical films and especially ones about topics I know nothing or very little about.  Before seeing the trailer for The Lost City of Z I had never heard of Percy Fawcett (Played exceptionally well by Charlie Hunnam) the famous explorer and his disappearance in the Amazon.  The film is based on the non-fiction book of the same name and by David Grann which goes into Fawcett’s life and his disappearance as well as investigating the so called Lost city of Z.  The book is really good, and while Grann’s novel has garnered high praise, Grann has faced some criticism in his view of Fawcett and his exploits as an explorer.

Let us move onto the film itself directed by James Gray.  Gray’s The Lost City of Z has an old school Hollywood of the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s with the detailed story telling, themes, score, and cinematography.  As I said above Charlie Hunnam was fantastic as Fawcett bringing to life Fawcett’s love for adventure and his blinding obsession in finding his city of Zed.  Charlie Huunam is supported by Robert Pattinsion who in recent years has finally come into his own since leaving the bad Twilight franchise high praised performances in Cosmopolis and The Rover, and continues here in The Lost City of Z as Henry Costin, Fawcett’s right hand man and good friend.  Like Baby Driver the Lost Citye of Z is a film that should not be missed and seen more than once.

Films I have not seen yet, but want to: Beauty and the Beast, The Lego Batman Movie, Get Out, Life, Colossal, Alien: Covenant, and Megan Leavey.

The 10 Most Anticipated Films for the Second Half of 2017

1. Blade Runner 2049 2. Dunkirk 3. Star Wars: The Last Jedi 4. Wind River 5. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets 6. The Snowman  7. Justice League  8. Goodbye Christopher Robin 9. American Assassin 10. Greatest Showman

[esonetwork]

Super-powered success: The future of the MCU and the DCEU

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Super-powered success: The future of the MCU and the DCEU

I’m sure many geeks would agree that this is a pretty good time to be a superhero fan. Superhero films seem to be breaking box office records left and right, and we’re seeing a diverse array of superhero stories portrayed on both the big screen and on TV.

If all this somehow stopped right now, and we never got another superhero film or TV show, we still would have a wonderful wealth of content to look back on. I’d keep watching “Wonder Woman” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” over and over and over again (which is pretty much what I already do right now).

However, of course superhero films aren’t going away anytime soon, because they continue to make a boatload of money. So, what does the future look like for the two big franchises, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe (and outliers like the X-Men and the Fantastic Four)?

For the MCU, I’m very curious to see what happens (or doesn’t happen) in “Endgame,” and if this film really will serve as a reset of sorts.

Before I say what I’m going to say next, I feel like I have to repeat that I am a big MCU fan and I love all these characters. That being said, I do feel it’s time for “Endgame” to drop a big, shocking twist and send the MCU in a new direction.

Maybe that means retiring certain characters — or even killing them off, as long as it’s done in a narratively satisfying way. I love Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, etc., but I’m curious to see some movies with a new line-up of heroes, like Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange. I really loved the character of Carol Danvers, and I can definitely see her as the new head of the Avengers.

I’ve mentioned this before but going forward, I’d like the MCU to steer the narrative in a more cosmic direction. We’ve seen plenty of Earth-based superhero films; I want to see heroes like Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange adventuring into space or other dimensions. I want to the MCU to really blend the sci-fi and superhero genres.

I’d also like to see character-driven, smaller-scale adventures like “Spider-Man: Homecoming” that feature lower-stakes villains. “Spider-Man: Far from Home” looks like a ton of fun, and I want more of that.

It will be interesting to see if the MCU remains a box office powerhouse after “Endgame” or if interest will level off a bit. Historically, there really hasn’t been a franchise quite like the MCU, so I don’t know that we can make a prediction.

My personal guess? It’s going to take a while to build up to “Endgame”-level hype again, but I think that’s okay. Like I said, I’d love to see some smaller or more creatively risky films (like “Guardians of the Galaxy” initially was). And hey, if these films *only* make $1 billion at the box office instead of $2 billion, that’s still pretty darn good.

I do want to see an MCU Fantastic Four film eventually; there’s a ton of possibility there, and quite a bit of demand from fans to see these characters again (in a film that serves their story better).

As for the X-Men, I’d actually prefer that they let that franchise rest for a while. I enjoyed the originals with Hugh Jackman, and I have also enjoyed the prequels with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. I don’t really want to see an X-Men reboot for a while, regardless of how “Dark Phoenix” turns out. Maybe they should take a break for a decade or so and then come back and revisit the characters (although Disney will probably not want to wait that long after acquiring Fox).

While the DC Extended Universe has had a more troubled trajectory than the MCU, I feel like they’re finally starting to find their footing. I loved “Wonder Woman,” and it’s one of my all-time favorite movies. I’m already hyped for the sequel. And even though “Aquaman” had its flaws, it was a lot of fun. I’m hearing good initial buzz about “Shazam!” and if it’s a hit, the DCEU is going to be in a pretty good position.

I actually don’t mind if the DCEU steers away from big team-ups like “Justice League.” The MCU does great team-up movies, but the DCEU doesn’t have to copy that or necessarily have this expansive, interconnected universe where every film is intricately tied into one overarching narrative.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of 2016’s “Suicide Squad” but I am intrigued by the notion of former “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn taking on possible writing and directing duties. Apparently he’s been rehired for the Guardians franchise, which is good news, but I also don’t want him to abandon the Suicide Squad reboot because I think he’d be a really great fit for that project. Especially if the rumors are true and Idris Elba will be joining the film.

It does sound like Ben Affleck is officially out as Batman, which makes me sad because I thought he was one of the best things about the early DCEU and is actually my favorite cinematic Batman. His solo film could have been something truly special, but Hollywood projects don’t always work out. I’ll always remember you, Batfleck!

I’m not really excited about the solo “Joker” film coming later this year; one of my geek confessions is that I’ve never really been a fan of the Joker as a character, so a standalone movie doesn’t interest me much. However, it does look like an interesting concept (it’s also separate from the larger DCEU), and I’m excited for those who are big fans of the character.

Finally, “Birds of Prey” looks pretty cool. Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn was probably the best performance in “Suicide Squad,” and a female supervillain/anti-hero team-up sounds like tons of fun.

In short, there’s a lot of superhero stuff to look forward to in the coming months and years. I guess my biggest hope is that these franchises don’t get stuck in a rut. They need to keep innovating and finding ways to make the material feel fresh. Even though “Thor: Ragnarok” wasn’t my personal favorite MCU film, I want to see these studios continue to experiment with styles and tones.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Phase Zero

Apparently, Aquaman feels like a Phase One Marvel film. I'm hearing it's giving off Thor vibes, kind of like how Wonder Woman was giving of Cap vibes. I'm okay with this. It's showing growth. Thor is easily the worst MCU film ever, but it's still better than anything the DCEU has put out so far, with the exception of maybe Wondy. DC is figuring out how to make these movies and that's a good thing. Phase One Marvel is awful compared to what they're making now. When the first Avengers came out, cats were saying it’s the best capeflick, ever. It’s not. The Dark Knight is, but we can get into that argument at another time. What i’m trying to say is that the first Avengers team-up looks like sh*t compared to the latest. Infinity War was a gut-punch. It had WAY more characters and executed it’s intent with far more precision than the Whedon Avengers flicks. Infinity War also giving us the best villain Marvel has ever conceived on film. Sorry Loki fans but Thanos is far more compelling. Still, we wouldn’t be here without those Phase One films. Marvel needed those to figure out the formula, to figure out how to successfully adapt these characters to film. DC tried to shirt that. they tried to jump into the deep end without learning to swim and promptly drowned.

Phase Two MCU is kind of those awkward growing pains you experience as a teen. You know, you grow a few inches but get acne and forget how to walk. There is a lot of good but, at the same time, a lot of bad. Like, a lot. Marvel had to run through the campiness and stumble with Whedon before actualizing with Phase Three. It took 13 films to get to Civil War, 8 if you want to count the turning point at Winter Soldier, and a decade to get to Infinity War. You can’t cheat the time, man. DC made the mistake of trying to elude those awkward years and ended up getting killed. They hired a guy who didn’t understand, or care to learn, anything about the lore. They committed billions to a vision that was so diametrically opposed to the core aspect of who those characters were. DC made the mistake of thinking that the success Nolan found with his Dark Knight trilogy, was aesthetic and not built upon excellent direction, outstanding casting, and a clear vision. Nolan studied the Bat-Lore to craft his tales. He chose great stories to adapt. He grounded those tales in reality because, at it’s core, Batman is little more than Pulp Crime fiction; a detective noir, if you will. Superman is not that, at all. Snyder trying to fore that Boy Scout peg into a Dark Knight hole was never going to work and watching it happen in Man of Steel was legitimately jarring to see. In a lot of ways, Superman is the antithesis to Batman and the movies should have reflected that, like their respective animated outings back in the 90s. To this day, the animated Timmverse is the best adaption of comic fare i have ever seen. even so, the DCEU started showing life late in it’s run, sans Snyder, WB meddling, and, to a lesser extent, expectation.

Wonder Woman came along and sh*t on everything Snyder had ever done, even if it was only as good as maybe the second or third best Phase One Marvel flick. But that’s okay. Compared to what came before, Wondy was Citizen Kane. More accurately, Wondy is the DCEU Iron Man. Her film felt like Captain America: The First Avenger but in a good way. Pattie Jenkins came a long and made a film that was true to the character. It hit all of the notes yo need to hit in an origin film but grounded everything in a WWI backdrop. Patti Jenkins did exactly what Nolan pioneered and Snyder refused to do; Study the character. Make a film before a capeflick. Find was to ground all of that spectacle in reality, not create spectacle for spectacle’s sake. Wonder Woman was the DCEU’s first home run. She is who you build around. Hers is a world that is worth investment. Her story is one that can be used to reboot the entire franchise, which i hear they’re going to do with WW1984. Her sequel was delayed so i imagine it’s wait and see for WB execs.

If Aquaman does as well as Wonder Woman, which it’s trending to do, i imagine there will be an entire line reboot; a fresh start from her film. They'll probably use Wonder Woman 1984 as a makeshift Flashpoint event and just crib everything from the Marvel template, which ain't a bad idea. Keep what works, expel what doesn’t. Aquaman can be considered the second Phase One DCEU film and it’s killing in China right now. I think that will help it build enough buzz stateside to compete with Wondy, profit wise, which only bolsters the obvious decision to follow the Marvel Method. With the hiring of James Gunn to do Suicide Squad 2, i think we might have a Russo Brothers-esque takeover on the horizon. Those sh*tty Snyder films were necessary to get to this point, i guess. Those were the DC growing pains, the cost of trying to cheat the work. They had to hit rock-bottom to recognize their folly. Hubris is a motherf*ckder but with Wondy, Aquaman, and the promising Shazam slated for next year, sh*t is trending positive. It looks like all of that edgelord nonsense Snyder wanted might have just been Phase Zero for DC. For the record, i have been advocating the DCEU flat out copy what Marvel was doing for years, since the start of this whole situation. Seeing them finally concede and find success is a little bit of vindication for me.

We all have to start somewhere, right? Some off us, twice. But,as they say, second time’s the charm. Or is it “Third time’s the charm”? Let’s hope the DCEU doesn’t need a third...