Captian America: Civil War May o6, 2o16

THERE MAY BE A FEW SPOILERS! BEWARE!

All week long on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Fallon was gushing all over Captain America: Civil War. “Oh, man, it is so action packed! I mean, it is NON-STOP ACTION!” Well, actually, Jimmy, it’s not. I know, you have an obligation to get people into the theatres to see a movie and the best way to do that is to hype the ACTION! But Civil War is a different kind of action movie. Most of the scripts depicting Marvel’s super hero universe use dialogue to set up the action sequences. This script differs from those others because it uses the action sequences to set up the scenes of thoughtful dialogue between the characters. In fact, the weakest parts of this movie are the action sequences. Wait a minute, my Marvel Universe Geeks, don’t get you pocket protectors in a bunch. Yes, the BIG action sequence at the airport, GREAT, well thought out, well-choreographed and filmed perfectly. But most of the other fight scenes and chase scenes were clumsy and awkward. They used too many camera tricks that only blurred the action so the audience really couldn’t see what was going on. And what’s up with the frigging camera shaky stuff? Yes, I know the documentary footage from Vietnam was all shaky, but that wasn’t an artistic choice on the part of the filmmakers. The shaky camera, the jump shots, filming the fight scenes on high speed film really just makes a muddy mess of the scene.

And while I’m bad mouthing the visual effects, the worst action sequence (the idea stolen by the way from the movie G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) from CA:CW has got to be the foot chase through the tunnel between Bucky, Black Panther and Captain America.

Okay, I get it. Super Heroes are faster than cars, faster than trucks, more powerful than a speeding motorcycle, but the running and jumping over cars and under trucks shouldn't look like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon gone crazy. Only saving grace in the whole laughable sequence was when Bucky (with the good hair) plucked a flying motorcycle out of the air and rode off on it. THAT was cool. In that specific moment  the jump cuts worked for the action sequence instead of against it.

But let me get back to the good stuff, the script. I don’t think there’s a more literary action movie out there. This isn’t a movie just about fighting and blowing things up. It’s about ideas, particularly the moral implications of war. AND even more to the point, this script deals with the ramifications of “collateral damage.” Yeah, you know that phrase. Every time Obama sends a drone out to KILL the bad guy in some foreign country we never heard of, some innocent civilian winds-up getting killed. And whenever that happens, the State Department comes out with some sort of glib statement about collateral damage. “Hey, you know, we didn’t mean to kill little Suzie Q while she was outside her house bouncing her red rubber ball . . . But accidents happen! The good news is we KILLED the bad guy.” There’s also a lot about revenge in this movie. In fact, the whole story is motivated by the need to kill the people who killed somebody's a loved one either intentionally or by accident. And the script isn’t just a casual debate about war and its horrors. It’s not just an intellectual exercise. The issues are discussed in very human ways leaving the audience not sure just who are the good guys and who are the big guys. It’s neither pro-war nor antiwar although it does layout both sides of the argument in clear and precise strokes.

The acting has never been better. Chris Evans and Robert Downy Jr. never played these characters better. But they did have a kick-ass script to help them along. All the head-butting these two characters have done in every movie they’ve both  been in has finally come down to the final show down. I know the movie is called Captain America: Civil War, but it’s just as much about The-Rich-Kid-From-The-Penthouse as it is about The-Poor-Boy-From-The-Bronx. Sabastian Stan’s Bucky (with the good hair, see? I’m pretty hip to the new century’s pop! Hee!) is psychotically charming as the Winter Soldier trying to come in from the cold. And I’m pretty sure his horrifying journey is a metaphor for PTSD. And the rest of the cast is just brilliant even though they don’t have much screen time. But one standout in this supporting cast has got to be the new (and improved?) Spider-Man played with wonderful, teenage awkwardness by Tom Holland. 

So, except for my constant hounding about phony baloney action sequences (which I’m hard pressed to understand WHY more people aren’t complaining about it) Captain America: Civil War is probably the best executed Marvel movie we have seen yet.

Grade 89% = B+

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice March 2o16

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Alfred: You're gonna go to war?

Bruce Wayne: That son of a bitch brought the war to us.

Let me go back to 2o15 for a minute. My favorite movies of last year are: Ex Machina, Room, Brooklyn, Carol and Trumbo. They are my favorites because all five movies are more character studies than anything. Yes, they’re different genres, but they all delve into studying and (perhaps) understanding the way individual human beings interact with each other. And much to the chagrin of many Batman and Superman fans, Batman v. Superman tries to explore what it might really be like IF there really were super heroes living among us. How would we respond to them and how would they respond to each other, and how would they respond to the actions of their individual selves?

What the production team of Batman v. Superman has done is to explore the lives of these comic book heroes as if they were real people living in America.  The Superman character gives the director a chance to talk about one of the hottest, button pushing topics that’s as old as America itself, immigration. Oh, yeah. America has always hated and loved immigrants. Hate and suspicion of foreigners, you know, “THOSE people NOT like us,” has never been more heightened than in this 21^st century America we all love! And Superman IS the ultimate “illegal alien.” Where the comic books and movies about the Man of Steel always show the relationship between “law abiding” humans and Superman as an everlasting love fest,  this movie looks at Superman with a suspicious eye. I mean, come on! This super powerful dude shows up one day and starts protecting us? Why? I mean, he’s an alien! Why is he messing in our business? What does he really want?  But the real fuel for this suspicion, this xenophobia  is the fear itself. The unknowing of what someone who is “different than us is up to.There’s a small scene in the beginning of BVS where Lois Lane is being held captive by a gun toting terrorist and Superman crashes through the roof and without much effort slams the terrorist into a brick wall. It was one of the most horrifying scenes I’ve ever seen because it highlights just how powerful Superman is, and if he wasn’t habitual  “nice guy” he could destroy this planet, kill everybody on it breaking a sweat.

And then there’s the Batman played to demonic perfection by Ben Affleck. Yeah, we know all about batman, don’t we? He’s whole reason for existing is to protect the innocent, stop the “bad guy” and all that because he witnessed the murder of his mother and father when he was a kid. In this movie, Bruce Wayne is tormented day and night by the image of his parents’ death, tormented to such a extent he becomes totally obsessed with protecting the good and defeating evil to the point where his actions are psychotic. So, when he witnesses the battle between General Zod and Superman (Man of Steel 2013), sees the carnage, the loss of life caused by this frigging aliens, he snaps. He’s not going to bring Superman to justice because there is no justice for a genocidal maniac with super powers, no. Death, execution is the only way to stop this monster. I had reservations about Affleck playing the Batman, but his interpretation of the Dark Knight is a masterpiece of darkness and insanity.

However, as much as I loved the ideas in this movie, how much I enjoyed the performances of Affleck and Henry Cavill (Superman), there are problems with this movie which are caused primarily by the director, cinematographer and the film editors. The biggest mistake was in expressing the intimacy (that any character study needs to be considered a character study) with only one set of rhythms and tempos for all the quiet, scenes, and then putting those scenes so close together that there’s no sense of life, no sense of movement or growth. Every scene seems to be saying the same thing in the same way over and over again, and that is extremely boring to an audience. Even if a scene is dealing with the same ideas as the one that went before it has to be different, it has to be a scene that just doesn’t repeat what went on before, but digs deeper into the subject. The other fault I find with this movie is a pet peeve of mine. Directors, action directors in particular, think you create intimacy between characters by putting them in close ups! “How do I know this is an intimate, personal scene? Well, they have the actors in a two person close up, it MUST be personal.” But the opposite is really true. The movies I mentioned above, the ones from last year that I really liked? They are very personal, very intimate, and very human and all those films have only a few close ups of the actors. The directors of my favorite movies know that creating the connection between characters is primarily the work of the actor and not the camera. Yes, camera angles, camera movement can enhance the work of the actors, it can help to develop the emotion in a scene, but first and foremost the camera is there to support the work of the actors as is every element of movie tech.

A lot of my friends really dislike Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice because the pretentious production team had the NERVE to mess with the mythology of their beloved super heroes. I mean, Batman killing people on purpose with a . . . with a GUN?! Planning the “execution” of Superman without any remorse at all? Come on! Batman’s not like that. He stands for justice not murder. And Superman, he runs around (flies around) in this movie like a love sick puppy dog. “Oh! My girlfriend is in harm’s way!  You people in that burning house are gonna have to fend for yourselves, gotta go!” Swhoosh!  I can see why my friends are upset by this hoodlum director coming in and destroying these iconic characters. But they got to remember, the Batman and the Superman of old no longer exist. Over the years both characters have been developed to be more human, have more faults and darker sides. Like I said, I don’t have a problem with the changes they made in these characters, but I do believe the movie was just not realized as a solid study of human (and inhuman) existence.

Fantastic Four August o7, 2o15

See, the problem with us fan boys is that we tend to hold Marvel Comics in very high regard. Probably it’s because we got hooked on them at a very young, a very impressionable age. We take our comic books seriously because they have gotten us through those rough teenage years as

"the-kid-who-doesn't-fit-in." We were bullied by the bigger guys, invisible to girls, we looked funny, we were awkward, skinny (and fat), and Stan Lee and Marvel Comics wrote directly to us, for us, about us. Marvel Comics weren’t about superheroes; they were about very human beings that just happened to be superheroes. They lead tortured lives that mirrored the real life miseries that we the outcasts of teenage society faced on a daily bases. So, you’ll have to excuse us when we appear to get unreasonably angry when a movie studio (like 20^th century Fox) takes our beloved treasures of hope and turn them into celluloid sludge (I know, "celluloid" is an outdated word for film stock . . . but it sounds so cool!).

In a nutshell: Why The Fantastic Four Sucks

Lacks human interaction

When're you studio guys gonna get it? The ONLY reason people go to the movies is to see human beings interact with each other. Scripts need to be active and not passive. We want to see on the screen people struggling to overcome obstacles and reach (hopefully) whatever objective they are struggling to achieve. We don’t want you to tell us about the struggle, we want to SEE the struggle, hear it and feel it. For example, late in the movie when Reed is captured by the Evil Government Agent (a very Snidely Whiplash stereotype played by Tim Blake Nelson), he tells Ben, “Ben . . . you are my best friend.” Okay, that’s nice and everything, everybody NEEDS at least one friend, but there’s no exploration of that relationship. it doesn't seem to be more than a master/servant arrangement; Reed’s the boss and Ben is his unpaid employee. There's plenty you could have done in the beginning of the movie where Ben and Reed meet in grade school to show that “best friend relationship” without making the movie any longer than it is already. But the production team thought . . . well, there's the problem . . .  they didn't think the concept out. They don't think in terms of action when it comes to characters.

Another example: The Dimensional Traveling Machine is finely up and running and the “Evil Government Agent” comes in and announces that NASA is taking over the project “. . . and there’s nothing you eggheads can do about it! Woohahahaha!” 

 (Okay, the actor doesn’t really say that, but it comes off as something like that.) Anyway, the science boys are pissed. Victor Von Doom (Why is Dr. Doom in this movie?) pulls out this teeny tiny flask of whiskey(?) and everybody takes a sip and they’re drunk! And they decide to “Screw The Man! We’re gonna be the first to use the Dimensional Traveling Machine!” and . . . Well, and then it’s a breakneck run to get to the final scene where we “finally” see the BIG CGI action sequence that is so flat and cartoonish, so excruciatingly dull that I wished I had a Dimensional Traveling Machine so I could beam myself to another theatre in another dimension where I’m sure Fantastic Four would be a much better film.

If there’s a point to this “review” it’s that you can’t just sit down and write a script without exploring the specifics of human behavior in dire situations, and then figuring out a way to effectively express that human behavior in very clean, sensory images. I mean, you CAN be superficial if you want because that’s exactly what the producers of Fantastic Four (2015) have done. But there’s a price to pay for it. Ironically, the producers made this movie primarily to make a lot of money off the Fantastic Four franchise. And the rush to get the product out there to the public, to throw it together without truly exploring the world of the characters, hurt their bottom line.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation July 31, 2o15

Here’s a little secret that a lot of screenplay writers don’t know: ALL movies—no matter the genre, no matter the topic, no matter the setting—are action oriented. I’m not talking about gun battles and car chases and buildings imploding or scenes full of physical violence from the moment the credits roll, I’m talking about those smaller scenes where people . . . just talk. Yeah, that’s what I said: there is (or should be) A ton of action, verbal action in scenes where people sit in chairs, stare at each other and just talk. I know! Revolutionary idea, right, that the “dialogue scenes” in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation are just as action filled as that beautifully insane Moroccan motorcycle chase in MI5? Well, it’s not really a “new” idea to make dialogue scenes “active.” The ancient Greeks knew that the actor’s voice with the right words to say could create in the audience’s mind a wonderful sense of movement and activity. And the GREAT acting coach, Constantin Stanislavski, made this a major point in his teachings:

Acting = Action

Writer (and director) Christopher McQuarrie delivers a script that is “nonstop” action. No, Seriously. Every scene is geared towards action. The characters are actively trying to accomplish something in an extremely active manner in EVERY scene. And whether it’s the very intimate scenes when Ethan and the mysterious Ilsa try to figure out if the other is an ally or a deadly enemy, or the bigger than life scene where Benji pleads with Ethan to let him go into the field it’s all an exciting/edge of your chair time for the audience.

But as grand a script as this is, it also takes an extremely skilled group of actors to make it work. And this ensemble of Thespians (Okay, I just had to use the old high school term for theatre geeks at least once in a review) are working together like a
well-oiled acting machine. There are no real stars here, and much to his credit Tom Cruise works extremely well fitting in with this group. But I have to single out one actor cause the character he created for this movie, Solomon Lane (which is real close to sounding like Robert E. Howard’s character, Solomon Kane), is one scary frigging psychopathic villain. Listen, I’m an ex-Marine and Vietnam veteran (Okay, okay, I was a cook . . . Semper Fi; stir and fry . . . but still a vet.) and this character scared the crap out of me. It was a brilliant performance by English actor, Sean Harris.

However, as wonderful as the movie is, there are a few glitches.

1. Too many damn close ups! Don’t you filmmakers get it? Close ups kill tension in a scene. It’s that simple. And you shot most of this film in one of the most beautiful, intriguing places in the world, Morocco, and all you want to show me are close ups of the inside of Tom Cruise’s nose? Okay, it is pretty nice the septum . . . but I’d rather see Morocco! So back that damn camera up!

2. Extremely uninteresting hand-to-hand combat scenes. It’s got to stop these uninteresting, chopped-up, unwatchable fight scenes. They really slow down the action. If the actor can’t do the stunts, then hire someone who can. Or if the problem is you just don’t know HOW to shoot a fight scene, go watch—John Wick (2015), Kingsman: the Secret Service (2015)—to see how it’s done!
3. Stop jump cutting intimate dialogue between characters. It’s extremely annoying to try and follow intimate dialogue scenes when you keep jump cutting back and forth to each character when he/she speaks!  There’s a scene in a café when the MI Team sits around a table to discuss their strategy to take out the ever evil Syndicate and the camera keeps jumping back and forth, back and forth to whomever is talking.  They do it ALL THE TIME! Again, it’s annoying and totally uninteresting to watch from an audience member’s point of view. Back the camera up, make it a static shot if you like, and just shoot the damn scene. Everybody doesn’t have to be seen face-full just because they’re talking.

Although the above gripes are artistic ideals I’m passionate about . . . I really liked the script and the work of the actors in this movie. And it’s saying something about the power of a good script and damn good acting when I can forgive technique faults.

 

Maggie May o8, 2o15

Okay, have we had enough flesh eating zombie movies, TV shows . . . yet? I mean it was 1968 when Georgie Romero and his buddies got drunk in a Pittsburgh bar and came up with the idea: “Hey! Wouldn’t it be cool if we brought the dead back to life and they go on an eating frenzy? A HUMAN FLESH eating frenzy!” Ain’t it old . . . yet? I mean, we’ve had slow moving flesh eaters, fast moving eaters, dancing zombies, action movie zombies, horror flick zombies, comedy and romantic zombie films . . . HAVEN’T WE HAD ENOUGH . . .  YET?! Well, the answer is, absolutely . . . NOT!

Maggie is a domestic drama about how a family (and community) deals with a young family member who’s contracted the incurable and extremely contagious disease, “The Romero Scourge.” Okay, they don’t call it that, of course. It IS a flesh eating Zombie movie,  but unlike the usual Zombie action film, Maggie is slow paced. The action is mostly internal dealing with the mental and physical turmoil that erupts when a family member is exposed to a deadly and highly contagious disease. The progression of the disease is also slow taking up to eight weeks before the infected “turns” and tries to eat everybody in the house. The “bitten” has basically two choices: A. Be committed to a hell hole of a hospital and await with other infected people the inevitable or B. Return to your home to be watched over by the local doctor and, again, wait out the time before you turn into a flesh eater surrounded by family and friends.

The cast is just brilliant. Joely Richardson as Carol Vogal struggles beautifully with the desire to be a dutiful wife and her fear for her children’s welfare when her husband brings the infected Maggie (Carol’s stepdaughter) home. And Abigail Breslin is perfect as the runaway daughter who gets infected by some random flesh eater and decides she needs her father. And Arnold as the stoic Wade Vogal, the father determined to protect his daughter no matter what the cost is? Well, Arnold is just superb. It’s not so much that Arnold’s work in this film is better than anything he’s ever done, it’s more like it’s a totally different style for Arnold, and to be honest about it, I never thought him capable of performing the “art film” style.

And yes, Maggie is definitely an art film. Not a lot of physical action in this movie. It’s more of a study of the internal action of the characters. There’s a scene in the opening where Wade and Maggie are taking her half brother and sister to their aunts, and Carol stands on the porch, big smile on her face, waving goodbye to her children as they go to a “safer” location. Then we cut a scene of Carol sitting in her chair in the kitchen and thinking about the danger that Maggie’s presence presents to her, her husband and their children. It’s an extremely moving scene without a bit of dialogue in it. There are lots of scenes like that one in this movie where we watch people think, contemplate the serious of the situation they are in and decide how to best deal with the given circumstances that fate has stretch out before them.

There’s a lot of good, subtle stuff going on in this movie that you might miss if you don’t watch it more than once. I know after my first viewing of it, I didn’t think much of it. But something told me that I should watch it again. And the second time around I saw things about it that I had taken for granted. The movie Maggie is a sort of a animated painting, and like a painting it demands that you look at it for a long time and allow it to work its magic on you. So, give this small film a look see. You may like it.

ANT-MAN July 17, 2o15

Okay, I admit it. When I heard that Paul Rudd would be the ANT-MAN, I about cried! Holy crap! Could there be a worse actor to cast in a “serious” action movie?! Horrible images of good actors doing bad things to our belovèd Comic book heroes flashed in my mind:  Ben Affleck’s puffy-chested, Daredevil (stoic to a fault), Seth Rogen’s dopey, misplaced humor in The Green Hornet, and let’s not forget the gratefully dead Fantastic Four franchise that was so pathetically NOT FUNNY when it was trying so hard to BE funny! No, please, no Paul Rudd! Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually love Rudd in romantic comedies (Clueless {1995} for example) and stupid comedies (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy {2004}, The 40-Year-Old Virgin {2005} which really aren’t my cup of funny but Rudd was good  in them). No! A comedian taking on a serious, action-packed Marvel super hero film? No way, Michael Peña! Comic book heroes are serious business! You can’t mix straight-up comedy with hardcore, intense comic book action!

 

Now having got all that out of my system, let me say that . . . ANT-MAN IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ACTION/COMEDY MOVIES I HAVE EVER, EVER SEEN! And it’s due to two important elements:

1. One hell of a great script! It is intelligent, very witty and when it needs to being extremely earnest and action packed.  And the comedy, the humor isn’t forced on the script but comes directly from the actions of the characters. The writers (Paul Rudd, Edgar Wright, Adam McKay, Joe Cornish) created a well-balanced comedy/thriller that had me laughing and hootin’ and hollerin’ and totally buying the drama of ANT-MAN!

2. Just great casting! Paul Rudd (as Scott Lang/ANT-MAN) and Michael Peña (as Luis) are a frigging comedy duo of awesomeness, never losing the momentum or diminishing the terrifying, super villain  . . . villainy of YELLOWJACKET (played by hairless Corey Stoll). Not to be dismissed are Michael Douglas (Hank Pym, the “mad” scientist who created and wore the first ANT-MAN suit), Evangeline Lilly (as Hope van Dyne, Hank Pym’s Kick-Ass-And-Take-A–Few-Names daughter) Annnnnd Abby Ryder Fortson as Scott Lang’s seven year old kid who is outrageously cute, and extraordinarily lovable and a heck of an actor! Hell, the whole cast is GREAT!

 

The only complaint that I might have is that every now and then the ant army’s CGI was a tad out of sync. But to be honest again, it’s such a slight hiccup I can’t complain about it too much. Look, ANT-MAN is one of Marvel’s best super hero/action movies to ever grace the screen. Sure, the action is powerful and somewhat frightening but not overly so. It is rated PG-13, but tends to be more PG than 13.  ANT-MAN has a different feel to it than say the Avengers, Captain America or even the X-Men. However, if you love Marvel movies, you should . . .  GO SEE IT! GO SEE IT! GO SEE IT! Right NOW!

Terminator: Genisys July 2o15

 

 

Ten minutes into Terminator Genisys (General Identification System {computer system for biological identifications} just in case you thought it might just be a typo) I heard a very soft but distinct voice speak to me:

 

” Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

 

It was a warning from the future . . . from Sergeant Kyle Reese directly to me: “This movie wants to kill you!”

 

Terminator: Genisys is murderously slow and explicitly cumbersome. It’s an action film without a lick of action in it. Oh, sure, there’s plenty of gunfire, lots of CGI enhanced explosions (one of which is a rip off from The Matrix), car chases and crashes, killer Terminator-exterminators, a slow motion sequence of a school bus flipping over lengthwise across the Golden Gate Bridge leaving the occupants (Sarah and Kyle) hanging Barrel of Monkeys style over the Golden Gate strait looking all Wile E. Coyote eyed hoping that  someone (I wonder who) will come along and haul them out of danger—but all that doesn’t add up to much because action isn’t guns going off, and special effects (practical or CGI), it’s not about high speed chases and explosions . . .action is actors portraying characters who are working as hard as they can (verbally and mentally as well as physically) to protect their imaginary lives and defeat, hopefully,  the bad cyborg monsters (oh, yeah, there appear to be a LOT of them in this sequel) and win the day. . . . until, of course, it’s time for the next installment of a new (and improved?) sci-fi soup opera  franchise: As the Terminator Turns.

 

And what about that acting! Boy, that’s where this movie really falls apart, there’s no real acting going on, it’s just a herd of performers sputtering a bunch of lines that make no sense to them or to the audience, “Just following orders, sir!” stepping on the mark at the right time . . . turning left, right, smiling on cue, crying on cue, yelling on cue and . . .  well, that’s about it. It’s not acting at all. It’s more like theatrical calisthenics. Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), our time-crossed lovers have no “chemistry.” I hate using the word chemistry, but I can’t think of any other word that can describe how dull, how plodding every scene is when they are the focal point. Although most of the cast seems to be just reciting lines, J. K. Simmons playing Detective O’Brian does a great job in a role that doesn’t seem to have any real storytelling reason for even being in this movie.

 

The original Terminator (1984) was made for 6.5 million dollars. Terminator: Genisys cost 170 million to produce and it’s a far, far less effective than the original. My question to you, fellow time travelers . . . how in the hell is that possible? How can anybody spend 170 million dollars on a movie and not make really, really good one? Simple, they don’t worry about writing a great script. All the money is spent on special effects because in their little minds the only reason anyone goes to see an action film is to see stunts, special effects and . . . well, you know the drill. Do yourself a favor, skip Genisys, rent a copy of the original Terminator and see how a movie SHOULD be made.