Tuesday, March 19, 2024

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Dune: Part Two

2024, Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) -- cinema

Dune: Part One writeup. Wow, we did a back-n-forth post.

This one is still settling in. It doesn't have the visual cues that separate it into segments like the first. But for a few visits to Geidi Prime, home of the Harknonnen, and Kaitain, the home of Emperor Shaddam and his daughter Irulan. Its all sand sand sand, with a wee bit of a visit elsewhere. 

Almost a week later and it never settled in.

But for some butt discomfort (three hours in a seat does a number on my muscles) I was entirely enthralled all the way through this movie. So the "not settled in" kind of weirds me out. Nothing really stands out in my mind-memory as, "I loved that!" and yet I can say with (mental) comfort that I did love the movie. Maybe as I speak of it (as Kent said, this blog, for me, is more like us sitting at a table, chatting about it), more will come to mind.

So, the movie picks up immediately after the last. Paul (Timothée Chalamet, Lady Bird) and Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson, Silo) are escaping into the desert with the Fremen of Seitch Tabr, still carrying the body of Jamis (Babs Olusanmokun, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds). A Harkonnen patrol finds them, the Fremen scatter, Paul and his mother hide. There is a fight, high atop a rocky outcropping, and as the Fremen make quick work of the environment-suit clad Harkonnen soldiers, their bodies fall with booming thuds to the sand below. After, the Fremen collect gear from the vanquished, as well as water from their corpses, but only for cooling systems -- their bodies are too full of chemicals to be used as drinking water. But still, not wasted. 

Then, we are then introduced to Irulan (Florence Pugh, Outlaw King), who narrates into a recording device, giving us some more political tidbits of the situation in the Galaxy. 

Much of the early movie is Paul and Jessica finding their place among the Fremen of Seitch Tabr. Some are as Stilgar (Javier Bardem, Jamón, Jamón), beholden to the prophecy of the Lisan al-Gaib, an off-worlder who will bring back life to Arrakis. Others, such as Chani (Zendaya, Spider-Man: No Way Home) and her friend Shishakli (Souheila Yacoub, Le sel des larmes), don't believe in the prophecy and openly mock  the others. And many think Paul and his mother are just spies, but Stilgar knows she is Bene Gesserit, and has her replace their own dying Reverend Mother -- he has to play politics as well, to keep all on the path he wants them on. The ritual involves drinking the Water of Life, a blue goo taken from a drowned baby worm. The Water gives Jessica all the memories of previous Reverend Mothers but also transmutes her unborn daughter into... something more, something sentient & intelligent, while still in the womb. For Jessica, all of this is her manipulation to bring about the Bene Gesserit's own prophecy, of the Kwisatz Haderach.

Soooo much of this movie is about solidifying the utterly dense mythology of this book series in our minds. I am not sure how successful it will be to the wider audiences. I am decades past my reading, and only remember the loudest notes. I also have the two previous adaptations muddled in there. So, while I cannot speak to authenticity, I can say it is powerful. The metaphors of white saviour to a desert people, political machinations vs faith, the jockeying of power between patriarchies and matriarchies, and the desire to not be utterly controlled by a destiny that will bring so much ruin --- so much is covered, and it may be this volume of ideas that is supplanting the emotional weight that allows a movie to settle into my brain pan.

Paul doesn't annoy me as much in this movie as he did in the first. I really respect how Chalamet and Villeneuve handle the young man coming into his own, as he tries to adapt his own desires for revenge to the prophecy of the Fremen, and the machinations of his mother, but without taking advantage of the Fremen. He also has a budding romantic relationship, which fell entirely flat for me. I am not a Zendaya hater, but she did nothing for me in this role, and their relationship did not seem believable to me. Meanwhile Bardem utterly embodied his Stil(gar) suit -- (groooooan) wholeheartedly dedicated to his faith in Paul, but also ready to dispense with whatever didn't fit this square peg into the round hole of prophecy. He seemed a bit desperate, but also astounded at how much did align for him. And funny -- the only humour in the movie, if you didn't laugh at Gurney Halleck's (Josh Brolin, Old Boy) attempts at musical poetry.

But the story also has to fill in the gaps elsewhere: the Harkonnens trying to resurrect spice production after taking the planet back from the brief Atreides rule, and the Emperor (Christopher Walken, Gigli) himself, dealing with the impact of what he did (the destruction of a great house), and how it affects his daughter's respect for him, as well as her own insertion into the long game politics, as she is tied to the Bene Gesserit. I will definitely have to watch a second time to see if I end up caring about these other plot points. I mean, they are directly from the book, but I found myself not caring at all about them, but for the incredible imagery. Geidi Prime, the black & white oily planet seemingly without any colour, would make its own good story, but here, I just wanted to get back to Arrakis and see how they are going to get Paul along far enough to attack the Harkonnen. The years long passing from the books (he actually has kids during this period) is not possible in this adaptation, so I was curious how they would escalate Paul's rising in power among the Fremen. The movie uses the Harkonnen response, the arrival of psychotic Feyd Rautha (Austin Butler, Masters of the Air) who obliterates Seitch Tabr, forcing the Fremen of the north hemisphere to ride their worms south. This is what instigates the retribution against all the Harkonnen, a united people north and south, all under Paul, now Muad'Dib, who has to accept his role, embrace it fully, bitterly.

The "final battle" where Paul brings about the destruction of the Harkonnen strongholds on Arrakis, this is where Villeneuve's flair for vast scenes excels. The atomics tossed at the mountains, the arrival of the worm allies, the huge battle between Fremen, Harkonnen and the Emperor's Sardaukar. It all culminates with Paul confronting the Emperor and the castrated Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård, Thor). By now, Paul has fully accepted his role in all these plots, and schemes and stratagems. He has seen the future properly and how so many futures could only lead to numberless deaths, without resolution. So, he makes the hardest choice, that he will become the Emperor (in effect) by taking Irulan's hand in marriage. He will go against the other great houses. He will begin his Holy War proper.

If at any point, this movie, and this story, fails me, it is at this conclusion, because its not a conclusion at all. Most not familiar with the mythology would be "WTF?!?!" as Paul has gone from not wanting to be anyone's messiah to not only leading the Fremen of Arrakis against the Harkonnens, but now against the entire galaxy. Still not sure how these desert guys know how to fly a spaceship, but sure, whatever. We knew there had to be a third movie (at least) for the story to be told properly, but this whole scene feels... abrupt.

I guess, after all this writing, and all this muddling in the back of my brain, this movie refuses to settle. I don't have that impression that I did with the first movie. That could be explained down to simply that there was nothing new here, this is still Villeneuve in the world of Dune, so the wow-factor is not possible. I have already had that impressed upon me. Perhaps with further viewings, as I sink past the story I already know, and see the film making, it will once again come to impress me, to wow me, to astound me, as the first movie does. 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Le règne animal

2023, Thomas Cailley (Les combattants) -- download

Or The Animal Kingdom.

Small genre flicks are probably one of my schticks. I enjoy seeing what a movie can do when it is freed from the need to be a Hollywood production. Don't get me wrong; many small production genre movies want nothing more than to be recognized and swept into the big glitzy world of the purple suits, but the ones I more enjoy are about their creator's vision, intent and focus. Now, while the French movie industry is of an entire different tone than America's (and Canada's) Hollywood, its nice that this movie was allowed to breathe.

For an unknown reason, this world is having an evolution -- no not, a revolution -- people are mutating into animals. It is not concerned with the why's or how's, just that it is happening. François (Romain Duris, En attendant Bojangles) and Émile (Paul Kircher, Le lycéen) are moving from the city to a more rural area near a facility built to house the mutating. François's wife,  Émile's mother, is in the later stages, and the two of them are held by loyalty and fear, as Émile still bears the scars from an attack while she was changing. Émile settles into a new school while François, a chef by trade, takes a catch-all job at a small resto. He is not afraid to humble himself to keep his family close. Unfortunately, the transport bringing many of the mutants to the newish facility crashes and many escape into the nearby forest. François becomes obsessed with finding his wife amidst the woods.

Meanwhile Émile begins to show signs, signs which he hides, hides from his father, and hides from the townsfolk & classmates who are clearly xenophobic to these strange creatures upsetting their lives. And strange they are. They take on all animal life forms: wolf, bear, insect, octopus, bird, etc. They are not turning like lycanthropes, but becoming more a merging of the animal form, humanoid but with distinct features, whether practical or not. The woods now teem with ... new & different life, but they are all in hiding, as locals and the called-in army try to deal with them -- often violently. Émile, while dealing with his own shame & fear, meets and befriends Fix, an escapee becoming a bird(man). François is just desperately trying to retain his family, even when it becomes fruitless.

There are few broad strokes in this movie. It doesn't try to be grand in what it is saying, it doesn't feel a need to be much more than a story of a father & son dealing with an incredible difficult situation. But as a genre movie, it loves its creatures -- they are lovingly, and oft horrifyingly depicted. Again, there are no explanations, and a part of my genre fiction fan brain wants some idea of the world building, the why's, but instead, we just have a tale of emotional impacts to a very not normal situation.

Monday, March 11, 2024

KWIF: Madame Web (+4)

 KWIF = Kent's Week (or two) In Film. It would probably be easier on me if I just did as Toasty does and write-up each film as an individual post, but I seem to prefer just sitting down for three (or four or more) hours and plugging away at writing about movies when I'm awake way too early.  We're encroaching on 2000 published posts here at T&K Sometimes Disagree, and had I separated each movie or TV show into their own entry we'd probably be closer to 2500. Whatevs. Still it's quite a milestone.

This Week
Madame Web (2024, d. S.J. Clarkson - In Theatre)
All Of Us Strangers (2023, d. Andrew Haigh - Disney+)
Joy Ride (2023, d. Adele Lim - Crave)
No Hard Feelings (2023, d. Gene Stupnitsky - Crave)
Akilla's Escape (2020, d. Charles Officer - Crave)

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Of all the films I have to write about this week, Madame Web is certainly the least of them. It only gets the KWIF headline spotlight because it's the first 2024 film I've seen this year. I'm still catching up on 2023.

We all knew, from the first trailer, that Madame Web was going to be trash. The trailer hid nothing, and the complete disinterest of the cast was evident in a 2 minute montage. 

Some of us even knew back when Sony announced they were producing a Madame Web movie that it was going to be trash. There's never even been a Madame Web solo comic book, how are you going to make a whole movie around that character? Especially when, in the comics, she's a blind, chair-bound eeeellllderly woman. As an actress Dakota Johnson is not a lot of things, and those are three of them.

The most interesting thing about Madame Web is all metatext, the stuff that happened around it. If the reports are true, it started out as a 90's-set prequel to the Andrew Garfield-led Amazing Spider-Man franchise. Then, apparently, producers got cold feet and wanted to push it up a decade and make it a prequel to the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man: Home* franchise. Then they got complete frostbite, lost their toes, and decided to make it its own thing.

It's certainly it's own thing.

We all knew it was going to be a bad movie. Upon its release critics were savage, comic book movie fans even more so, but even still, when I suggested Toasty and I spend an entire Saturday watching at least 4 screenings of Madame Web, I was only half joking.

Why?

Because Madame Web is truly a film that should not logically exist. There's no audience asking for it, there's no fanbase for the character, and there's no "world building" impetus for it. It was a studio-mandated dumpster fire the purple suits hoped would turn into a barbecue.  And that's intriguing to me.  

It's not like Morbius -- which I skipped and had zero interest in seeing until it cropped up on Netflix this week and now it's on the "wee hours of the morning, maybe" pile -- who is a character and concept, much like Blade which has the potential to be its own thing. He has had his own comic book series at least. But Morbius seemed too self-serious, as any Jared Leto-led project does. Madame Web looked like there was potential for a good time.

And you know what...?

I had a good time.

It is a terrible movie, just bloody ridiculous. A ludicrous farce of a superhero origin story that never fails to boggle the mind with inept story transitions and character choices and expository dialogue. But in that, it felt kind of light, breezy, mindless. It's sort of like getting that glaucoma test at the optometrist, where you sit there in dreaded anticipation of that puff of wind going in your eye, and then it happens and you can't help but be surprised and react and laugh, and then, really forget all about it seconds after its over. This is just a puff of wind in the eyes.

I don't have a lot of experience with Johnson's prior roles, and what I have seen has not left me clamouring for more. Her performance, if you can call it that, reeks of embarrassment. You can totally tell she doesn't really want to be in this movie. I have seen Adam Scott -- who plays (Uncle) Ben Parker here -- in plenty of things, dramatic and comedic, and I have never seen him not even phone in the performance, he's still dialing the numbers here. The whole cast is lifeless and drained of any energy. It probably speaks to all the many reshoots done, but it's a listless product, save for one aspect that actually does work: women talking.

The life of this film is when all the female characters are on screen together. There's a support there that seems to elevate the dodgiest script, and a true sense of bonding between the performers seemed to have happened... like soldiers in a regimen at war, experiencing the same traumas brings you close.

That good time I had watching this, though, I think it's a one shot deal. I can't imagine rewatching it and getting the same sense of enjoyment. It's a real dog of a Spider-person movie.

With a re-edit and more reshoots, I could see a much better, completely Marvel-free horror movie made out of this, of a woman whose precognitive powers isolate her from society and the three girls she must save from a slasher who is killing orphans or something. 

Will Madame Web become a cult film, though? I could see people coming to screenings, holding pepsi cans and fake spiders in jars and doing fake chest compressions (the cure for everything) in the aisles.

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All Of Us Strangers was a critical top-ten favourite of 2023 but missed out on the Oscars likely because Searchlight Pictures was putting its money behind nominations for Poor Things instead.  It's loosely adapted from Taichi Yamada's novel Strangers into a definite tone poem (and not a vibes movie).

Andrew Scott plays Adam (no, he's not playing Adam Scott of Madame Web...we've moved on...) is a screenwriter in London. He lives in a new condo tower that is largely vacant. He seems lonely and a little depressed. He encounters a drunk Harry (Paul Mescal, completely endearing), who seems very much in the same state, but rebuffs Harry's offer for company to retreat into solitude. 

Adam is trying to write about his parents, who died in a car crash when he was 12, but can't find the words, so he returns to his childhood home, where he encounters their ghosts. They catch up on their son's life. Adam is elated. He runs into Harry again and the two connect, first as two lonely and sad people, but then as two gay men whose lives just need more love and affection in them.

Adam and Harry become a fast couple, a very sweet, tender, romantic, caring couple, and together they venture out of their solitude and into the world. Adam, meanwhile, returns to his ghost parents on multiple occasions, some encounters not faring as well as others (like when he outs himself to his mother), but finding closure along the way.

Tone poems (like vibes movies) can be a challenge. I found myself a little bored during the first act, but when Adam and Harry finally connect, and get intimate, it's quite passionate. The second act, as Adam and Harry become more emotionally involved the colour palette gets really warm, and the bare skin of the men is just radiant. It reminds me just a touch of In the Mood for Love. The second act really endears you to these men and their gentle, supportive relationship. The vibestones leave no room for drama, there's not going to be any wild swings...except Adam's return visits to his parents' ghosts. 

At times, I had to ask myself, is this a romance or a horror? A drama or a ghost story? The answer is "yes", and it's hard to reconcile at times. The third act is a tearjerker and, I'm sure for many (like Lady Kent), a head scratcher. At one point I was telling myself "if the movie goes there, I'm going to be so very mad at it." The movie went there. I wasn't mad, because it found itself, seconds later, right back in the vibestones, and it kept vibingtoning, and I kept vibingtoning with it.

It won't be for everyone, as vibe movies are pretty much  exclusive to those who hit the same wavelength. I can see this emotionally connecting very hard with people who lost their parents young, or who have had strained relationships with them because of their gender or sexuality (or both) but, even if you can't personally relate, it offers a space on the couch, a little hit of something, and a set of headphones to feel the groove...if you accept it.

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I had planned to catch up on a bunch of 2023 comedies this week but only managed two, which is fine. More than any other genre, comedies are the ones I approach with the most trepidation. What the proverbial Purple Suits think the masses think is funny and what I think is funny tend to be two radically different things.

Joy Ride is like half a Purple Suits-derived movie, and half spitting directly in their faces. The road-trip-gone-wild (RTGW) subgenre of comedy is such a Purple Suits formulae at this point that it's an instant eye-roll generator for me. The RTGW in recent years, though, has been co-opted from the Purple Suits by the FUBU crowd and we're seeing culturally-specific RTGW movies hitting the screens and turning tidy profits. 

In this case, it finds two lifelong best friends, both Asian-American, but borne of different circumstances.  Audrey was adopted from China as a baby to white parents, while Lolo was raised by her immigrant parents, and they met as children in the very white, Dave Matthews Band-soaked community of White Hills. Now adults, Audrey is the consummate overachiever, handling microagressions from her ignorant-not-intolerant white lawyer colleagues as she climbs to the top, while Lolo is a sex-positive artist with little income living in Audrey's basement. Audrey is set to take a trip to Shanghai to close a business deal and is taking Lolo with her as translator, since Audrey never really learned to speak Mandarin. In China they're to meet up with Audrey's college roommate, Kat, who has become a famous soap opera actress about to make the leap into major feature films. Lolo's awkward cousin, Deadeye, tags along as she's supposed to meet up with some online friends from a K-Pop superfan forum. 

Audrey's experience in China at first is a mixed bag. Being surrounded by people who look like her lends her a quiet comfort that she never knew, but then finds that the language barrier, and the cultural barrier dampen that comfort. Lolo wants her to look up her birthmother while they are there, but Audrey seems to have no interest, until the business deal goes sour and proving her Chinese bona-fides to the Chinese investor involves recruiting her birth mom into action or losing everything she's worked for.

Of course nothing turns out right and the four women find themselves on a road trip gone very wrong that involves heavy amounts of drugs, aggressively sexy times with a basketball team, some distant relative connections, a breakdown in the friendships and an unexpected turn in Audrey's priorities.

I find the RTGW genre a fairly tired one, particularly the requisite "we're so high on drugs" scene and/or the absurd sex-stuff scene(s), because they're so often just relying upon the conceit for the laugh and not really working hard to elevate the jokes. The drug stuff here is so much the former, but the sex scenes with the basketball team leads to a pretty good group of gags, even if it's cartoonishly out of hand.

Our leads  -- Ashley Park (Emily In Paris) as Audrey, Sherry Cola (Shortcomings) as LoloStephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once) as Kat and Sabrina Wu in a very breakout performance as Deadeye -- are all terrific, the chemistry is great, and they're all nimble comedic performers. Park nails the third-act drama so well, she had me tearing up along with her.  

There is a place for comedy-for-the-masses, but to me, the best comedy gets deeply specific. What will always take a general 3-star RTGW story up a level is cultural specificity, it's the jokes that are generated from the culture by the culture to appeal to the culture. I'm not sure the jokes here are deeply specific, but they are definitely specific, and, even though it's not a comedy playing to me directly as an audience, it's still a rowdy fun time overall.

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I think film trailers are the number one reason why people don't go see comedies in the theatres anymore.  It's hard enough to get a comedy that swerves around the Purple Suits' expectations for what's funny, but then you got the Purple Suits' editors distilling a film down to two minutes and their particular sensibilites.

Thus No Hard Feelings trailer premiered to a swath of reactionary, unfounded "film about grooming" allegations that I'm not sure it ever properly shook. From my perspective it looked like a stupid "raunchy comedy" that certainly couldn't have anything interesting to say about an older woman trying to bring a teenager out of his shell for a new car.

The teenager in question is 19-year-old Percy who is about to head out to Princeton in the fall, but never leaves his room and worries his parents with his isolationism. As a parent of modern teens, I can relate. But these rich second-home-having New York elite types are also aggressive helicopter parents and they aim to do something about it. They solicit an ad for a college-aged woman to date their son in exchange for a new car.

Answering the ad is Maddie, a 32-year-old Montauk lifer is struggling to keep her house. Her car has been repossessed, which means she can't supplement her low-wage bartending job with Uber driving for the summer when all the rich idiots descend upon town. It's these idiots, buying up and redeveloping all the real estate, that is driving her taxes up to unaffordable levels.  She needs the car to drive the idiots to save her house, and she's willing to date a 19 year old to do it.

What results initially is highly awkward, very uncomfortable scenes of Maddie trying to get Percy's attention, trying to proposition him, trying to get him interested in having sex with her. Her plan is to get in and get out because time is money and time is a-wasting.  But Percy is a thoughtful, sensitive and caring kid. He finds Maddie attractive but he wants to get to know her before he does anything with her.

What happens, naturally, is Maddie develops feelings. Percy's not like the quick meaningless lays she's left around town, she has a genuine interest in Percy's development as a person, seeing a reflection of her own life lost by the promise of this fledgling adult. Of course, her feelings are not romantic, like Percy's start to become towards her, and there's not really any easy way out of this, especially if he were to find out about the deal.

Jennifer Lawrence is a fearless performer. She doesn't carry with her any sense of ego or identity in her performance. It's only the first few minutes of the movie where I was thinking "yeah sure, world-famous movie star Jennifer Lawrence is pretending to be a victim of the housing crisis and class inequality" to "Maddie really needs that car, and while her tactics are riotously wrong-headed, she's not wrong for going for it". The brassiness that Lawrence shows as Maddie is a very well constructed veil that is evident from the beginning, hiding someone underneath who is sort of lost and afraid, and has been for a long time. (There's pretty much a direct parallel between Maddie and Adam from All Of Us Strangers, both who lost their parents young, and both who have severe difficulty opening up to others with knotted up hearts).

Matching her scene-for-scene is Andrew Barth Feldman, a newcomer to the screen but played the lead in Dear Evan Hanson on Broadway. The kid's got chops. The film is set in this age of financial disparity, and offers no resolution to it, save for the poor to take advantage of the inane ways the rich wish to be served. But it's also about the generation gap, between the time Percy's parents remember (eg. the John Hughes years) and the way kids engage with the world today, and also in the way Maddie views the world compared to Percy.  It's not directly saying a lot about these things, but they're being put boldly up on the screen to examine and compare.

It's a far more thoughtful film than I had given it credit for, and it doesn't go for easy gags. Even it's most infamous (already) scene finds Lawrence engaging in fighting a trio of teenagers fully naked at night on the beach, at one point even suplexing a kid. In a comedy 20 years ago it would have been cheap titillation but, it's definitely not that. There's no leering. It's an action sequence. It's a brilliantly funny moment as she stomps out of the ocean in the background towards the teens like a Terminator fresh from the future, absolutely determined to destroy. And it's not funny just because she's naked, but because she's so unphased by her state when fighting with such wild gusto. It speaks to her as a character for sure, especially the conversation with Percy that immediately follows. 

There's so much to enjoy here (see also Percy's stunning cover of "Maneater" or the "abduction" scene). This isn't a throwaway comedy. It's also not a laugh riot that demands immediate rewatch, but any other time in the past 50 years it would have been an instant cable TV classic. I don't know where it fares from here, but its charms are sure to prevail. 

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How I came to the indie-Canadian urban drama of Akilla's Escape is an odd one. I was randomly searching movies on the various platforms I have accounts with. One connection led to another, six degrees of Kevin Bacon-style, and I came across Saul Williams. I know Williams primarily from a few tracks of his from the early aughts. He blends spoken word with hip-hop with activism in a very powerful manner such that the few tracks of his I've heard have really stuck with me over the years.

Williams is a multi-multi-hyphenate. He does a bit of everything writing, poetry, music, directing, and yes, acting. It was his profile on my Rogers cable box that brought me to Akilla's Escape. I watch the trailer, it looked interesting enough, but the list of people associated with the production included Robert Del Naja, aka 3D of the band Massive Attack as part of the soundtrack. Williams was the lead, and also the composer, with 3D assisting.

The next day I listened to the soundtrack to Akilla's Escape a half dozen times, which led to a strong desire to watch the production. This is not unusual, as it happened a fair number of times back in the 90's when I'd gorge on a soundtrack long before I'd watched the film.

The story of Akilla's Escape is fairly simple, but the simplicity betrays its depth. Akilla is operating a grow-op in Toronto, where weed has become legal and is controlled by the province. The profits are still there, but competition has gone legit and he wants out. In the process of making his pitch to the criminals he's tangentially beholden to, a robbery goes down. One of the three thieves is captured, and he's just a boy, a mute kid in over his head. Akilla takes responsibility for the boy and gets him safely home to his aunt. But the danger isn't over. Akilla's associates want their goods returned and some intimidation for good measure, and the gang the boy was running with figure him for a snitch that needs to be silenced.

Flashbacks tell us about Akilla's life with his abusive father, drummed out of Jamaica after the political civil war ended and his enforcer status with the losing side marked him a wanted man. He took his family to New York where he started the Garrison Army, a particularly vicious gang, and when Akilla was old enough, brought him into the the fold. But Akilla had to run to Canada after retaliating against his father after repeatedly abusing his mother. It's been nearly 30 years.

But this boy he's saved, he was running with the Garrison, and that makes it personal for Akilla. And when the boy is abducted, Akilla will make sure he's returned safely to his aunty.

Overall this is a well crafted, tightly structured, and contemplative entry in the street gang subgenre. It's well coiled around a remarkably introspective performance by Williams who doesn't come off as an action hero badass, but instead a man capable of doing whatever it is needing done. He wears the weariness of Akilla well. He's tired of the life he's leading. Rather than thinking about something more, it's almost like he wants something less. An escape, you might say.

The film has a great trick in its sleeve, which is casting Thamela Mpumlwana as both the boy Akilla saves and as young Akilla in the flashbacks. Styled completely different, and yet, the resonance of Akilla seeing himself is absolutely the point. 

At times this film bears the scars of its Canadian production budget. With better cameras, lenses, lighting and time, it would look a lot better than it does. It looks fine, but you can tell the late director Officer wanted it to look amazing.  This should look like a Michael Mann picture, but it can only reach.

It's very much straddles the line between vibes movie and tone poem, owing a great debt to its soundtrack which weaves in and out of genres from reggae, dub, electronica, ambiant, industrial, gospel, hip-hop and even Spanish guitar. It is a great listen, both in context and out of.


Sunday, March 10, 2024

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Freelance

2023, Pierre Morel (Banlieue 13) - Netflix

"I am in the mood for something dumb," I said as she queries why I have clicked on this. I have said this enough that it could probably become a tag. But as the credits opened, I saw Morel's name and I also thought, "Wait, don't we like Morel?" We do. I have written about a number of his movies here, but strangely enough, no post for Taken, not even a rewatch.

Another tag thought occurred the other day, wherein I rewatch all the movies I have previously commented on or questioned, "Why don't I have a post for _______." But at the same time I am saying, "Why look for an excuse to rewatch when you have hundreds on your to-be-watched list?"

Also, "clicked" ? Is there a better term for what you do when you press a button on a remote control that activates an icon on a smart TV ? Essentially the remote is the mouse for the TV...

I am not entirely favourable in my write-ups of Morel but I guess they are the dumb movies I am looking for at the moment. BUT there were shades of a decent movie in here, but were over-shadowed by the pablum-ization required to make this a mid-range hit in America? Hit is stretching it, but if Uwe Boll made a career out of making movies purely for the in-flight movie market, then making movies purely for the "short theatre run + streaming" is a business model... I guess?

Mason Pettits (John Cena, Peacemaker; [also, #IYKYK]) was a lawyer who hated being a lawyer so quit to become an Army Special Forces soldier. Weird pivot but if you look like John Cena, sure why not. He finds purpose, finds happiness (happy killing people, sure why not) until a failed mission kills a bunch of his squad mates and fucks up his back. So, back to the lawyer career, family, house in the suburbs; unhappiness.

Until his old Army commander Sebastian Earle (Christian Slater, Mr. Robot)  calls him. Just seeing Slater on the screen, in this role, I predicted, "This is the man who will betray him." Earle offers him an easy protection job -- escorting discredited reporter Claire Wellington who is seeking career resurrection through an interview with south-of-America dictator, Juan Venegas. Based on depicted maps, I still couldn't tell if the fictional country was in South America or Central America, but it was your classic pseudo-Latin, semi-tropical country run by a foppish, brash, charismatic dictator. And Venegas just happened to be subject of Pettits failed mission.

Duh duh duh duhhhhh....

Of course, ten minutes after arriving in the country, they are ambushed by rebels during a coup / assassination attempt and Pettits has to defend the man he hates, technically protecting Claire, killing all the Bad Guys. Good Guys? If this is an Evil Dictator, wouldn't his enemies be the Good Guys? And that's the crux of the movie. As Pettits tries to lead Claire to a safer place, with the dictator tagging along, we learn he isn't such a bad guy. I guess, at first, he was happy that foreign interference could prop up his government, giving him full control, while exploiting all the country's resources, but eventually he realized he did want to protect "his people" and started manipulating the situation. He knew that if he betrayed his exploiters directly, he would just be replaced by another puppet leader, so instead  he stuck around to build a charade, doing their bidding but also helping the "rebels" and helping his people as much as he could. The interview was supposed to be the point where he would reveal that to the world, and begin turning things around, while the eyes of the world protected him from further interference.

That was the shade of the decent movie -- a decent, fun plot. Alas, it was mired in a boring, run-of-the-mill chase & shoot-em-up. And so many dumb scenes. Dumb dumb dumb. At points I wondered whether I was watching a video game adaptation, tossing me back into memories of Uwe Boll. One weird quirk, which almost derailed my brain, my sense of confidence in reading movies such as this, was that Earle didn't betray him, but even the depicted plot wanted to make you think he did. It was a prime thread to the story that probably got lost in edits and re-writes, a send-up of our expectations.  Maybe Purple Suit interference?

But I guess I got what I wanted?

Friday, March 8, 2024

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Code 8: Pt II

2024, Jeff Chan (Code 8) -- Netflix

This is an unexpected sequel to Code 8.

I kind of do think we are in the post-superhero phase. Oh, we will continue to have them come out over the next ten years or more, but as long as Marvel churns them out, and DC continues to reboot its cinematic universe to bank on something we have likely gotten bored with, then there will be superhero movies. But the days of a studio / board room full of purple suits asks, "We need a superhero movie in this year's roster; what do we have available?" are done. 

I don't really really know how the movie industry works after years of peripherally watching it get made, but I have ideas, mostly built from fiction. Also, I think the current era, if we have one right now, is movies adapted from stage plays / broadway shows that were adapted from movies.

Five years after the events of the last movie, which I didn't even really cover in my previous write-up (Connor the poverty-stuck electric needs money to help his dying mom, who has a tumor that causes her cold powers to go wild, joins in with Garrett, a low-level telekinetic thug who works for a higher-level thug who exploits powered people for crime. It doesn't go well; Connor's mom still dies and he ends up in jail) Connor (Robbie Amell, Upload) is getting out of jail. Still stuck in poverty, and now an ex-con, he does janitor work at a dying rec centre.

Meanwhile Garrett (Stephen Amell, Calamity Jane) has found a new game, working with a corrupt police officer to safely corner an illicit drug trade, one made from the spinal fluid of powered people. The police officer has set himself up as the "friend to the community" Good Guy because he has added a robot K9 to the mostly feared robot police-support force. The dogs have a "if you raise your hands, they stand down" protocol that... well, it works as well as we knew it would. At the direction of a human operator, one such K9 kills a powered kid who tries to rip off Garrett / the cops. The killing is witnessed by his little sister. And soon after, Connor gets dragged into it. Because, of course he does.

If the first movie was an exploration of a seedy, powered world with lots of allegories for immigrants & other disenfranchised people, mixed up with robot police men, then this movie just wants to tell a story in that world. I was mid-level OK with the first movie, somewhat disappointed it didn't do more with the world, then I am more disappointed with this one. No exploration of the world is really required, so it just needs a thin story to provide a framework for the special effects people of Toronto and Vancouver. Oh, I know I am being facetious and dismissive, as it is (again) a decently done, mid-level flick for the genre and the Amell brothers are always fun to visit with, and I know I will probably end up rewatching at some point (thusly, it fills a need) but I guess I want them to be ... smaller, tighter, more evocative?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Shin Godzilla

2016,  Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi -- download

Of note, I will park this write-up until Kent reaches this stage of his Godzilla Mega Watch.

It's getting close. Kent will soon publish a post about this era of Godzilla. TBH I had not realized there had been so many eras of Gojira, assuming it had pretty much died out in the 80s and this movie was an attempt to resurrect it, in wake of the American movie.

Kent's posts have been fascinating, but pretty much turned out how I expected (but not sure I wanted that confirmation) in that they are generally Not Very Good. Godzilla's continued existence is a product of genre obsession by its fans and the Japanese people. I have probably never watched a single one (there is a remote chance I saw one or two on the late night Bangor. Maine "classic movie" spotlight back in the 80s, but I don't recall; it does seem likely) in its entirety before this one. I have seen plenty on Saturday afternoons as they played on genre or rerun channels, but always in passing. I was always curious. Are they all as bad as the glimpses I got? 

Kent affirms they pretty much are.

But this one, this one was a reboot of a different sort, chasing not the continue legacy but seeking something new. It is part of a tokusatsu style of film making, where they harken back to practical effects. By now CGI, and decent presentations of such, are ubiquitous. So, I assume this was supposed to be a new Godzilla movie with a guy in a suit. Alas...

Kent's is posted ! Yeah, We Agree.

So, Japan, Tokyo. There is no history of Godzilla, this is all new, and no pop culture aspect of Godzilla either. Something happens in an under-bay tunnel, and steam is pouring forth from. What is going on? The news is postulating, the local government is slow to respond, and in typical Japanese (based on my moderate exposure to anime, manga, TV and movies) fashion, any response is mired in protocol, documentation and a desire to save face. That response, or lack thereof, is the entire focus of the movie, a bigger monster than the goo-ey thing that wreaks havoc on the city.

The plot is pretty direct: monster comes ashore, the government is pretty much suffering analysis paralysis, makes a few missteps so a minor adjunct steps up (but still on the sidelines) with a plan devised by outliers & fringe scientists. He is more concerned with the people of Tokyo & Japan, while other government officials seem more concerned with how they are perceived, and how they will end up. Its very stereotypical satirical commentary on inept governing, further complicated by Japanese culture. Meanwhile, Godzilla, a massive, blobby, red and spiky creature is rampaging for unknown reasons, with unknown goals. The JDF, or Japanese Defense Force has to respond, but in reality, has never responded to anything in force before -- a standing army curtailed by the world & history (i.e. the US). Eventually the outliers prevail and the monster is stopped.

Godzilla itself. It starts as this horrible looking, floppy, bulging-eyed fish-lizard that crawls and pushes is immense bulk through the city. It spews forth red goo from its gills which starts taking on a life of its own. Beyond the destruction, it is also emitting radiation. Eventually it evolves, and pushes itself upright, becoming the more familiar creature of movies past. After dozens of renditions of Godzilla, reimagined and traditional, I could see they were going for something that was properly horrifying while still being familiar.

The response. Ineptitude personified. And then the world, represented by America, sticks its nose in with the threat of nuclear retaliation. One does not need to read between any lines, as the movie plays it out clearly. And the American representative, her clownish American posturing (like literally, the way she stood) -- The Peanut Gallery points out, that in Korea and Japan, they often have entirely fluent English-speakers a slightly more garbled (to anglo ears) version of English which the native speakers can absorb more quickly, so it ends up being a mix of communication and effect. It makes me wonder what all the other languages spoken on American TV & movies sounds like to their native speakers. In the end, the Japanese outliers enact their plan before the yanks can nuke Japan again, leaving Godzilla "frozen" from the inside out, stopping his "final-form" before it can happen. While a sequel never happened, we are left with some chilling final images of Godzilla's tail splitting open, revealing strange humanoid creatures, somewhat Alien in appearance.

I rather liked this movie. The depiction of government response actually mirrored what I recall from all the bits & bobs I have seen of the original, classic Godzilla movies -- men gather around tables looking scared, yelling at each other feverishly. But here we see it even more comical, as some members of government sit around a conference table, while others sit nearby, on sofas, looking intense and nervous, everyone either sitting quiet & uncomfortable while others jockey to be heard. Dudes, and dudette, there is a fucking monster coming out of the bay !! Stop fucking about !! The monster creeped me out, as was intended. Ew, ick. What I do wish we had seen more of, maybe via a secondary character or two, was on the ground responses. Alas, that was left to crowds of poorly directed extras reacting to... well, either nothing or maybe sometimes a green-screen. 

Now I wonder, should I see the other Shin movies to see their tonal differences? Like Godzilla, I have not seen much of their sources either, so its not like it would be a compare, but it would still be interesting.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Go-Go-Godzilla #31: Shin Godzilla

Director: Hideaki Anno,Shinji Higuchi
Year: 2016
Length: 120 minutes


The Gist:
Something's happening in Tokyo Bay. The AquaLine Tunnel has been breached and is flooding. A not insignificant disaster is in progress. But nobody in power seems to understand the root cause, and thus are helpless to respond. Is it a natural occurrence? Is it a terrorist attack? Something else?

A horrifying amphibious creature emerges in the bay. Officials have no concept of what they are seeing. Reactions around the country are swift, with weight given to both the biologist contingent that are direly curious about the beast, and with the more conservative component who are mainly concerned with the rising amount of property damage the creature is causing. They can't hide this from the public, but there's no need to panic. This thing can't possibly come ashore.

Until it comes ashore, wreaking havoc in its path, leaving a wake of destruction behind it. Until it stops and goes dormant. What to do? Before any official response can be mounted, the creature evolves before the very eyes of anyone observing. New extremities help it manoeuvre better on land, causing even more destruction before it retreats back into the bay. The path of destruction is abominable, as is the remnant trail of radiation.

The government is under fire for their lack of response, their incorrect information and their overall ineptitude. There was only one voice -- Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi, a voice that is supposed to keep silent -- that spoke out during the incursion and seemed to offer the most reasonable, thoughtful, socially-conscious options. So he's assigned to head up a research and resolution task force on the creature, now dubbed Gojira.

The task force digs up intelligence on the creature, including how to track it, with speculation on how to contain or destroy it. They know when the creature is about to return, but even then they're not prepared for its next phase of evolution. As the much larger, far more upright creature barrels through the city, the Japan Self-Defence Force's response is utterly ineffective.  The US military wants to have their own say in the handling of the creature and the government agrees.  In the process of the attack, Gojira displays the ability to emit powerful beams of radiation expelled from its mouth and or spines. The government is decimated by this latest attack until the creature seemingly runs out of juice and once again, just stops cold in the middle of the city.  

With the whole country being shaken to its foundation, US and, independently, the UN are making their own declarations about what should be done, which of course involve nukes. Rando's team is the only hope of an alternative to Japan being on the receiving end of these obscene WMDs for a third time.

Rando and his team orchestrate an impressively effective campaign against the creature that's more about strategy than brute force. Wear the creature down, burn it out, force it to go dormant again, trigger another mutation phase, give the people enough time to inject it with a coagulant that will turn its blood to stone. It's a successful gambit and Rando has succeeded where other politicians have failed, in making decisions in the best interests of the people, not in the best interests of his political career.

Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Ooh, definite bad, bad thing.

The Samesies:
This is a wildly deviant Godzilla movie, taking great pains to not be like any G-film before. That said, it does have a few things it carries over, such as notes and themes from Akira Ifukube's score, the anti-nuke messaging, and the ineffectiveness of the military against the creature (it, of course, has a montage of the JSDF assembling to take on the creature).

The Differences:
While Rando Yaguchi is probably our lead character, this is a cast of hundreds. As a non-native speaker it was difficult to keep up with the subtitles, as they were obviously translating the rapid-fire dialogue on the bottom of the screen but also putting captions identifying the name and role of the person talking at the top of the screen. At a certain point I pretty much gave up on reading those title/role captions.

It's a sprawling political satire that critiques government's ineffectiveness in a time of crisis. It's been noted that this film is a direct response to -- and criticism of -- the government's failures during the earthquake-turned-tsunami of March 2011, and the resulting Fukushima nuclear disaster. Much like many of the best G-films, it has something to say.

While I can't speak to direct influences, there's certainly a West Wing and Contageon style feel to this, stories where there are so many behind the scenes political players as they try to figure out what is happening and how to solve for it, and sometimes the fear and lack of bravery of the people in charge to make decisions in those moments for fear of their political careers.  It tackles topics from many angles, not just the creature itself, ala Godzilla 2014, but also the economic fall out, the historical parallels, the political posturing internally as well as on a global scale, with a direct critique at still feeling somewhat beholden or deferential to US interests.

Godzilla here is wildly different than ever before, having at least four different stages of evolution, from the bulging-eyed waddling amphibious creature to a very raw, exposed-nerve look of its final Godzilla form. It's the most deeply unpleasant Godzilla to look at (and we had Zilla in Final Wars to contend with). 

This is the first time we've had an evolving Godzilla. I got the sense that it was kind of like the Superman villain Doomsday in that it evolves as a response to the hostility of its environment in pretty rapid order. Which is sharp juxtaposition to how slowly humans evolve to the threats presented to them. Not sure if that observation was intentional part of the commentary, but it's pretty sharp if so. 

Anyone worth caring about?
Even as we're basically jumping from person-to-person-to-person, talking head to talking head, there are standout characters among them, some who die, some who live, and the relationships they have and forge with each other, all handled in a verite style, are pretty great, especially compared to Toho's G-films of past.

Of course Rando is out main guy and Hiroki Hasegawa has a great face for reaction shots. He has a pal within the government (I'm forgetting at the moment the character's name) but they had a wonderful dynamic any time they had the opportunity to be in the same room.

The two Prime Ministers of the film are incredible, and you do have to feel for them in the decision making process that they must go through. The amount of information they have to digest in such a swift amount of time in making a decision is overwhelming and they both play it very differently and very well. It does emphasize how much having trustworthy advisors is important to a leadership role, but it's made more difficult when maybe they have their own biases or agendas.

The weakest link of the film is the American side, represented primarily by Kayoko Anne Patterson (played by Satomi Ishihara). Kayoko is the POTUS' Special Envoy in these proceedings, and she's presented as an American-born daughter of a Japanese mother and American father. She's supposed to have all this American swagger and bravado, but it seemed more "on the page" than "on the screen".  As well, Ishihara's English-accent was really poor for an American. I'm sure in films where native English speaking actors have to work in a different language that native speakers probably cringe or laugh at their accent as well, so it's a result of casting for your region, not for anyone else. But at least in the western release they could have maybe dubbed her performance?

The Message:
Politicians should govern for the people, not for the continued right to govern.

Rating (out of 5 Zs):  ZZZZ
I loved the first act of this film. It's an enthralling political procedural with disaster spectacle backing it up. The second at sort of lulls a bit as it has to deal with the fallout of the creature's initial rampage. While the logical thought would be to focus more intensely on the research into the creature, the storytellers here remain committed to the holistic approach. When the creature re-emerges, it's natural that we'd see the spectacle of the military response, but as I've watched dozens of these tanks-n-planes futilely attacking Godzilla in the past couple months, this didn't thrill me and it felt overlong. But the next phase of planning a specific tactical approach to dealing with the creature, understanding that there would be losses in the process, returns the film to its earlier gripping status.

The creature effects are middling. Sometimes quite good, but more often than not passable at best. There's not a lot of the creature in the film, and seriously Godzilla is not what the film is about so I could let go of the choppiness to the cgi. 

Sleepytime Factor:
I did nod off just little tidbit in the middle when Rando's group was having one of their extensive theory sessions of the creature origins. Less to do with the content than my lack-of-sleep condition. I thought I was going to nod off during the military assembles scene but there was enough cross-cutting and jumping to different players, and having a whole different perspective on the deployment of the soliders that it kept my interest.



3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Oppenheimer

2023, Christopher Nolan (Tenet) -- Amazon

From my opening paragraph for Tenet:

"...for the arrogance and self-importance just drips from the movie... But I must say, but for some small details in the chaotic mess that is travelling both forwards and backwards in time, this one was pretty straight forward...."

Dude, you are quoting YOURSELF ?

Two salient points. Nolan still thinks he is smarter than anyone sitting in the theatre, and here we have a movie about a man who was probably smarter than anyone in a room with him, debatedly even Alfred Einstein; or at least he thought he was. And, chaotic messes are Nolan's bread & butter. This movie is as much about Nolan himself, and his opinion of himself, as it is about Oppie.

We (Kent and I [a less irascible version of "Withnail & I"]) just re-watched "Tenet" last night (as of the timing of the writing of this paragraph) and I retract my statement about "chaotic messes" -- that movie was, in fact, quite linear in its timeline, as we humans currently view time. The chaos comes when we think about what is going on outside of Protagonist's viewpoint.

Side-stepping the structure of the movie, the jumping around in timelines, a more palatable version of the technique which acts more like flash-backs & flash-forwards than as a disconnected from linear depiction, much of this movie was about exactly how smart Oppenheimer, and his peers, was/were. There are brief attempts to bring us into understanding, but most of it is just hand-waved away assuming we the viewer will just let smart people say smart things without needing to fully understand it fully. In this instance, the intelligence present positively drips from all the characters.

And part of this movie is saying that smart people have the right to decide moral quandaries for us lesser evolved folk. Unless they themselves are overwhelmed by emotions and personal motives. Oppie has to make hard choices, knowing fully what he could be releasing, that a post-A-bomb era is a new world. But he also acknowledges that an end to war is required and hopes this will be the inspiration/forceful-hand. Finally, the movie does not shy away from his desire, his need, to see his ideas come to fruition. Ego. Fame.

Performances. This movie is so full of incredible performances, it almost makes the head ache more than the science talk does. There are just soooo many incredible people in this movie. First up, Cillian Murphy himself. All I knew of him before just fell away as he embodied this man. He is not running from zombies, nor fighting as a Peaky Blinder; his character in Dunkirk is likely what brought him here. Opposite him was a supporting cast of dozens: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Alden Ehrenreich, Kenneth Branagh, David Krumholz, David Dastmalchian, and so many others. And Robert Downey Junior, who is finally able to take off the Tony-role.

At its heart, it is of course a story about how he is compelled to create an atomic bomb, for the US, to fight the Nazis. But it is also a story of the times, before, during and after WWII. Politics, racial politics, egos, communism, sex and loyalties. Its incredible that he was able to create such a cohesive story considering the technique. Its all so chopped up, depicted in small chunks, jumping from thought to thought, scene to scene. Oh we know that movies are made this way, each scene shot in isolation from the next, but I loved how masterfully it was all brought together. And once America has the bomb, everything seems to just ... come apart.

One of the theories the  fear is that once the atomic explosion begins, it will  just continue, atom after atom igniting, the next one after the next one, until our entire atmosphere burns off. "Close to zero", and yet that is not zero. And yet they proceeded. In today's postulation of multiverses, what if ours was the one universe where that didn't happen?

Kent's universe.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): After Yang

2021, Kogonada (Columbus) -- download

I have never heard of Kogonada (or more accurately, :: kogonada) but he is an American-Korean filmmaker who says he doesn't identify with his "American name". He is a creator of video essays (i.e. short documentary style studies on a topic) commenting on film & TV making. He is acclaimed enough to be asked to do videos for the Criterion Collections. 

The movie is about a family in The Future, a future where there are self-driving cars, clones, video glasses and ubiquitous domestic androids call Techno-Sapiens. Yang "belongs" to Jake and Kyra, having been purchased by them to help take care of their adopted Chinese daughter Mika. Yang displays as Chinese and came with lots of cultural knowledge within, acting as a big brother and constant companion to little Mika, providing a stream of interesting Chinese factoids. But then Yang breaks down, and while friends and neighbours are just suggesting he be turned in for a newer model, Jake knows how much Mika relies on Yang. He is, after all, a member of their family. His search for a way to repair Yang uncovers a deeper history to his "second-hand robot" and how much the techno's are capable of.

This is such a beautiful movie, one of those where you can see how every scene, every mood, every colour and sound and actor is entirely intentional. Kent has always commented that intention is a standard aspect of film-making, that everything is done intentionally, but I don't necessarily agree. I see so many movies just add in filler, whether as just structural connectors, or from purple suit pressure, but I see them as less intention and more just a by-product of the business of film making. Here, everything is a part of the creator's vision. The future is optimistic, but still human. Technology has advanced incredibly, but still tainted by human prejudices and assumptions. People are capable of so much, have so much privilege, but often don't see how much they are missing what is right in front of them. Sometimes the greatest beauty is just being present, just taking the time to actually see how light plays on the wall, and just savour, and be grateful.

Kent's post.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Go-Go-Godzilla #30: Godzilla (2014)

Director: Gareth Edwards
Year: 2014
Length: 123 Minutes
Studio: Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros.


The Gist:
The US(?) military(?) organization Monarch investigates monsters of unknown terrestrial origins, or MUTOs (not to be confused with MOTUs, which are He-Man figures). In 1999, near the Philippians they investigate discovery of the bones of the largest MOTU. But that's not all, two massive sacks dangle from the ceiling, one of them already ruptured, leaving a trail to the ocean.  Later, in Japan, nuclear power plant supervisor Joe Brody is very concerned by seismic readings he's been tracking and is advising for a full plant shut down. He thinks he has time. His wife Sandra takes a team to check the core infrastructure for stability, but it's too late. Everything shakes, the core ruptures and to save everyone, it must be sealed Joe loses Sandra and so much more. The factory melts down, an explosion rocks the city, a whole section of Tokyo is rendered uninhabitable. 15 years pass and Joe still wants to know why.

His son, Lieutenant Ford Brody, and explosives expert, has literally just returned home to San Francisco following a tour of duty when he's called to Tokyo to bail his father out of prison, again, for breaching the quarantine zone. Joe points out that the seismic readings leading the the nuclear meltdown are occurring again, he just needs to get into the quarantine to get his data discs to prove to people the correlation. Joe agrees to help him get inside. They discover no radiation in the zone. Joe is baffled. They find what they're looking for but are also found by Monarch security and taken to the power plant where an cocoon, seemingly dormant, is starting to wake up. A creature from the Philippeans came to Tokyo, absorbed the nuclear facility's radiation, and has been gestating for 15 years, and hatches. In the creature's escape, Joe is fatally wounded and Ford is exposed to a world he never knew existed. 

Monarch drops Ford off in Hawaii, but it's the path of the awakened MUTO. The scientists determine that the MUTO awakened as a response to another MUTO that awakened in the Nevada desert, where the other egg from the Philippians was taken (stored in a nuclear waste disposal area). Not only that but a third MUTO, Godzilla (who was thought destroyed in the Bikini Atoll nuclear bomb "test"), has emerged, the scientist guesses, as nature's counterbalance. 

Godzilla and the MUTO from Japan clash in Hawaii. The damage is catastrophic, but the MUTO escapes. Predictions are that the two MUTOs, a male and a female, are slated to meet in San Francisco, with Godzilla tracking them. Ford hitches a ride with the team from the local military and learns they plan to detonate a nuke off the coast of SanFran to try and draw the monsters away from the city, but all efforts to move nuclear ordinance only result in the creatures attacking and stealing the radiation. In the end, all they can really do is let them fight.

San Francisco is the battleground. Godzilla against the two MUTOs who only want to be together and have a gazillion little parasitic MUTO babies (MUTO Babies, they make their dreams come true. MUTO Babies, they'll do the same for you-ooh).  But, the nuke that was intended to be exploded off the coast and stolen by the female MUTO, has a timed detonator. Ford, being his specialty, is part of the task force sent into the kaiju battlefield to disarm the warhead before it destroys San Fran entirely.  

He finds the casing damaged and disarming it is impossible. All he can do is take it to a boat and send it off the shore. Godzilla is triumphant in his battle but falls, close to death. The bomb explodes. Ford, is reunited with his family. Some time later, all the radiation from the explosion off the coast has dissipated, absorbed by Godzilla, and the creature awakens and heads off into the sea.

Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Friend.

The Samesies:
There are various organizations that come and go throughout the different eras in Godzilla history, that could be compared to Monarch. The main difference being those Godzilla tracking agencies don't tend to be consistent from film-to-film, or are just a subset of the JSDF, instead of their own entity.

Radiation is the kaiju's food. What I wonder is how they sense the radiation of a nuclear bomb before it goes off.

I can't remember if in past Godzilla films how they explain why Godzilla comes to fight other creatures, but it is always implied as instinctual, which holds true here. 

Godzilla's atomic breath is in the film, but used very sparingly here. I think he gets three shots off late in the film. But that final use, where Godzilla pries a MUTO's mouth open an unleashes down the creature's throat is among the best-ever Godzilla moments for me.

The Differences:
The Toho films don't have opening credits, so this is the first Godzilla film (except maybe 1998) with opening credits. And it's magnificent. Basically a series of Monarch redacted documents that track their history of researching MUTOs. It's such an intense information dump, accompanied by a building, pulsating, anxiety-inducing low-horn and strings composition from Alexandre Desplat that may not be as earwormy as Akira Ifukube's original Godzilla theme, but... pretty damn good.



The origins of Godzilla, and any other MUTO, are ascribed to the earliest eras of the Earth, where there was more intense radiation, and as the Earth aged, the radiation dissipated, the MUTO's went deep into the Earth, closer to the core where the radiation is stronger. Man's use of atomic and nuclear weaponry has drawn them to the surface once more. (Of course, Toasty pointed out to me that we learn in Monarch:Legacy of Monsters that they come from another dimension, where the radiation clearly isn't that strong as humans are able to survive their atmosphere). Godzilla emerged after the WWII bombings of Japan, and the Bikini Atoll "test" was an attempt to kill the creature (this is in opposition to the Toho origins in which these incidents are what creates Godzilla...it's a bit of American absolution involved here, instead of explicit criticism)

This is the largest ever Godzilla who typically fluctuated between 55 and 80 meters This one comes in an 108 meters (or 355 feet). It's almost too big, I think, but certainly imposing.

Kaiju only appear in America twice (I think) in the Toho films, and almost all take place in Japan, so for the two big battles to be in Hawaii and California is a pretty drastic shift. But it's just setting, and it certainly doesn't diminish the impact of the fights. 

Anyone worth caring about?


Ford, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, is our lead character, and also our POV character. He takes us through the different environments like post-meltdown Janjira, the Monarch facility, military transports, the Hawaii encounter, and most importantly the San Fran battle. I'm sure many gripe about turning away from the kaiju battle to see what the humans are doing, and I get that complaint, but this film, both in general and through Ford, you get a sense of the human toll as a result of the kaiju.  

Now, the opening of the film introduces us to Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham as played by Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins, respectively, and they are two actors I like a lot, but they're not given much to do beyond exposition. That said, Watanabe does add some real weight to his moment with the admiral after deciding to detonate a nuke off the shore of  San Fran. It doesn't change his mind, but it definitely gives him pause.

The first tragedy of the film is in the second prologue where we lose Juliette Binoche. Her very brief time with Bryan Cranston really sells them as a warm, loving, devoted couple, and we get why he's so gutted by her loss. And then to lose Cranston by the end of the first act is another devastating blow. I feel like there's a mildly better version of this story where Joe survives and he's our POV character in discovering Monarch. But we don't really learn much more about Monarch until the next Godzilla film. 

It's still weird that Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen play a married couple in this film and brother and sister in the MCU less than a year later. Olsen's part is probably the most extraneous, being Ford's motivating factor for getting home, but at the same time, she provides a civilian (as opposed to military) ground level perspective which isn't nothing. 

The Message:
 "Let them fight". In other words, get out of nature's way.  It has its own way of restoring balance.


Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZZZ
If you're tracking the rankings, yes, that does make it my highest ranked Godzilla film so far. And yes, I like this film better than every Toho Godzilla film I've seen. I mean, I do like many of the suitmation Godzilla films, and find them very entertaining, but this is just a next-level blockbuster for me.  The film teases and teases and teases that the monsters are coming in a very engaging and engrossing way. It delivers an emotional impact that has you invested in the characters while anticipating the arrival of the monsters, and when they do emerge, it's glorious.

Director Edwards is a master of scale, and when you're talking 50 to 100 meter (plus)-sized creatures, you really want to feel that sense of scale. Too often with the Toho films, scale was only felt in perspective of a man in a suit as compared to the toys and models that surrounded them, with a poorly lit painted backdrop of a blue sky. Edwards, at every turn, makes you feel the imposition these creatures have on the world we're used to living in. A 350-foot beast emerging rapidly from the ocean creates a tsunami, and it's an incredible sequence even before the creature surfaces. Its a movie full of "wow"starting with the skeletal remains found in the prologue.

I hadn't watched the film in quite some time, but I think it's geniuinely a favourite movie of mine. G-fan snobs might turn their nose up at it for its lack of practical suits and models, and taking it out of its Japanese setting, and diminishing its messaging, to which I say, fair enough, if that's your thing. But this is much more my thing. I think the only Toho film that measures up to this (and exceeds it) is Godzilla Minus One.


Sleepytime Factor:
None at all. Even in the "military assembling on the bridge" sequence, which is the equivalent of the "tanks on the move" montage in the Showa era, I was still so very engaged.

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My original review

Shin Godzilla is next (and I know Toasty has been holding off his review until I got to this point).



3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Madame Web(b)

2024, SJ Clarkson (Doctors) -- cinema

Dakata Johnson, in a recent interview with Seth Meyers, "it's actually not the Spider-Man universe."

Celeste O'Connor, in a promo shown right before the movie, "...takes place in the Spider-Verse."

It just didn't bode well.

What metaphor should we go for at this moment? Dumpster Fire? Train Wreck? Shit-Show?  Just a browse of the Top Critics in Rotten Tomatoes will give you a bucket full of pithy takedowns. But mine is rather mundane -- bored. Boring. Literally nodded off for a few seconds during the Chest Compressions Game scene. Came to, seeing them do odd things to pillows. Not sure why. Still not sure why.

Not THAT pervs; they're highschool kids !!

So, yeah, we went and saw it. Why? My excuse is two-fold. To see if it could truly be bad as I expected. And, because... actually no, just that reason enough. Kinda sort ironically but really... it cannot be that bad, can it? 

Yep. It can.

Of note, I Googled the movie a bit and they may actually bank on the desire to hate-watch it, or people going to see it hoping it will be the next Showgirls for them.

OK, on with the "plot".

Morbius went to Costa Rica to find bats that could cure what ails him. Mama Webb went to The Amazon to find spiders that could cure <spoiler> what was ailing her unborn child <end_spoiler>. She finds said spider, as well as a tribe of Amazonian spider-people who, since it was the 1970s definitely could (by the rules of a multi-verse) actually have seen a Spider-Man comic from our universe, which could explain their outfits. But Mama Webb is betrayed & shot, and only via spider-bite is her unborn baby saved from certain death. And the spider-people ship her back to the US to become an orphan in The System.

Years later, Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson, 50 Shades of Grey) is an EMT who loooooooves chest compressions (I mean, looooove) and is an asshole. She's mean to coworkers, mean to patients, barely tolerates her bus-mate Ben Parker (yes, that Ben Parker; Adam Scott, Severance) but she loves chest compressions. After a near death experience where she is saved by ... c'mon guess... you can do it... GUESS !  Yes... chest compressions !! So yeah, after this near-death experience, wherein she touched "the web" (of fate), she awakens with the power of limited clairvoyance. Like in all origin stories, she doesn't quite understand her emerging powers and screws up, letting someone die.

So, that was her boss, the guy who sucks at making hamburgers, but why was he driving away? In the scene just before he was yelling at firefighters to be let back into the burning building so they could save people. They say no, so he just hops in an ambulance (that was probably still required on scene) and drives away. And gets smooshed. Why?

"Why" is the theme of this movie writeup...

Anywayz, Cassie the Asshat is at home sulking when Ben asks here to go to the funeral, knowing that she is just the kind of asshat to skip out on her friend & boss's funeral. She relents and while on the train she starts having her limited clairvoyant visions. She sees people get on the train, make comments, disappear, get on again, and then sees Evil Spider Guy. And he's after The Girls. The Girls? The above mentioned highschoolers, three young ladies that Cassie has bumped into prior, as they are all tied together in some web (of fate).

So, yeah, Evil Spider Guy is the man who betrayed Cassie's mom, killed her, and took her spider. Why? Who knows; we saw he took some spy pics of it but.... Some 30 years later he has spider-powers and ... well, other than that, we don't know anything. He's rich? He has his own limited clairvoyant visions but always focused on seeing three Spider-Girls killing him. But who is he? Why is he? What does he do with his spider-powers beside have bad dreams and kill people with touch poison? And why did they ADR the fuck out of the poor guy?!?! And finally, why and HOW is he wearing a Spider-Man outfit 20 years before there was a Spider-Man?

Cassie rescues the kids and hides them... in the woods; pulls off the side of a road and tells them to "sit here, don't go anywhere, don't do anything, I have stuff to do..." The kids don't listen. And unfortunately the fastest ever newspaper print run has happened and by early that afternoon, everyone knows who she is, and what she did. Well, she didn't actually do it, but... everyone thinks she did? 

Is Evil Spider-Guy also the inventor of the fastest printing press ever? Is it ... perhaps, the Daily Bugle? Does he have a misinformation team? Did he seed descension in a younger J Jonah Jameson before Spider-Man was even born?

Oh, the girls/kids/highschoolers: Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney, Euphoria), the demure, nervous girl, Mattie Franklin (Celeste O'Connor, Ghostbusters: Afterlife), the skate-boarding curmudgeon who loves Britney Spears, and Anya Corazon (Isabel Merced, Let It Snow), the science girl.

Evil Spider-Guy has also hired a "person in the chair" (Ned's role in the real Spider-Man movies) who is doing stuff with NSA tech and CCT and facial recognition. I guess the writers saw Person of Interest ? Anywayz, the kids are located at a roadside diner dancing on table tops cuz girlz just wanna have fun. Nobody in the diner yells at these stupid kids to get their dirty boots down off the table.  Cassie rams a taxi cab thru the wall just as Evil Spider-Guy shows up. Remember, Cassie's an asshat who doesn't care that she stole someone's taxi, doesn't care about collateral damage, she just knows that she has to save these kids.

Oh, and she also knows now that its all related to her mom and Evil Spider-Guy and spider-people in Peru. So, she (again) dumps the kids, this time with Ben, and flies off to Peru. Older, wiser, spider-people-guy who helped deliver her is waiting. And provides all the exposition to ... well, not really explain anything other than the web (of fate). She could have asked for so much, but whatever... BACK THE GOOD OLD US of A.

What? Why? So many why's ! I get that there is a trope of flying somewhere distant to "get answers" but how does she conceive she can fly to Peru and just walk into The Amazon based on some small map that looks like a table mat from an Amazonian Adventure themed restaurant, and actually FIND something. I mean, if it wasn't for Older Wiser Spider-People-Guy, she wouldn't have received any exposition drop and immersed herself in the Pool of Visions. 

Anywayz. I think, by now, she has determined the Evil Spider-Guy will find her and the kids no matter where they go so she sets a trap. They could have done some clever metaphor having her drawn him into her web, but that need to involve cleverness. Instead, she just draws him towards a fireworks warehouse which she will blow up, with him inside, because she doesn't care about other people's property, or collateral damage.

Oh, and Ben Parker's sister is having a baby whose name we are not allowed to hear said out loud. Oh, and Ben has a new girlfriend, whose name we are not allowed to hear said out loud, but she is probably The One.

Cassie does blow up aforementioned warehouse, has to accept the responsibility of the kids, and thus gets power (dumb-ass play on the catch phrase) and uses her magical web (of fate) powers to defeat Evil Spider-Guy, but not before some NYPD helicopter guys are killed. Oh, and and Cassie falls into water and is injured again. I think I nodded off again, mid-action scene. Not sure how she was injured.

Ages later she has a fancy ass wheelchair and TERRIBLE looking glasses and she and the kids are now all friends. No plot cleanup, no explanations, no nuttin. Given this is an origin story for .... something, are we seriously supposed to expect more movies? And given the divergence from any general audience expectations with the (totally not) Spider-Verse (these are NOT three spider-ladies from other dimensions, they are all just three young ladies who eventually get different powers and eventually don spider-related costumes) what was the purpose of this movie?

Just a terribly boring, confusing, astoundingly badly acted movie that might have been at least palatable three versions ago before the Purple Suits constantly meddled with it. And yet, somehow, its out there, on the Big Screen, while other properties have been shelved. And there is not any likelihood of there being a sequel. Is there?

ASTOUNDINGLY badly acted. I mean, I have seen many of these actors in other roles and they were at least passable actors, but here, all the dialogue is barely above z-grade. How many script changes, and re-shoots does it take for an actor to just stop giving a shit? Someone should have noticed this was happening, no? Its like when you watch a TikTok and you ask yourself, "Can someone be this stupid?" and you know the answer is, "No, they are just rage-baiting you..." Were some Purple Suits just rage-baiting the MCU fans?

So many questions. But generally, why did I see this movie?

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Go-Go-Godzilla: Millennium Era in review

 

I've written thousands of words about and around Godzilla and, frankly, I'm exhausted. 

I mentioned previously that throughout the Showa and Heisei eras of Godzilla I would routinely fall asleep whilst watching those films. The pleasant surprise of the Millennium era was how engaged I was throughout each and every one of those movies, well, except GMK (Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidora: Giant Monsters All-out Attack). There I was close to unconsciousness a number of times, but, I never fully fell asleep. (Edit: I did nod off while writing this though). 

The Millennium era hits a point where digital effects have a bigger and bigger impact on the films, and being lower budget films in the early 2000s, you can guess how bad the digital effects can get. And yet, kind of how we accept silly, loose-fitting rubber suits, miniatures-that-are-clearly-miniatures, and camera-tricks- which-aren't-fooling-anyone from previous eras, many of the digital effects have a quaintness to them that don't rub abrasively. Instead, in many instances, they have their own charm. Credit to the Toho team at the time that they conservatively used digital effects much of the time to enhance scenes or sequences, rather than overreach...although surely overreaches did happen, and...moof.

I struggle to say that any of the Millennium Era films were great, and I would have a hard time recommending any of them to anyone who wasn't already interested in watching Godzilla films. My  favourite of the era (and there will be a full ranking update at the bottom of this) is a sequel film within the Era and probably not the easiest film to enter into coldly. 

Once again I find myself at odds with the G-fan concensus. GMK, touted as one of the highest watermarks of Godzilla films, is my second least favourite of the era.  Just as I didn't take to Godzilla vs. Biollante as G-Fans had in the Heisei era...I get what they're reacting to in those films, they just don't work for me. Once again, my appreciation lies in the storytelling, which is still pretty shaky throughout the Millennium era, but there is a palpable evolution, and seemingly a larger desire to invest in characters than in the previous era. As well the ambitiousness of the suits, the effect, the miniatures from film-to-film also intrigue me. But I would rather have a better composed shot, a more artistically lit scene, a more thoughtfully edited Godzilla fight sequence than the bog standard side-scrolling wide shot or that 3/4 tilt from on high which is so pervasive.  

There also seemed to be more effort to put the human characters into the midst of the fight (especially with Mechagodzilla in the fray).  Having the humans be active and meaningful participants makes the third-act brawl much more engaging. This also includes a lot more scenes of human characters navigating the mid- of post-fight wreckage, which I loved every time.



My favourite aspect of Godzilla is using sense of scale, getting that human POV of these titanic monsters, and we get a tremendous amount of those in the Millennium Era compared to the previous Eras, which had limited ability to truly blend live action and real locations with miniatures and suitmation.

I'm now heading into the final stretch with the three Warner Bros. Monsterverse films (leading into the fourth coming out at the end of March), and the two Reiwa Era live action films. Almost all of these I've seen already (save for Shin Godzilla), but I'm excited to watch them because I know what I'm in for. 

While I've been doing this series, I've watched the Monsterverse-related TV show (Monarch: Legacy of Monsters) and I've seen Godzilla Minus One as well, and also watched the first episode of the seemingly charming Netflix anime series Godzilla Singular Point which I think I'll get back to. I'm still skipping the '98 Godzilla as well as the three Netflix anime movies, but never say never.  I'm also flirting with doing a Gamera series of recaps, kind of the official competition to the Godzilla juggernaut in the Kaiju field.  I'm also thinking about the four Mothra solo films, since I clearly reacted well to that creature in this series. We shall see.

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RANKINGS

Millennium Era:

  1. Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S
  2. Godzilla 2000: Millennium
  3. Godzilla vs Megaguiras
  4. Godzilla: Final Wars
  5. Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
  6. Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
All of the films (so far)
  1. The Return of Godzilla
  2. Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.
  3. Godzilla vs Mothra (1964)
  4. Gojira
  5. Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)
  6. Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
  7. Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II
  8. Terror of Mechagodzilla
  9. Godzilla 2000: Millennium
  10. Godzilla vs Megaguiras
  11. Godzilla vs Destroyah
  12. Godzilla vs Mothra (1992)
  13. Godzilla vs. Hedorah
  14. Godzilla vs Gigan
  15. Godzilla vs Megalon
  16. Godzilla: Final Wars
  17. Destroy All Monsters
  18. Godzilla vs Biollante
  19. Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-out Attack
  20. Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
  21. Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla
  22. All Monsters Attack
  23. Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster
  24. Godzilla vs King Ghidorah
  25. Invasion of the Astro Monster
  26. Godzilla Raids Again
  27. Godzilla 1985
  28. Son of Godzilla
  29. Godzilla King of the Monsters (1956)
  30. King Kong vs Godzilla (US version 1962)