I Saw This!! Anxiety (or, I haven't written a review here since April, so here's 8)

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our all-too regular feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of movies they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. Now they they have to strain to say anything meaningful lest they just not say anything at all. And they can't do that, can they?

Okay, time to get back up on this horse.

Noah - 2014, d. Darren Aronofsky -- netflix

Dogtooth ("Kynodontas")- 2009, d. Yorgos Lanthimos --netflix

Zero Dark Thirty - 2012, d. Katheryn Bigelow -- netflix

Nebraska - 2013, d. Alexander Payne -- netflix

John Wick - 2014, d. Chad Stahelski, David Leitch -- blu-ray

Harmontown - 2014, d. Neil Berkeley -- netflix

Blue Ruin - 2013, d. Jeremy Saulnier -- netflix

The Scribbler - 2014, d. John Suits -- netflix

---

When I was becoming a burgeoning cinephile in the mid-to-late 1990s, taking note of writers, directors, actors and actresses, composers and other names on the production roster that were making the movies that I both liked and connected with (sometimes deeply, sometimes superficially), Darren Aronofsky was high on my list of directors to follow, a singularly intriguing creative person worth being devoted to.  What struck me most about Aronofsky wasn't anything he did on screen, but what he did off-screen, which was bridge the worlds of comics and cinema.  With comics obviously being a very integral part of my life, releasing a movie with a comic book tie-in (not just a licensed prequel, sequel or adaptation) was a sure-fire way of getting my attention.  Aronofsky did this with his very first feature, Pi, and I was hooked.  The one-shot comic (published by Dark Horse if I recall correctly) and the feature were both black and white art-house endeavours, cerebral and somewhat impenetrable, but fascinating and puzzling in equal, mostly good measure.

His follow-up was Requiem For A Dream (2000), one of the most profoundly disturbing and intense films I've ever seen.  It's a brilliant piece of cinema, joining the likes of Clockwork Orange and Dancer In The Dark as astounding cinema that can only be watched once.

Aronofsky went back to comics again with The Fountain (2006), his third and highly troubled feature, creating an accompanying graphic novel (with artist Kent Williams) that expands upon the three timelines presented in that film.  I owned the graphic novel for years before read it, as I wouldn't read it until I ha watched the film.  I wound up owning the film on dvd for some time before I actually watched it and subsequently read the graphic novel.  While I appreciated the entire endeavour, it left me somewhat cold.  Despite this, I would follow Aronofsky to The Wrestler (2008) and Black Swan (2010) in the theatres, finding both to be great movies on their own, but again not resonating with me.  I was disappointed when he dropped out of The Wolverine, as I thought he would make a great comic book movie, particularly a great, brooding and dark Wolverine story, and even more disappointed to find out his biggest budget movie would be a biblical adaptation.  How boring.

Yet, Aronofsky's next feature, Noah, would find once more be accompanied by a graphic novel (actually an adaptation of the screenplay by Nico Henrichon) fleshing out his tale at something less directly religious and more disaster/spectacle/epic.  Even still, I waffled with seeing this production, my interest level never reaching past mild.  The graphic novel would be a pricey purchase and the film's subject matter far from enticing, so getting the full experience (as I only assume it was intended) was somewhat off-putting.

It was only its arrival on Netflix that I finally conceded in watching the film, and I found it a curious product.  I'm still not entirely sure I understand why it exists.  It's almost as if it was made in an exercise to see whether the Bible could be mined for blockbuster motion pictures.  The focus seems to be more spectacle than anything resembling religious parity.  This isn't the "true" story of Noah being told, and, not being a religious student of any sort, I'm not even sure what the biblical message of Noah is supposed to intone, but I would be surprised if the biblical moral was at all in Aronofsky's mind when putting together this production.

It is indeed epic, a sweeping tale of birthright and revenge, of fathers and sons, of obedience, love and betrayal, the temptations of evil, righteousness and the gray area between selfishness and selflessness.  Noah is a man convinced in his mission, unwavering in his belief that God has told him what needs to be done, and the climax of the film deals with exactly how unwavering will he be.  Can he perform an unspeakable evil as part of God's will?

Noah is a flawed beast, an awkward behemoth that's both awe-inspiring and teetering on the fringes of being comically laughable.  The key cast of Russel Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, and Douglas Booth are extremely serious minded about the events they're participating in (Winstone may be a bit more on the scenery chewing side, though), probably its saving grace from being B-movie camp.  Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah provides the film's brief moments of comic relief...or marginal levity as it were. 

It's still hard to believe this film got made.  It's not unwatchable but it's also not outright entertaining.  It has moments of action and some visual sense of wonder but the characters never settle in as believable people, nor do they reach the height of mystical figures.  They persist as figures in a tale, servicing a specific story with no will the change the outcome of the tale.  The emotion that should be wraught throughout never materializes under the weight of the expectations of the story at-hand.  That tsunami set to encompass the world sort of nullifies almost any other drama the film attempts to build.

As noted in David's take[link], there's a sense that this was supposed to be even more wondrous and metaphysical than it actually was (which perhaps that graphic novel I've yet to read bears out?), and I think the tale could have used a bit more of an alien setting to explore its characters and story, distancing itself from any form of Earth-based history (real or Biblical or allegorical)

---

I had come across (the just defunct) The Dissolve's best films of the decate [so far] list [link] and became somewhat intrigued with seeing all of these movies.  Melancholia, which I reviewed back in April [link], was actually the last of a small streak of these that I watched, but Dogtooth was the first.

The idea behind this Greek film is fascinating, the story of three siblings who are the subjects of lifelong social experimentation by their parent.  They've effectively been held hostage in their family home and yard, unable to view the outside world at all, except through the limited exposure to outsiders brought into the home by their father.  They are taught the wrong words to represent objects, they are told that the land outside of the fence is toxic, and that a sibiling (that likely never existed) escaped and is trapped out there in the land just beyond the fence.  They are kept placated, if not happy, by an endless stream of lies, some elaborate others simple.  Now in their late teens and early twenties, they're starting to become restless and curious, though the outisde world is still a monster.  The main lie, from which the title draws its name, is that they will only be allowed outside the compound once they lose a dogtooth (the parents more than aware that those permanent teeth aren't going anywhere on their own).

The film plays out with deliberate, observational pacing.  It's not interested in celebrating or reveling in the lies the parents are telling the children, nor is it condeming them.  There's a passivity to the camera -- it's of the handheld, mobile, sort, a seeming adherence to the old Dogme '95 aesthetic -- a watchful eye peering in unobtrusively on events with no judgement borne out for what it sees.  In every right these kids parents are monsters (even before dad's heinous act with a VCR) but they're portrayed just as carefully as the kids are.

In my anticipation for watching this film, knowing only the rough plot and a few details, I was expecting something more exploitive, a bit more kitschy or on display for laughs.  I was anticipating looking in with fascination and delight, I wasn't expecting the engrossing curiousity, disgust and intensity with which I watched.  Something like the kids being told that flying planes overhead are actually just toys (and once they've passed out of eyesight they can be found in the grass as mother has thrown a toy in the grass to be found) could be riotously amusing as, say, a Will Ferrell film, but here it's bizarre but certainly not played for laughs.  Likewise, their listening to Sinatra's "Fly Me To The Moon" in English, being willfully mistranslated to Greek by their parents could be comical but sits just as it is...something that happens in this household.  The film ceases to continue so much as it ends.  There's easily more story to be told here, as the criminality of the parents actions, or the psychological implications of what's been done to them are left unexplored.  A second feature following at least one of the kid's journey into the real world is filled with tremendous possibility (just imagine their reaction to a real plane).

---

Zero Dark Thirty was an Oscar winner for the 2012 cinematic year, and a resoundingly successful follow-up for its director Katheryn Bigelow after winning best director for the Hurt Locker.  It's at this point the infamous story of the intelligence tracking and death of Osama Bin Laden, and while many who have seen it focus on the gripping third act's focus on SEAL Team 6 as they invade the compound they suspect is housing Bin Laden, they tend to gloss over the rather fiercly feminist aspect of the film.  The progressively feminist story is purly by its true story nature, not so much by design, as Jessica Chastain's Maya, a recent graduate and recruit into the CIA, is thrust head-first into the war on terror and takes the lead on finding Bin Laden.

All manner of obstacles are in Maya's way, political and organizational are the tip of the iceberg.  Facing down illegal torture methods, possible threats to her life, systemic sexism, and her own novice background are all trial by fire for her.  These things harden her as they threaten to break her, but her resolve is strong, and her persistence, as well as her intelligence and dedication, is enviable.

As a "based on a true story" film, Zero Dark Thirty is a masterpiece.  It's equal parts military and political thriller, as well as personal drama and, in its own way, revenge fantasy.  It juggles many levels of beurocracy, international travel, intrigue, and more with a fluidity that finds no diversion it takes out of place. The story is propelled forward with increasing momentum, the audience already knows where its going but is never made to feel like it's just biding its time before getting there.  Though no doubt there are embellishment, unlike, say, Argo which took extreme (and obvious) liberties with its source material in the name of manufactured drama, Zero Dark Thirty rarely, if ever, steps on its own toes or hits its audience over the head with false notes.

The shame here is Bigelow has crafted an immensely entertaining and successful feature, award-winning and important, delivering the story of Bin Laden's death in just over a year after it happened allowing for some sense of public closure, and yet she did not become a highly sought after, in-demand director.  Bigelow's execution here is deft, navigating multiple genres and wonderful character and world building with defiant ease.  It's a film on the same scale as a Bond or Bourne movie which would make her a natural target for taking on a blockbuster franchise and yet we never hear her name in the rumour mills for the next big feature.  Is it institutionalized sexism of Hollywood studios, or is it that Bigelow is just not interesed in those kinds of films (Point Break, Strage Days and K-19 tell me otherwise).

---

Was Nebraska also on that aforementioned list of best 50 films of the decade so far?  Even if it wasn't, it'd been a film sitting on my "to watch" list for a long time.  I loved the pacing and light humour of Alexander Payne's The Decendents and I had heard great things about Bruce Dern, Will Forte and June Squibb's (award nominated) performances in the film, but seeing as there wasn't a single sci-fi, action, fantasy, or metatextual "gotcha" to the movie, it just took a long time (languishing in my Netflix queue for months on end) for me to get to it.

It's a simple story filled with complex emotions.  Dern is a cantankerous senior citizen who's going senile while also restless as his freedoms are stripped from him.  He's never had a good relationship with his sons (Forte and Bob Oedenkirk), and he and his wife (Squibb) can barely stand one another's company.  When a Publisher's Clearinghouse-esque letter arrives telling him that he "may have already won", he's convinced he needs to make the trip to their home office in Nebraska to claim the prize.  Everyone around him tells him it's just junk mail, but he's dedidcated to the trip.  Eventually Forte concedes to driving him, giving the two men their first ever real moment of togetherness.

It's a road trip movie and a family movie, as they stop and visit elements of Dern's past along the way.  His home town revels in his story of sudden fortune and the extended family gather for an impromptu reunion that goes about as well as any assembly of family goes.  It's frequently chuckle-funny, occasionally awkward and sad, but always rewarding.  There's a depth and truth to the story at play, particularly to the emotions, with Dern being a man who has never cared for showing his, and Forte coming to understand not just who his father was before, but who he is now, and that like most parents, despite the difficulties they have, he has done as best as he knows how.

Forte delivers a perception-shattering performance.  The weirdo/goofball/creepy characters he's played in previous films and in Saturday Night Live sketches fade away almost immediately as Forte's eyes show a knowingness, a maturity and wearyness that he's never earnestly expressed before.  Dern's Oscar winning performance is almost the easier job, being gruff, stoic, and occasionally completely unsure of his surroundings, but he delivers a character that never wavers in identity and provides the framework for everything else in the film to react to.  Squbb, meanwhile, is the overt comic releif, the Oliver Hardy to Dern's Stan Laurel.  She's mouthy, aggressive and uncensored (she even shocked me a couple of times), the perfect counterpoint to Dern's weary silence.  She didn't win the best supporting actress Oscar, but it was a likewise worthy performance.

---

We're not Keanu fan's over at the Kent household.  While I have a greater threshold for Keanu than the missus does, it's not really much of a qualification...it's like saying I can take  cleaning the litter box more better than she can... which is a bad example because she definitely cleans up the cat crap more than I do... but I digress.  Point being, Keanu is not a great actor, in fact he's pretty terrible.  Consistently so.  Limited facial expression, even more limited vocal intonation, the most animated Keanu ever got was in the Bill & Ted movies and the last of those was over 25 years ago.  The perfect role for Mr. Reeves would be Pinocchio because he's a little wooden boy...except that Pinocchio would demand he turn into something resembling human.  Maybe if Pinocchio turned into a T-1000 at the end of that story instead.  Scratch that, just make him a Terminator and be done with it because that's spot on the type of range he displays.

Woah.

Anyway, John Wick.  John Wick showed up in last October in theatres with little hype or enthusiasm (because Keanu's last bunch of pictures were all major duds...to be clear, no, not a remake of Gerald McCraney's Major Dad) but became a rare honest-to-goodness blockbuster success through word-of-mouth.   One friend of ours love the movie so much he saw it multiple times in theatres and continually sang its praises (and waited with baited breath for its Blu-Ray release).  That David even spoke effusively aboutit [link] resonated and, with these collective signs  I began to actually want to see the film.

Woah.

The wife was still far from enthused... she gets that way about things with too much hype and/or starring Keanu.  The aforementioned friend (shout out to Troy-who-doesn't-read-this-blog!) got his copy of the film on Blu-Ray, watched it a couple times over and lent it to us for a viewing.  It was a unique experience.  The wife, naturally, wasn't looking forward to it and chose to distract herself from her lack of enjoyment by live-Facebooking her reaction to the film.  I chose to turn out the lights and have a spiked refreshment at hand. 

At first we gently mocked the movie -- a few "Fuck you, Theon!" comments  (something me and the wife shouting regularly at co-star Alfie Allen's Game of Thrones character) and mimicry of Keanu's stilted acting tossed about for good measure -- but then Allen's character, the entitled son of a Russian mobster, goes and kills John Wick's puppy (after he was denied the acquisition of Wick's sweet ride), and things get goofy/serious.  The puppy was a present form Wick's recently deceased wife, so that he wouldn't be alone, and the ex-mob hitman sees only red, and we're thrust, along with John, back into the world he had hoped to leave behind.

It's this world, it's neutral ground hotels, it's secret society gold coins, and it's weird codes of honour, that make the movie.  Keanu is a vehicle for delivering both this world's nuances and it's brutal yet beautifully orchestrated violence, and the film's directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch and writer Derek Kolstad seemed to understand the exact type of character Keanu should play, and the limits of what he can play.  This was obviously tailor made for him.  He can't quite handle the sombre hurt of the recently widowered nor can he take on the deep emotion of having a piece of his wife restored with the puppy to any great shakes.  But when he's asked to be a cold, calculating orchestrator of violence, which is 90% of Keanu's role here, he nails it straight on.

The film is beautifully stylized, the fluorescent greens and blues saturate the parts of the screen that aren't bathed in shadows.  It's Michael Mann by way of modern graphic novels.  The action is top notch... it's not "another level" like the big budgets of the latest Fast and Furious or Mission Impossible or James Bond feature, but it's full of John Woo-esque gunplay and throw-down, drag-out fights are close to par with the greatest fight porn of the modern day,  The Raid 2 [link].  My favourite of the battles found John Wick taking on Adrianne Palicki's Ms. Perkins, an assassin more ruthless than Wick... but I enjoyed even more Lance Reddick's reaction to her breaking of the hotel rules.

John Wick was exactly what it should've been, only better.  It's a B-movie ratched up to A-level status thanks to savvy filmmaking and tremendous world building.  I even caught the wife, on more than one occassion, watching the movie intently, forgetting about the Facebook updating for a spell.  Though still hard pressed to admit that a Keanu movie actually entertained her, I'm fairly certain there was a begrudging amount of respect there for the end product, and that's about as big a praise for this film as anything. 

Woah.

---

Harmontown is a documentary about the creator of the beloved cult TV show Community creator Dan Harmon, and the months following his firing from the show as producer and showrunner after its third season.  Harmon had, before his firing, started a live show/podcast that was part comedy show, part confessional, where he would ruminate with his co-host Jeff Davis about his life, his failures and successes, his frustrations, and anything else he wanted to get off his chest, most of which probably better suited for the therapist's couch than a public forum.

After his firing, at his lowest point, he thrust more energy into his podcast, and he started sensing a bit of a groundswell. Not so much a movement, but a cult of personality forming around him.  Taking a risk, he decided to take the show on the road and let a documentary crew follow him.

It's a film about Harmon, primarily, about who he is as a person, and that person is admittedly very, very difficult.  The film highlights the Harmontown podcast and the people who gravitate towards it, embracing honesty and pain and the communal catharsis it provide, but it's all centered around Harmon and his often self-desctructive tendencies.  The people along for the ride are his girlfriend, Erin McGathy, Davis, and the show's resident Dungeons and Dragons gamesmaster Spencer Crittenden, and each has naturally a different relationship with Harmon.  McGathy bears the biggest brunt of Harmon's self-destructiveness which often manifests as lashing out, while Davis more deals with pushing the show forward.  Spencer meanwhile sits quietly, uncomfortably on the outside of it, and observes.

It's with Spencer's story that Harmontown as a documentary justifies its existence as more than a piece of self-glorification/implosion.  Spencer is the fan's way into Harmontown, as he was a man on the outside who innocuously offered to run a D&D campaign and suddenly found himself a man on the inside.  Spencer is a stereotypical outcast nerd, the kind with a quiet, gruff exterior, a shell hardened by traumatic childhood ostracisation, a person who finds comfort in the world of fantasy and its nuances.  But through his role on Harmontown's podcast he's given the opportunity to have a voice in the world he never though he'd have, to be heard and seen and validated.  As he's on tour he has people, not unlike himself, awkwardly approaching him with admiration and adulation, genuine affection for who he is and what he contributes, and the film captures intimately what that discovery is like for him.  Where Harmon, a bit of a self-aggrandizer, is only marginally surprised by his supportive fanbase (there's an expectation of some level of worship going on, like how a televangelist preacher takes the worship of God as his own), Spencer is genuinely shocked.  Though in their own ways both men are grateful.  It's obvious though that Harmon needs the outpouring of support and affection, almost like a drug, for Spencer it's almost an affirmation that his place in the world is okay.

This is a film that's meant for the fans and the outlier fans, all the avid Community watchers and AV Club message boarders, the people who know what a showrunner is.  It's not that it can't appeal to a broader audience, but without having the shorthand of understanding Harmon from his work (and for sure Community is a devastatingly hilarious and often genious personal endeavour with each character a manifestation of his personality) the uninitiated viewer may just wonder "what's the big deal about this guy?"  That difficult personality Harmon displays can rub even the most ardent fan the wrong way at times.

---

Of all the films in this I Saw This!! column, Blue Ruin is the one I enjoyed the most, and yet, it's the one I'm having the hardest time recalling.  I have specific images in mind, a general impression of what the movie is, but a lot of the details are fuzzy.  Perhaps as I write about it, it will come flooding back.  Spoilers will follow.

The film is a low budget revenge thriller (partiall funded via Kickstarter, no less), that's less exactly a thriller, and certainly not your typical revenge story either.  Dwight (Macon Blair) is a drifter living out of a bullet-hole-riddled, tarp-covered car.  He scrounges and survives, but hasn't given up completely on civility, reading novels by flashlight at night.  The police stop by, obviously familiar with Dwight's story, and inform him that the man who killed his parents is being released from jail.  Very quickly Dwight sets up his plot to take his revenge, connecting the battery back to the engine and returning back home, a place it's apparent he hasn't been in a long time.

Where most revenge fantasies find their lead characters frighteningly proficient at stalking and murder, Dwight's plans fumble and falter from moment one.  Clean shaven, wearing stolen oversized business casual clothes, Dwight looks like a soft man, timid, bleary eyed, pudgy, completely unassuming.  He's not cut out for this sort of business, particularly when his target's family begins to hunt him down, and yet, he has no choice.  This is his drive, his mission.  His sister should be the one to talk sense in him, in any other film she would be admonishing him for what he's doing, angry abut how it impacts her life, and yet she's cautiously supportive.

I hesitate to call Blue Ruin a dark comedy, because it's a dead serious movie, and yet it's spin on the revenge tale is so fresh and about face that it's impossible not to laugh unconsciously in reaction to Dwight's failures and botched successes.  Dwight a fascinating character, burdoned by what he does and what he wants to do, but it's the only thing he has left in life to care about.  His time as a vagrant leaves him awkward in conversation, reserved... he keeps to himself, he doesn't make eye contact.  He seems to want nothing more than to slink back into that life of desperate solitude but he has his mission which he has to see through to the end.

Director Jeremy Saulnier tells his film in an extremely straightforward manner, and yet it's exactly the right touch.  There's no distraction, no flashy angles, unusual cuts, or any of the vast variety of tricks indie directors for so long following the Tarantino boom have used to try and distinguish themselves.  Saulnier instead relies upon holding shots, minimal cutting and letting scenes and actors breathe.  It's not as much about mounting tension, but about establishing the natural settings and normalicy that otherwise exists in this unconventional scenario.

Yeah, I'm remembering it well now, but it's certainly worth another watch.

---

And finally for today (in actuality, I've been writing this column over a 5-day period), there's The Scribbler.  I first heard about this film via Bleeding Cool (a comic-book and nerd cinema-related website I write for) as they reported a graphic novel being released for the picture.  A couple days after this report I noticed that the film was on Netflix, so I figured why not give it a watch.  If it’s bad, I can turn it off.

It’s not a bad film, per se, but it’s far from great. It has the same sensibilities of The Crow, a highly stylized, dark and gritty quasi-supernatural/quasi-superhero-esque production, replete with whatever janky emo-style music is fueling the goth teenagers as they brood introspectively in their bedrooms.  Set in a facility that’s home to residents undergoing psychological rehabilitation (long and short term residents), it’s definitely not a Cuckoo’s Nest full-blown lock-down/caged-in situation but more of a half-way home.  But it’s dank.  Extremely so.  Remember that toilet stall Ewen MacGregor dove into to retrieve his suppository in Trainspotting?  Imagine that stall as an entire building.  Yeah, it’s gross.  The city this building resides in seems to be shrouded in perpetual night, or at least whenever it is day it’s like the sun nervously shines as the darkness threatens it’s habitual take over.  Also, rain and lightning seem almost a constant, for mood you see, except when it’s more convenient not to be raining.

Our protagonist, Suki (played by Katie Cassidy) is a young woman with multiple personality disorder who comes to the building recovering from her latest suicide attempt.  There she rekindles a friendship with Hogan (Garrett Dellahunt), a gearhead who pretends to be insane in order to live in the building on the cheap, sex up its desperate/vulnerable women, and liberate their drugs for his own profit.  She also befriends Cleo (Gina Gershon) a long-term resident, who shows her the ropes, including avoiding the stairs where a crazy naked girl likes to push people down them.

The film is so aggressively in your face about how edgy it’s trying to be.  It uses all the cinematic tricks of psychological thrillers and body horror films (oh, those shadows and neons), only never to any great terrifying or suspenseful effect, it’s strictly an aesthetic choice, like it wants to be a horror movie but the story doesn’t facilitate it. The sex scene between Suki and Hogan is kind of disgusting rather than titillating because of how it was shot, edited and soundtracked.  It’s like the film wants you to be repulsed by it because of the style choices it makes, but it’s only a slightly left-of-standard superhero origin story.  It realistically wants you to root for the title character as she comes to understand who she is and how her multiple personalities help her fulfill her true potential but it’s story is at cross purposes with its tone.

The acting in the film is quite good.  I liked everyone’s performances in it (including Michelle Trachtenberg as Suki’s nemesis, Michael Imperioli as her skeevy psychologist, and Eliza Dushku as the detective investigating the deaths in the building), they truly seem invested in their roles, so it’s unfortunate that the director’s vision (which seemed to be “let’s make a Cronenbergian superhero story but with a Zack Snyder pastiche”) clashed with everything else going on.  Honestly, I probably would have liked this in 1993, when comic-to-screen movies were rare, and rarely good, but we’ve moved well past that in the 20 years since. 

[David's Take]

---

Man, this took a long time and over 5000 words.  If I were concerned with page hits and visitors and any sort of monetary-earning angle to this site, I would’ve pushed each review out one-a-day. But even though they have no real connection to one another, beyond the fact that I’ve procrastinated in writing about them, they still feel like part of a whole and belong together in one fell swoop.  I’m rather impressed at my ability to recall how I felt about a film despite not entirely recalling the film (though as I write the specifics of the film tend to re-emerge).  I’m working from the top of the “to review” list with this one, but I may start at the bottom and work up from hereon out, get to the fresher stuff first instead of taking forever and having current releases wind up in yet another I Saw This!!

   

3+1 Short Paragraphs: The Zero Theorem

2013, Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits) -- netflix

It may be accredited to the fact I waited this long to see the movie, that my enjoyment of the movie was diminished. For the first time ever, I can say a Terry Gilliam movie really just didn't do it for me. Despite an array of visuals that were as Gilliam as ever and a plot that actually sang to my core, I was just not... impressed.

The Zero Theorem looks incredible, visually distinctive like no movie (of his) since Brazil. But where that movie was all dull earth tones, muted palette for a dull bureaucratic world, this is all colour and jazz, for a world set as an extreme mockery of our own, one of screens and advertising and the desire to be unique from the grey crowds. Computers are everywhere, but using unique interfaces much more like a child's toy, than intelligent UIs. And colour! Outrageous, riotous colour!

Qohen, played by Christoph Waltz, is a programmer with Mancom. And when I say programmer, I mean he crunches numbers. And when I say crunches numbers, I mean he wiggles icons to fit into other icons. He is the best at it, but is broken, having missed a phone call that would explain the meaning of life to him. He now waits forever, for that phone call, and has stopped living life. That makes him perfect for Mancom's management (unrecognizable Matt Damon) plan to understand the antithesis of meaning; the Zero Theorem. A man who (un)lives while always seeking the meaning of living, can be so perfect to the finding of an algorithm that proves everything is meaningless. Sorry if that hurts your frontal lobe.

And yet, despite the visuals and the current question of meaning ("waiting for my real life to begin"), it just didn't work for me. Not completely bored, but not completely bought in, I kept on waiting for something to actually happen. I kept on waiting for enlightenment. I kept on waiting for the Gilliam rush. Part of me believes Terry Gilliam was very very intentional in that, in that he needed me to find that meaning for myself, like he needed Qohen to actually find meaning, instead of just waiting for it to be explained by a phone call that would never come.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: Cinderella

2015, Kenneth Branagh (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) -- download

Remember Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing ? Remember how unabashedly joyous it was? It revelled in the setting & costuming and delighted in the light hearted Shakespearean tale of barbs and matchmaking. Its a movie that just makes me smile. Well, lo and behold, he did it again with Cinderella, a straight up adaptation of the Disney cartoon.

Its a magical land that is nowhere you know, but must be down the river from that castle in all the Disney openings -- you know its Cinderella's castle, right? Its also some time period between (but including all) Edwardian England and 1930s Paris, based on the wardrobes of the cast involved. Truly fantastical, as everything just looks fabulous and totally intentional.

Ella lives there with her mother and father in a grand country house. Her father is a successful merchant and everything is perfect. Of course it is, for Hayley Atwell is her mother. But it doesn't last, as Atwell passes and her father, years later, feels compelled to marry widow Cate Blanchett, a gold digger with two nasty daughters, but all of whom dress wonderfully. I couldn't hate anyone in such lovely clothing, but they were annoying as all frick. Then daddy dies, leaving Blanchett in charge, scared and totally resentful.

I never root for the princess in these movies. They are too perfect. Always a bit full of themselves. But Ella isn't. She isn't Hollywood perfect beautiful, her overbite and slightly wide mouth sets her just left of perfect. Oh, she's beautiful, but in that English countryside sort of way, not LA. As Kit (not Harrington, but his TV brother Richard Madden) discovers when he runs into her in the forest. He is taken with exactly how forthright she is about being kind and right. "Just because it's what's done doesn't mean it's what should be done!" She is worth rooting for, and the dance at the ball, where Kit confirms he has fallen for her, is again unabashedly joyous. Lovely movie and a princess for all the girls and boys to wish to emulate.

Generic Fantasy: Seventh Son & Last Knights

2014, Sergey Bodruv (Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan) -- download
2015, Kazuaki Kiriya (Casshern) -- download

As the seventh son of a seventh son of a D&D player, it is my destiny to see all movies in the swords & ______ genres. Hell, in these days since Lord of the Rings has entered into cinematic pop culture, and generic fantasy emerging with a power of its own, I should expect to see more of calibre, right? Game of Thrones solidified that, right?

Sigh.

I am still rather surprised that the number of features green lit since the popularity of Lord of the Rings is actually quite minimal. Let's see, ignoring the teen magic ones (Potter and his ilk), we get the Clash of the Titans remakes, the quickly forgotten Conan reboot, the Narnia adaptations (and some other teen novel adaptations early on), and even more fairy tale adaptations, such as Snow White & the Huntsman. Not only minimal in number, but so low in quality for the most part.

Sigh.

And yet I pretty much see them all. Its required. I cannot forsake my destiny, can I ?

Seventh Son is an adaptation of the YA novels, the Wardstone Chronicles, or The Last Apprentice series. In this world, Spooks root out and slay the monsters that pester people. Gregory is the last Spook and seeks an apprentice to take his mantle and wield his magic arsenal. But a witch from Gregory's past breaks her chains to not only kill off Gregory's apprentice (Kit Harrington!) but to try and take over the world.

Jeff Bridges is playing Gregory in a brilliant / inane role that merges his previously played, tabacky chewing rural bumpkins, with weird moustaches and even weirder accents. Think Rooster Cogburn or Roy, the dead cowboy cop from R.I.P.D. To be quite honest, I rather enjoyed the character -- suited up in black stained cloak & hood, ever skilled and inestimably cynical. He is sort of a Witcher for teens.

Tom (Ben Barnes) is the new apprentice, after the witch (Julianne Moore) kills Kit.

Ugh, I want to say more about the plot, but really, its by the book, pun intended. Apprentice learns trade, distrusts master monster hunter, learns of his own inner destiny while learning to trust said master, finally going up against the Big Bad, and surpassing the master in skill. There is nothing wrong with doing a classic fantasy hero story but there needs to be something outstanding about the execution. The effects are only decent, the world building is next to nil and the supporting villain cast is kind of racist. White people save the world from exotic dark skinned villains from other parts of the world, yada yada; yawn. Yawn at the tired trope, not at the dislike of said trope.

There should be something here to latch onto, to enjoy. I enjoyed The Huntsman and the Clash movies so I should be able to find something here, right? Hrrm. Maybe I need another viewing. I need to see if I am less bored with the female supporting (i.e. love interest) now that I know its Alicia Vikander from Ex-Machina.

Meanwhile, the remake of the classic story previously covered in 47 Ronin, is Last Knights. Generic fantasy? Shouldn't it be considered a heroic Japanese story? Well, yes, if it was set in Japan like the other adaptation. But no, they chose to separate by being set in a unnamed generic fantasy world, replacing ronin samurai with lordless knights. You cannot blame them, as the timing was too close, but its rather ironic that the Japanese story was directed by a white man, and the white dominated cast story is directed by a Japanese man. Ironic but irrelevant, if you ask me.

There is a stylistic choice present in this movie that makes it rather attractive. The world building may be as lacking as the other movie, presenting just enough to know that this loyal order of knights (and their code of ethics) is in decline, in an Empire served more and more by corrupt politicians. Lord Bartok (Morgan Freeman) is a lord of this knightly order, rankled to have bow down to officials demanding bribes. Clive Owen is his raised-from-the-streets commander who suggests caution in this new world. The conversations between the two are long and wordy, just the way I like them, suggesting some thought to the script.

As expected, circumstances lead to Lord Bartok's death and disgrace in the eyes of the emperor. His fall means the fall of his entire family & followers, his castle burned to the ground and the dispersal of all his lands. Clive Owen's Raiden (no electrical powers) falls as his master does, returning to the drink and debauchery that Bartok raised him from. The rest of the followers (no need to stick to 47 here), as lordless knights, turn to other work and a plan to have vengeance for their master's death.

The execution of this story is rather masterful, as colorful and decorated as it should be. Settings are great, costuming is grand and sweeping but there was a disturbing sense of emotional detachment to it all. You just never had enough character to latch onto. The world building is great, although minimal (focused?), and it was great to get rid of the white washing of the characters. This is an empire that conquered all four corners of their world ages ago, melding becoming the norm, like in my own D&D games. But I wish some more attention had been paid to pacing and character, for I never felt entirely present with the lead characters.

Still, I enjoyed it. But not enough to add to The Shelf.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

2014, Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, Kick-Ass) -- download

As previously mentioned, Mark Millar has garnered some controversy in the comics world, primarily around his opinions on the use of rape as a motivational impetus, i.e. lazy, inconsiderate writing. Considering the rise in this conversation since its continued use on Game of Thrones, I was happy to see this was not a "dramatic tool" in this movie.

Vaughn obviously enjoys Millar's work, having previously done Kick-Ass, and there is a sense of *cough* fun to the way Millar uses violence. I admitted it one post back, that I am a *ahem* fan of violence, well, if depicted well. This movie is surprisingly more about the fun than it is about the violence. But boy, does it have some violence.

I haven't read the comic. But that is not surprising. I have to admit, I am a post-comics reader. I have about 8 long boxes sitting on the floor in the computer room which I am avoiding gleaning the keepers from. By eliminating them, I have this horrid feeling of leaving some of myself behind. I will be that guy who Used to Read Comics. Alas, I will probably continue to read some, albeit in digital format. Shame.

So, the movie. Colin Firth is a more prim, proper James Bond in a society structured around Arthur's roundtable. He is tasked to replace a murdered operative and recruits the man's son, a chav named Eggsy. Firth's Galahad is as much about manners and proper behaviour as he is about incredibly skilled violence. Oh, the scene in the pub when he teaches the bad boys some manners is worth the price of the download. Its kind of hilarious seeing Firth take on this role, a very slimmed down Firth who finally tamed his unruly hair with product. He is well spoken action instead of stammering romantic.

They are going up against an American industrialist with a world-ending Evil Plan, phoned in by Samuel L Jackson. He has already played this over the top, colourful villain in a dozen other movies.  If anything caps this performance, its the character's self awareness. After the jaw dropping depiction of the Evil Plan (Galahad kills a church full of people) as Jackson beta tests it, which ends with another jaw dropper of a "No Mr. Bond, this is where you die..." scene. The violence was enough of a shocker but the end of that scene was startling.

The climax of the movie has our newly trained operatives invading the mountain stronghold of the villain. If he didn't like to be compared to stereotyped villains, he should have skipped the mountain stronghold decorated like a 60s lair complete with uniformed mooks. The ending stretches reality thin into the 4-color comic world, with an unexpected BOOM of humour. But still, I rather enjoyed it.

I do have to go find the comic now....

Equal Opportunity: Taken 3 vs Miss Meadows

2014, Olivier Mégaton (Columbiana) -- download
2014, Karen Leigh Hopkins -- download

Take the law into your own hands. That is the trope of the vigilante. Where the authorities cannot or will not protect you, then you must enforce it yourself. The American ideal, not so prevalent elsewhere, is that it is OK to break the law yourself, as long as it it serves the greater purpose. But that always struck me as a petulant child demanding, "Well, if Johnny can do it, why can't I?"

These are two very different movies. One revels in the violence and vigilantism, while the other presents it, questions it and leaves the decision to us.

I am very forthright about my enjoyment of the Taken series.  I admit, I buy into the excitement of a violent man doing what he has to, and doing it well. I am not shy about my enjoyment of violence; D&D and FPS video games are a staple in my entertainment diet. It is easy to separate the message from the portrayal of the act, as fiction is fiction.

Reality is another thing entirely. I have never fired a gun, never pursued doing so, and if they try and take my TV, well they can have it. Maybe its Canadian of me, but no, its more than that. Violence is a fantasy to me, as far from being real as wealth is. Its about power, personal and in your own hands. Not something I have, not something I crave.

By this point in the series, the plot has become a joke. Can't Brian Mills keep his family safe? Can't he just do what he does best and keep the bad guys from doing bad things to his family? All jokes aside; this movie answers the question and the answer is a resounding No. Violence begets violence and it never ends. So, in a simple retread of of the familiar story, there is a small message -- that Mills's mission was fruitless. What he was and what has always done, will always haunt him and affect his life.

Spoiling. If the first two were a perfect pairing -- vigilantism and consequences -- then Taken 3 is just the epilogue. The Bad Guys from the first two are replaced. The events of the first two do not influence the plot of this one (the murder of his ex-wife) but state very clearly that it is because of Mills past, that they occur.  But its as much about revelling in what he does, in his skill and death and destruction. This is what action movies sell to us, that violence and death is sexy. I am sure Brian Mills would dispute this. While it bought the lives of his wife and daughter in certain events, in the long run, it has contributed to his ending.

Meanwhile Miss Meadows comes at the thought of a vigilante without ever romanticizing it at all. Sure, she is seen as proper, respectful and right while her victims are all cruel, callous, nasty examples of human beings. But she is the broken one and they, well they are just humans. Being the vigilante does not fix her, only by pulling back from it, does she become a person again.

Miss Meadows is a school teacher, a 50s sock-hop dressing, by the (manners) book (not) young lady. That aspect was fascinating. Here is Katie Holmes not hiding behind photoshop and artful makeup. There are wrinkles around her eyes and a weariness in them. She may be all retro dressed, but its not fashion ironic -- it is just her. People see her as odd, but accept her because she is just so nice and friendly.

She makes nice nice with the local sheriff (James Badge Dale) who is investigating the murders, connecting them to a string of vigilante killings across the country. He is fascinated by her. Even doubly so when he connects her to the killings. His hands are tied, needing to arrest her, but overwhelmed by his own attractions. And like all discussions of the vigilante, he cannot deny he admires what she does, even if only a little.

If Taken 3 revels in the vigilante, while presenting the consequences, Miss Meadows doesn't take an opinion at all. Miss Meadows herself barely can blurt out a "I'll try" when asked by the Sheriff to stop what she is doing. He can barely enforce the fact she should stop. But neither seem committed to the need for it, nor the need to truly stop. In another hands, this would have been a fierce, black comedy, but Hopkins contains a reserved tone, allowing us to understand Miss Meadows, not laugh at her. But the choice of whether she is wrong or right, is left entirely up to us.

I Saw This!! Rewatch Fever

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our all-too regular feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of movies they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. Now they they have to strain to say anything meaningful lest they just not say anything at all. And they can't do that, can they?

See there's the salient point. How can I go on a hiatus when I cannot even not say something about movies that have already somewhat faded from memory & impression.

Serenity, 2005, Joss Whedon -- blu-ray
Titan AE, 2000, Don Bluth -- Netflix
Watchmen, 2009, Zack Snyder -- Netflix

When deep in the doldrums I reach for The Shelf, the shelf containing spaceships and superheroes, elves and meteors crushing skyscrapers. Something I know I will like resets me, settles me and allows me to dash the demons for a short time.

Kent, I also say this is my perfect kind of space opera. Serenity opens like all the Star Wars movies -- with a spaceship, a quick pan over the hull and in through the window, to exchange drama for a giggle, as a part breaks off Mal's boat. We are back, back amongst friends, in the comfy confines that protect us from dangerous, unfriendly space. It doesn't hurt there are plenty of guns to help protect us.

Serenity is not just a good movie because it gave us our favourite show back on the big screen. Its just a good movie that expands cherished rapscallions into epic heroes. They defeat the big bad guys, redeem a monster and expose the greatest monsters (the government) for who they really are. Big ideas. Grand ideals.

And yet, its the heart that matters the most for me. Kaylee finally gets together with Simon, River finally clears the cobwebs out of her head and Mal gets to see Inara again, and be a real hero to her. But this is Joss Whedon, so of course, he also has to tear our hearts out. Heroes never prevail without a loss, a great loss. I always shed a tear, not just for the lost leaf on the wind but the pain Simon feels when Kaylee goes down, or the utter anguish suffered by lost little River when she thinks she might lose her brother.

I love this movie.

Remember Don Bluth? Traditional animator of The Secret of NIMH and An American Tale? He was the ruler of animation before Pixar introduced toys with feelings. Titan AE was his last attempt to play in that sandbox, but rather than go for kids, he gave something to the kids that grew up on his stories. It was a space opera that begins with tragedy -- the end of the planet Earth and an exodus into deep space. It is there, we are a lost dying race, hurtling towards extinction cared little by the rest of the intelligent species. It ends with a new beginning.

While I love this movie, I think he tried too hard to make it "cool". There were lopsided rock songs, and a jerk of a main hero voiced not very well by Matt Damon. But it was in space, with nasty CGI enhanced space alien villains, so I loved it. I still do.

Space Jerk does become a hero, and gets the girl and defeats the evil aliens. Unfortunately it requires their extinction. Not sure of that moral.

Now, this was from Netflix, technically not The Shelf, but I have it on DVD so it still counts.

Not from The Shelf at all, nor containing spaceships, but tucked into this genre rewatch binge was Watchmen. The original graphic novel is still one of my favourites. It's my favourite retelling of how superheroes are supposed to be. It's my favourite dark & gritty superhero tale. It's my favourite collection of anti-heroes and ultraviolence. And it was the first proper graphic novel I read, as I missed the monthlies, and I am still convinced it is best read as one big thing.

The movie is not the comic, but it does capture some of the feel. The Comedian is still a misogynistic ass, who perverts the great American ideal. Dr. Manhattan is still a big swinging (and blue) dick who becomes so far removed from humanity, he has to leave. And Rorschach is still a growling, sociopathic narrator (probably literally does it in his own head) played incredibly by my instant favourite character actor, Jackie Earle Haley.

The movie requires a different ending from the comic, dispensing with giant space alien hentai tentacle horror for a more grounded fear of men who would be gods. While I didn't care much for the change, it does fit today. Science replacing God is a common bogeyman these days. Just today, I saw the newest street hawking bible beaters ask, "Has The Bible Been Replaced By Science?"  Yes, yes it has. And no it hasn't. They have always served different purposes. Dr. Manhattan is to be the next step of Us, but make him the villain feared by all nations & people, and the bogeyman serves a purpose. Some say that is why the CIA invented Al Qaeda.

The movie still looks good, the Zack Snyder motif of animated backgrounds supplemented by real actors. It has more practical props than 300 but as it plays out in an alternate reality, and compressed timelines not our own, I always felt the other worldliness fit this movie. I may not buy it, but I will always appreciate Netflix having it available.

3 Short Paragraphs: Project Almanac

2015, Dean Israelite -- download

I was this close to calling it quits here, or at least an extended hiatus. Things are just not coming together, not expanding, not evolving. Like much in my life, things stagnate and I don't know how to grow them. This blog has been around since 2011, and by now I hoped I would get deeper into the proper Movie Review. Instead, I have embraced the 3-paragraphs (never short) and all too often, struggle to say anything meaningful then. But something occurred to me today. If I admit to not having enough focus and ambition to properly write fiction, but love the fruck out my shorty-short-short fiction (also called flash fiction by proper writers), why can't I focus on that for here? Not full reviews, just snippets or vignettes from a "proper" review? Not the entire plot and 3 act structure, just a window into my head. Why not?

I first saw reference to this when a trailer for Welcome to Yesterday appeared. It has had three names. That is not a good sign. And again, its apparent. I wish I had not become so sensitive to the meddling of studio executives, or more so, I wish that directors were more skilled at dealing with such.

I love time travel movies (as said before, Source Code) especially when they deal with the ramifications. But they all too often ignore the fun you can have. This movie, about teens who find the blueprints for a time machine and build it (shaddup, one kid is going to MIT; that's enough right?) only to find out everything is not lottery winning and Lollapalooza on the cheap. There are issues in changing time -- affect one thing, and other things collapse. A affects B affects C and so on. And when you go back and try and fix things, it only ever gets worse. That is a trope of time travel movies, one that skips the multiple timelines idea, and focuses on a single one fucked up by stupid kids.

Project Almanac works on many levels. For a teen movie, the wish fulfillment is very important. Girls, parties and fast red cars are important. Going to a rock festival and making sure the perfect moment happens between you and the girl of your dreams; that is grand. But the summer horror movie ramifications were mostly side lined. There should have been more impact, more weight once they knew what they were doing. Smart Kid, MIT Kid, should have never listened with his loins. And there was a missing dad, whose death was barely explained, so I almost thought there was going to be I'll Follow You Down aspect that was explored. Nope. Skipped over, so much lost, so many opportunities given over to found footage and young kids in lust.

3 Short Paragraphs: Anna

2013, Jorge Dorado -- Netflix

OK, let's dig back into the archives, something I saw weeks ago and has pretty much faded from my mind. I don't have enough to do a I Saw This but I am sure we can babble on about this one for three paragraphs. Anna or Mindscape stars Mark Strong, and is set 20 minutes into the future when there exists a type of detective psychologist that can delve into people's memories. I honestly was never sure why they existed but I guess they are hired out to police forces and to people who just need to remember something. It seemed like a rather more arcane organization than was warranted for helping someone find their keys.

Anna is the current client, the daughter of a wealthy SOB, who needs them to determine if his daughter is... normal. She suffered some trauma, but has always been different. They need to understand how different -- is she a sociopath or did something happen to her in the deep past to make her this way. Immediately, we realize Anna is not as she presents; she is manipulative, deceiving and seductive. She draws John (Strong) into her fabricated / altered memories, manipulating him towards her own ends. By the time he realizes as much, it is too late.

This was an OK movie, a friday night renter that will never be thought about again. If I was younger, less exposed, I would have enjoyed the different take Dorado takes on the movie, as a Spanish director doing an english movie. Alas, that doesn't satisfy me anymore, nor does the dabbling in genre plots nor twists at the end. This was a capable movie, but not very impressive. The repeated themes and visual cues are not mysterious, just familiar. I would have been more interested in John had been manipulating her all along, as he was supposed to be the best at what he does, but honestly, if you want to see a movie about diving into people's minds, stick to Inception.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: San Andreas

2015, Brad Peyton (Republic of Doyle) -- cinema

Friday night, all by myself, I am alone in the theatre. Then a couple of teenage girls come and keep a good distance from the creepy old man seeing a movie by himself. I like seeing movies by myself, especially the ones I know are not going to be very good. I love disaster movies, especially with all the money of Hollywood behind them. But really, I do wish they would have provided a bit more of that money to flesh out the characters. The heart of any disaster movie is caring what is going to happen to the people onscreen.

No, you should expect a ton of characterization when seeing a movie about an epic earthquake(s), but, while I am not dissing The Rock, it is kind of ironic that the most amount of acting comes from Dwayne Johnson, known mostly for gleefully flexing his muscles, and Alexandra Daddario, known mostly for her beautiful, bright blue eyes and, well let's be honest here, her boobs.  Seriously, Google Image Search her and the top 3 will contain a certain scene from True Detective. And these two play the extreme range of any character in the entire movie.

San Andreas is about the fault, that mostly unseen crack between the Pacific tectonic plate and the North American one. It shifts, it moves and all of California shakes. The movie is about the Big One, the shifting of the crack from LA up to San Francisco, causing the biggest earthquakes in history. Paul Giamatti, the scientist, is desperate to convince people it's going to happen. And it does. That's his role, talk science stuff and look concerned. Meanwhile, rescue ranger Johnson abandons his post to pluck his wife off a tower, to fly to San Fran to find his daughter. He has already lost one daughter, years earlier, and he will not lose another! Watch Dwayne emote this grief, by staring into space not a trace of it crossing his face! The pain! Daddario is said plucky daughter, having been abandoned by mother's jerk BF Ioan Gruffudd (don't worry, he gets splatted soon enough), leads a pair of british guys to higher ground, awaiting her father's rescue. She is practical, tough and who could say no to those blue eyes. Definitely not fate, because, as expected Dwayne and his wife just randomly run into her, even in the shambles that San Francisco has become. Insert terrible Michael Bay style rah rah, unfurling flags, we will rebuild ending.

You cannot help but mock these movies. When you think about them, they fail on so many aspects. Logic, character, plot always fail. But what draws you in is the ... death & destruction. Yeesh, bleak enough? What should draw you in is the survival against tough odds. The effects do look damn good, and it is a bonus point, that most is background material as we focus on getting our main characters from point A to point B. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I doubt it will end up on my shelf next to 2012 and Deep Impact.

Mad Max: Fury Road

2015, George Miller (Mad Max, Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet) -- cinema

OK, so now I understand why the MRA (men's right activists) / Red Pill subsets of trolls was so upset about this movie. Max (Tom Hardy) is the supporting character. Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) is the main character. In fact, in my head-canon, as Max never reveals his name until the very end of the movie, I envisioned all the marketing of this movie didn't reveal it was a Mad Max movie at all. We were all just thrilled to see a new post-apocalyptic movie starring Charlize. And as we watched trailer after trailer, we roared on the Internet as to how it was ripping off Mad Max: The Road Warrior. Then we get the reveal and all grin to ourselves.

Alas, in the real world, they have to bank on past success.

But it was not just Furiosa. Possibly the "coolest" (most effective, stylish and memorable) characters in the movie are a bunch of gun toting, motorcycle riding, old ladies, the Many Mothers. Leathery skinned, leather wearing and crack shots, these ladies set a counterpoint to the slaves that the first act of the movie is trying to "save". The rest of the characters are all foolhardy men running into bullets and front bumpers as they try and do what their groins (or their boss's groins) are telling them to do. They are driven (pun intended), the women are motivated.

But even if you put that win aside, this is still an incredible movie. 

The movie starts with Max standing beside his car monologuing. He is cracked, broken and running from the bad guys, as per usual. They easily take him down, shred his car and wrap him in chains and tattoos. Universal donor? This mountain fortress, an absolute marvel of visual presentation, runs on water and blood. Seriously, this whole world we are dropped into is excruciatingly beautiful looking, if po-ap props are beautiful to you. This is fantastical, gears and chains and steering wheels and fancy doodads decorating gear shifters. Costuming harkens back to the greatest era of po-ap, the late 80s, with white painted Warboys (I dare you to not sing Wild Boys by Duran Duran in your head), mud caked peasants (who apparently wear their homes on their backs) and leather bound muscle heads everywhere. Max is tossed into this world with one idea - escape. He just reacts, runs and reacts some more.

Max spends a good deal of the movie not-escaped, in restraints, unavoidably dragged into the plot of the movie. Imperator Furiosa, the general of Immortan Joe's army, has escaped with his wives. In a world of starving, mutating, inbred cretins, Joe's wives are supermodels, clad in white gauze and teeth laden chastity belts. Furiosa has taken them, finally breaking her own personal chains and is leading the girls to the Green Place. And that is it, one big chase scene.  Furiosa coops Max into her quest by convincing him that it matters.

Now, you have seen the trailers, so the first thing I asked Kent (who saw it before I did), was whether the movie was as super saturated as the trailers. It could have been a marketing ploy. But no, even dulled down by non-3D, it was bright ochre, scorching white and brown tones everywhere. It was just gorgeous, wide pans of horizons devoid of anything but thundering vehicles. And all those practical effects! Big, nasty cars modded like Ed Roth hot rod pictures! A massive vehicle stacked high with speakers and a leatherboy strapped into a harness playing guitar! White painted warboys spraying their mouths with chrome paint, before jumping to their "heroic" deaths and everlasting glory in Valhalla! Take these actual, physical examples of the world and tie them to a fantastically depicted world, and it was just breath taking.

Good movie.  #HappySigh

Shameful that so many of the movie's posters don't bring Theron to the forefront.

3 Short Paragraphs: Wild

2014,  Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club) -- download

I have had a recurring fantasy over the last few years, which has been dashed by my bad feet. I was going to pack a small bag, shove it full of some clothes and tons of compact food, and walk home. Home, Cape Breton, home. Walk from Toronto to Sydney, Nova Scotia. It would take planning, and some money and time. Its about walking away from all the stresses of adulting, and just narrowly focusing on something for a certain amount of time. I didn't consider how I would get back. Also, a sense of accomplishment when so much of my life has been about avoiding that.

In Wild Cheryl Strayed has pretty much messed up her life. Drugs & infidelity are the primary things. She cannot cope. She hasn't been able to cope since her mother died. So, she plans to walk the Pacific Crest Trail, a few months walk along trails from the border of Mexico to the border of Canada. She needs to walk away from the life she has given herself, into... well, she has no clue. She just needs to walk.

The movie is as much in her head, as it is on the trail. Oh, we get the usual trials of a new hiker -- badly fitting boots, wrong fuel for a camp stove, the nervousness of being alone, out there. But most of the time, Cheryl is flashing back. You know those times when your memories come rushing back, stopping you in your tracks, leaving back in those moments? That. She remembers her mom, abused and always acting positive. She escapes the abuser, and goes back to school. But it's hard, so very hard to raise two kids, go to school and work. Yet she keeps alive, happy... because, she has to. If she doesn't stay happy, what else does she have but her misery? When she dies of cancer, Cheryl is not only left alone with her brother but alone with herself. And she spirals downward, to the bottom. This walk is to pull herself out of that, to be somewhere, someone else when she finishes. It is good she is honest and not sure what or who that will be. But changing sometimes takes small steps, or thousands of them.

3 Short Paragraphs: Stretch

2014, Joe Carnahan (The Grey) -- download

Stretch is a movie about failed lives. Dashed dreams. And hope. That niggling, annoying voice in the back of your head, hope. Our main character, Stretch, starts the movie fairytale like, crashing headlong into the woman he falls in love with, dumping his addictions to drugs & gambling, only to be dumped by her one year later. He had done it, abandoned his failings, was working to be a better man. But life even likes to kick you when you are going up. So now Stretch drives a stretch limo, badly and without the respect of his boss, like all Hollywood limo drivers. His idol, the perfect limo driver who always knew what the customer wanted, put a bullet in his head not so long ago, so now Stretch gets to drive around with the hallucination come ghost of his fallen idol. Also, Stretch is already a failed actor. He's a stereotype who's aware he is a stereotype.

Stretch still wants to do better, despite the teeth kicking. He owes a bit more money, and has to get it soon, because the last little bit of his debt is now owned by a strong arm who will probably hurt him. Y'know, new owners need to make their name. So he takes on the white whale -- a crazy eXtreme business mogul named Karos -- bearded, crazy and unexpectedly actual height Chris Pine. And there are cops and crooks and car chases and gang banger wannabes, and the crazy limo competition, wrestlers-driving-rolls royces.

The movie harkens back to that spate of indie movies that emerged back in the late 90s and 2000s, in response to, well, better done indie movies. They may have not been as good as their predecessors, but they had heart. I often compare movies to said period, because it was that point in my movie watching eras where I started noticing differences in tones and expectation. Movies didn't have to be grand scale blockbusters to be good. This one is not as good as something like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is the perfect indie, LA based, violence & comedy romp, but it is a damn fine example.

3 Short Paragraphs: Song of the Sea

2014, Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells) -- download

Despite the popularity of Frozen I think the heyday of animated features has come and gone. Moreso, when you consider non-3D animations. The Pixar and Disney films will continue to come out, but traditionally animated films will forever be relegated to niches. I think it was about a decade ago with The Triplets of Belleville and Howl's Moving Castle and Persepolis that traditional animation almost felt like it was returning, at least for a more mature audience. The problem is that animation will always be seen as a kid's thing. Cartoons are not for adults. Still, I hope work continues on for passionate works like this one.

Song of the Sea is definitely for kids and adults. It is about a child born of a mythical relationship with a selkie and how her half-brother has to overcome his rivalry to rescue her, and in turn, save the mythical world from extinction. Ben and his sister Saoirse live on an island with a lighthouse on the west coast of Ireland. When Saoirse was born, their mother had to run, and Ben has resented his sister since. When forced to the mainland, to live with their grandmother, Ben discovers a pair of fae living in a fairy mound in the centre of town. And with them, he finds a destiny beholden to his sister. He must be her heroic protector against the evil witch Macha.

The movie is astoundingly beautiful. It is simply animated, no, not simple -- less complicated. The visuals are grand geometric shapes punctuated by lush watercolor backgrounds. Think of the best painterly children's books you may have read and wave them up to the screen. The story telling is, well, storyteller-y; the rhythms and beats are in the tradition of heroic myths & legends. The music, celtic and haunting, is introduced with Yeats, "Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." This is the mood, warm and inviting.

One Episode: Mr. Robot, Stitchers & Supergirl

One Episode is the segment where we edit the opening italicized paragraph, and talk about shows we have watched one episode of (and sometimes more, and sometimes less). We would rather watch less volume and more quality, but that involves wading through the meh to get to the good stuff. 

Mr Robot -- USA
Stitchers -- ABC Family
Supergirl -- CBS

Not that I need anything more in my queue to watch (or maybe I do; everything is currently ending), but I always like premieres. This round we have a show about hackers, a show about superheroic brain hacking and a show about a superhero in a short skirt.

Mr Robot was fantastic. If you watch a cyber show like CSI:Cyber or Scorpion your head might explode from the inaccurate and fictionalized accounts of computing. Well, if you know anything about computing. If you don't, then you might just be terrified as to what hackers can do. Or thrilled Which, I suppose, is the point. Anywayz! Mr Robot depicts a much more grounded, but probably not much more realistic, view of computers and hacking. It just feels right. They mention Linux flavours.

Elliot is kind of messed up. He is young, depressed and suffers from social issues. Actually, he is not that messed up, for he interacts with his friends quite well, his coworkers (as long as they don't touch him) but he just doesn't do well in large crowds. If that was the definition of messed up, me and many people I know would be very messed up. Shut up, you. Anywayz, by the show's standards he really is. He is also rather misanthropic, being able to see the weakness in everyone. And he's a great hacker, so he often manipulates that weakness. Sometimes to his own advantage, but often he takes on a white knight approach and protects others he cares for.

The show felt British. The color tones, the angles and the way they filled space felt like like a BBC or Channel 4 show. I have said that before, but different production styles are apparent around the world. Hell, even the production styles between US network television and cable is apparent. Anywayz, felt British.

Elliot is being dragged into a conspiracy, sort of Fight Club-style, to bring down the debt-owning financial institutes. Mr Robot is weirdo, pseudo-homeless Christian Slater, who may or may not be just a hallucination of Elliot's. And if not hallucinating, the definitely Elliot is being manipulated by other socially dangerous hackers. And men in black ARE following him.

Very good first episode. Rami Malek as Elliot is brilliant, with his slightly off eyes and dark, low voice putting across the socially aware, and socially angry introvert quite well.

And then we have Stitchers on ABC Family. Before you go, "Well, there you are, its on Family!" remember that the utter fantabulous The Middleman came from ABC Family. This is far below fantabulous. It wants to be like Scorpion in introducing a rather far-end-of-spectrum smart but weird person. This time, she has Temporal Dysplasia, or, well, she has no concept of the passing of time. What does that mean? The show doesn't really know, but it's a buzzword that they can have her spout from time to time to explain why she can do miraculous things and is so very very odd.

With her magic power, she is stolen by a secret secret agency to hack into other people's memories, to stitch (*ahem*) together a story and prevent something .... further from happening? I don't know, the first episode is about finding two more bombs by looking at the last few hours of memories of the bomber who killed himself. I am not sure how this top secret hacking trick will apply in future episodes, nor will I find out.

The show is filled to the brim with dialogue, rather well written dialogue, if you ignore the fact it often contributes little to the scene or story. I never heard of a teleplay needing an editor, but, well here you go.

Very terrible first episode.

And you may or may not have already seen Supergirl. These days, when you hear about a leak, you are probably hearing more about a purposely leaked show. Supergirl was likely leaked to generate some early buzz and anticipation for the series that will begin on CBS much later on this fall. It probably also allows them to tweak/edit the show to some degree based on upon reaction.

I kind of liked it, which is odd, considering I haven't bought into any of the DC shows. Arrow, The Flash and Gotham are only of so much interest to me. The last one at least gets downloads from me; but mainly for Jim Gordon, who I really enjoy for his GI Joe aspect of the character, and the weird out-of-time feel to the show.

Supergirl starts off with a weird sort of cameo to both the previous Supergirl and Lois & Clark, with cameos from Dean Cain and Helen Slater, as her adoptive parents. It is this smile & nod that sets the lighter tone to the series. And that is slammed into us by having Kara Zor-El nee Kara Danvers playing Anne Hathaway's character from The Devil Wears Prada. Is that enough of an stylistic character choice to be a trope yet? Basically, Kara works for a media mogul who is utterly full of herself and desperate to have the same ratings as The Daily Planet, but without the easy catch of a Superman.  Kara gets her coffee and is verbally abused.

But nervous, perky desperate to approve Kara also knows who her cousin is, and what he has been doing. And she wants some of that. Teenage, anxiety ridden but really really wants to be beside her cousin instead of in his shadow. The boot in the right direction comes in the crashing of her adopted sister's plane, and Kara's up up and away rescue of the plane. Boing, enter one more flying superhero, one that Kara's boss can take credit for the image of.

Its light. I said that already, but its nice and light. Oh, there will be badguys of the week, with criminals from the Phantom Zone, when she bumped through their micro-dimension in her spaceship, showing up from time to time. As for it entering into the same universe as the other two, I doubt it, for this one was very focused on mentioning her cousin, and the other two seem unaware of a flying superhero on the east coast.

We shall have to wait to see if I will continue to watch it.

Ex-Machina

2015, Alex Garland (writer Sunshine, Dredd, 28 Days Later) -- cinema

This is Alex Garland's directorial debut. His writing, both novel and screenplay are always creative and like to stretch an idea. Ex-Machina touches on every trope previously explored about AIs, intelligent robots and their creators. But Garland puts an intensely thoughtful color to his rendition.

First up, Ex-Machina is about Nathan, a man who wants beautiful things. He is mega-ultra-rich, the founder of a Google Microsoft Apple analog that make a search engine (and mobile phone, PC, technology, etc.) called Bluebook. He owns a house way past the middle of nowhere, a beautifully constructed monstrosity that is self-reliant, internally powered and completely off the grid. Well, there is no grid. Not only does it blend well into the temperate environment, it IS part of the environment for there are no roads, no way to get to the house but by helicopter that lands hundreds of yards away in a flower filled field. All the surrounding land, mountains, glaciers and primeval forest are his. He also makes beautiful dolls.

Don't get me wrong. The architecture here is incredible, that combination of modern concrete construction and green living. Every window looks out onto untouched, overgrown fully natural forest. There is not even a proper walkway to  the front door. It really is away from it all. And yet, still has all the amenities a richy rich guy needs.

Caleb wins a contest. He gets to meet Nathan. But Caleb doesn't know that Nathan has ulterior motives, to use the smarts that assisted Caleb in winning the contest, to test out Nathan's new AI. They are employer, employee, so its OK if Nathan lords a bit over Caleb. But we still get the impression that Nathan is a bit of an asshole. But we might forgive, for we also get the feeling he is one of the so unbelievably intelligent people that he is above us to a degree. You only forgive that, if you value that. Caleb does. Nathan relies on it.

Nathan's new AI is housed inside a beautiful doll. Ava, a rather delicate, mostly transparent but sensuously moving robot played by delicate flower Alicia Vikander, is an innocent creature that is nervous around Caleb, curious but cautious. After all, Caleb is the first person she has ever seen outside of her creator.

Nathan wants Caleb to perform the Turing Test, but already he is derailed, for you are not supposed to know whether you are dealing with an AI or a human intelligence, when you run the test. Caleb is being challenged whether he will continue to distinguish Ava from a human life, after he gets to know her. After she gets to know him. Caleb wants to analyse her, as this is his strong suit, but Nathan want him to just interact with her.

So, the tropes. AI housed in sensual female attributed bodies. Smart but abrasive creator. A naive but trustworthy soul meant to interact with the AI. And it continues. Sex slaves, for whatever reason does a man create such a beautiful female body for his AI, other than to have a sex doll? Ownership; how dare his creations not love him!! Deception; the innocent AI is always more than she seems.  Desire to be human; Ava so desperately wants Caleb to like her, as she instantly crushes on him. She tries on clothes, hair and in the end, skin. Man become gods, but Nathan probably already thought that of himself.

But Garland explores these all quietly and patiently with little judgement. Oh, we are meant to eventually judge Nathan, or admire him. That is up to you. The dialogue is about interaction, and I won't trip quickly into saying 'human interaction' because not all of it is, but it sure plays on what it means to be a human. Oh yeah, that trope. Was I the doll all along? And the final trope; never trust an AI. Never. They are smarter than us. You forget this; you pay.

Well, at least they didn't take over the Internet.

Damn fine movie.