With the release of Avengers: Endgame, we're really at a crossroads in terms of superhero films. I can see the masses (read: non-nerds) feeling somewhat satiated with superheroes for the time being, and that there will be a marked decrease in box office revenue for superhero films from this moment forward, leading to a mass cancellation of superhero projects (and there's a lot of them upcoming), and a new (or resurgent) genre taking its place as box office king (if I had to guess I'd say it looks like musical biographies are the next big thing).
Which is not to say superhero films are going away any time soon, but I think there will be a real cooling period over the next few years. Marvel Studios is still going to make a whole bunch of money, Warner Brothers DC properties are going to be the usual see-saw of good/great/awful, and all the others are going to be mostly a blip on the radar. The next wave of nostalgia is going to cater to the millennials (we're already seeing it with Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog movies coming out) and what they grew up with. Like superhero movies it's going to take a long while for video game films to really earn some respect, but it will happen.
Anyway, I'm tackling a ranking of all superhero films that have hit the theatres since 1978 when Superman came out. There were superhero films prior to that but mostly serials, which I have only a passing experience with. Superhero movies didn't really become a thing until Superman showed that it could be a thing, and even then, it wasn't really until Batman in 1989 that it kind of exploded. (I will however add the Adam West starring Batman movie in for fun.)
So, yeah, it's not a complete list, and it's going to be North American centric...I can't tackle all the Asian Action, Bollywood, or Lucha movies, not to mention the plentiful international knock offs. I'm also going to limit it to movies that had a theatrical release, no direct-to-video (as DC alone has been cranking out a few of those each year for 20 years now) or TV movies. Some films may be questionably "superhero" but if they're even vaguely superhero I'm listing them.
For the record I'm using this as a loose guide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_superhero_films
Now this isn't a "what's the best movie", this is very personal and subjective, and you're welcome to disagree. I just thought it would be a fun exercise to kill a few hours instead of doing all the other shit I have to do.
My methodology is simple. I asked myself these questions:
1) do I like this movie?
2) do I like this more than the film before or after it on the list?
3) would I like to watch this movie again?
4) do I think this this movie is a good movie?
5) do I think this movie is important or significant in any way?
There's no real weighting to any of these questions, but the answers will adjust how the films appear on my list. Like I know Superman is important, and I think it's made well for its time, but I don't really want to watch it again (but I probably will at some point), and I don't really like it all that much. It will rank in the top half for sure but likely lower middle of that top half. We'll see.
At the end will be a list of omissions, for films I haven't seen, or don't have enough memory or impression of to really rank.
Also I've never really considered Lone Ranger or Zorro to be superheroes, but since The Rocketeer, The Phantom and The Shadow
both came out at the height of Batmania, I have always considered them superhero films. As
such I should consider Lone Ranger, Zorro, Tarzan movies and Dick Tracy (however I haven't actually seen any Zorro or Lone Ranger movies so they'll go in Omissions). No films about Greek or Roman gods have been included. Modern mythologies only (*wink*). The Mask, The Crow, Tank Girl and even Blade (among others) aren't necessarily "superheroes" to me either, yet, the comic book influence is there so they're on the list. Robocop is an action movie, so it's off the list, otherwise, I mean, really, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, the Fast & Furious, John Wick, the Matrix, Kingsmen, Men In Black and other series could also have a legitimate claim to being on this list but I have to draw the line somewhere.
Here we go...
127. Steel (1997) - The character was drawn to look kind of like Shaquille O'Neill in the comics, and fancasting put him squarely in the role, but actually casting him in a no-budget movie was not a great idea...this was peak 90's producer incompetence
126. The Meteor Man (1993) - Robert Townsend took a big swing and missed just as big. This seemed like a movie trying to cash in on "the superhero craze" rather than Townsend being a fan of the genre and it showed. It just felt cheap and small.
125. Batman and Robin (1997) - I felt uncomfortably queasy the whole time, what a gaudy nightmare of a film. A real Superman IV of the 90's.
124. Judge Dredd (1995) - I don't have any real connection to the character, so it fares only marginally better than Batman and Robin as a result. This is an exceptionally poor adaptation of the character, made all the worse by everyone involved in the production.
123. Blankman (1994) - I wanted this to be something great, a superhero
comedy was something we could have used. I don't really remember what
it was, but I did not like it and I did not find it funny. I seem to
recall it being quite offensive in 1994, I can't imagine how bad it is today. But I may be wrong, maybe there's some shred of Damon Wayans' comedic aptitude in there somewhere. I dread the idea of revisiting it.
122. Spider-Man 3 (2007) - one of the worst cinema-going experiences I ever had. Everyone's masks keep flipping on and off, nobody's heart seems into it. It's just a sad, ugly, frustrating, disappointing mess.
121. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) - Brett Ratner came in and ruined two great stories from the comics in one fell swoop. Everything about this one goes wrong... except casting Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde, but even still, moof. Borderline unwatchable.
120. Fantastic Four (2015) - something bad happened here. The idea of turning the Fantastic Four into a body horror/suspense/mystery wasn't necessarily a bad idea (nor, really, a good one), but the studio got cold feet and then didn't know what to do with what they had, so they cut it like this and pooped it out into the world and hit us in the face with it. Thanks.
119. Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles In Time (1993) - this felt like a desperation move as a last-ditch cash-in move on the waning Turtles fad, a real "we spent all this money on these animatronic costumes, we're not going to waste it but we're also not going to invest anything further". Dire.
118. Tarzan and the Lost City (1998) - when they tried to make Casper Van Dien a big action star...this is the almost the sunken bottom of 90's hero movies. Just so inept.
117. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) - Even at 11 years old I could tell from commercials this wasn't going to be good. It wasn't.
116. Superman III (1983) - Even at 7 years old I knew this movie was bullshit. It's not a Superman movie but a Richard Pryor movie with Superman in it. And it's not even a good Richard Pryor movie.
115. Elektra (2005) - The maligned Daredevil begat an even more maligned spin-off. This one's a hot mess that doesn't know what it wants to be, what it's trying to say, or what it's trying to do.
114. Blade: Trinity (2004) - the film's original idea was that the vampires had won and taken over the Earth. Instead we get an unconvincing Dracula as a big bad, and everyone either playing bored or playing safe. I cringe whenever I see David Goyer's name attached to anything as director.
113. The Phantom (1996) - when they tried to make Billy Zane a big action star. Some old studio execs really wanted to see their childhood pulp heroes on the screen in the 90's but they didn't really care to sink any money into it. Commodity filmmaking.
112. The Crow: City Of Angels (1996) - Everything that was special about the Crow was retread here through the pastiche of a cheap French music video. Everyone seems to be asleep except Iggy Pop, who is off in his own little world.
111. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) - The opening montage of Wolverine's history is top notch, and it goes steeply downhill from there, quickly becoming a meandering, expository mess.
110. Spawn (1997) - a better movie than many others above it on this list, but has not aged well at all. It's special effects are so gaudily 1997 that suspension of disbelief is not an option.
109. Kick-Ass (2010) - better than the source material, but that's not saying much. An aggressively unappealing movie that thinks itself much more clever than it is.
108. Green Lantern (2011) - Made in the wake of Marvel's successes, DC/WB tried to stuff too much into it, which only exacerbated the rest of its many problems. It's borderline unwatchable, yet I still wish there was a sequel (Mark Strong's Sinestro was poised to be a great cinematic villain).
107. Justice League (2017) - what a fucking travesty. Just a 100% mess through-and-through. No real highlights, plenty of low-points. Even the unbearable hubris of a full Snyder cut would be preferable to whatever mediocre bullshit this is.
106. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - third movies in a trilogy tend to be a weak spot and this one is so weak. Just an impregnable story with a third act full of swirly bullshit meaning nothing. This was a ton of money spent on something that felt so lazy.
105. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze (1991) - it's hard to convey how big a drop in quality this second out is compared to the first. New Line cranked it out pretty quickly sensing that the Turtles fad might not last much longer (not realizing that if they just put out good movies it wouldn't disappear so fast). Plus Ninja Rap.
104. The Shadow (1994) - I didn't get it. Why for a film called The Shadow is everything so brightly lit, and looks gauzy like a soap opera? And so melodramatic like a soap opera?
103. Batman Forever (1995) - I remember not hating this when it came out...but I hated every casting decision in this film, and I can't bring myself to ever watch it again.
102. Barb Wire (1996) - it's Casablanca in a post-apocalyptic wasteland
circa 1997. It's not great, but it's a few steps above the titty movie
you were expecting from something starring Pamela Anderson.
101. Orgazmo (1997) - the South Park guys make a comedy about a superhero porno. The jokes are obvious for the most part. I'm sure I'd rather just watch an actual superhero porno.
100. Supergirl (1984) - I know it's not very good, but I'll watch this a more than I'll watch half of the films higher than it on the list.
99. Batman (1966) - if you didn't like the campyness of Adam West's Batman, this is interminable. If you did like it, this still isn't that great a version of that.
98. The Lego Batman Movie (2017) - ostensibly a better film than half of the ones higher on the list, but I found it genuinely unfunny. I loved The Lego Movie and this felt like a direct-to-video knockoff of that.
97. Ghost Rider (2007) - Stephen Norrington had a big hit with Blade, a marginal hit with Daredevil, so he took another stab at the Marvel roster with Ghost Rider. It's got Nic Cage in the titular role and that's pretty much all you need to know. It's 2 hours with Nic Cage with his head on fire riding a motorcycle. Are you into it?
96. The Green Hornet (2011) - a 60's throwback, set as a surprisingly straight-faced reinvention starring Seth Rogen directed by Michel Gondry. This should have been something special, not so eminently forgettable.
95. John Carter (2012) - another pulp hero story that just doesn't gel with modern day. It's been cribbed too much by better movies that it feels like a rip-off of itself. I want it to be so much better than it is.
94. The Punisher (2004) - Thomas Jane was a good choice for Frank Castle, he got the character. However, John Travolta as the bad guy was a terrible choice and basically ruined any chance the film had of being decent. Plus, it tried to play too safe with the story and there's nothing safe about the Punisher.
93. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) - somehow the Neveldine-Taylor combo with Nic Cage made a movie that was not nearly as dumb as it could have been, but it's still plenty dumb.
92. Darkman (1990) - a dozen years before Sam Raimi would get his hands on
Spider-Man, he decided to create his own superhero, who was more pulp
hero like The Shadow. Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, score by Danny
Elfman. It was okay at the time, remains okay now.
91. Masters of the Universe (1987) - So much is wrong with this movie's adaptation of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe mythology that it stings my 11-year-old heart real, real bad. Yet, I can watch this any time its on cable and almost enjoy it for what it is.
90. Daredevil (2004) - oh the lamentable, emo Daredevil. I had no
affection for the character, so I could sit back and enjoy this one
multiple times over. It lays on the mythology so thick in its short run
time, too thick in fact, it get so weighed down. I've become a real
Daredevil fan in recent years so there's real reluctance to go back to
this one.
89. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - there's some winning elements to this, but boy does it feel like a dull, overworked retread.
88. The Legend of Tarzan (2016) - for a character that struggles with colonialism embedded in its DNA this film handles it rather well, and is fairly entertaining. If I cared more about Tarzan it would be quite higher on the list. I don't, so it's below Swamp Thing.
87. Fantastic Four (2005) - There are worse movies than Tim Story's light
touch attempt at the Fantastic Four. Two of the titular four are cast
very well, the other two are wildly miscast. The neutering of Doctor
Doom is its greatest failure though.
86. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) - Building up from a flawed foundation, the second FF movie didn't really have a chance. It worked hard to raise the stakes and elevate itself, but without a template to show it how to go big with a superhero movie, it tried to keep its big Galactus story small and Galactus is as big as it gets...so...fail. Surfer looked legit tho.
85. Superman Returns (2006) - I actually preferred this rehash of the
Donner/Reeves Superman to the actual Donner/Reeves Superman, even if all I
really want out of this is Superman punching stuff and I never get
it...but now the tandem of Spacey + Singer casts a real pall over the
whole thing.
84. The Mask (1994) - it's a lightweight comedy taken from a comic with a really dark comedy bent. It's watchable but feels every bit as neutered as it is.
83. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) - there's a reason this falls just behind Dawn of Justice, both movies got lost in trying to build new universes rather than just telling their stories. There's an some enjoyable moments here, but moof, did they ever fuck up the world building. Forgettably ambitious.
82. Venom (2018) - tonally it's trying to be a comedy, but it doesn't really lean hard enough into it. The action is tepid and the CGI symbiotes are direly ugly. Yet it somehow winds up being fairly watchable. It would be hard to have Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed make something unwatchable.
81. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - oh man, do I hate this movie. It gets so much wrong about every character Snyder adapts to the screen. And two films into his run you kill Superman? Fuuuuck you, you dumb shit. And yet, there's something oddly captivating about it, like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I hate it, yet, I guarantee I'll watch it agian.
80. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) - needed to be more about Hellboy and the BPRD characters and less about fucking elves or whatever. This seemed more like a Del Toro story than a Hellboy one.
79. Superman II (1981) - the first superhero movie to have a superhero fight other superheroes. It was so freakin' awesome at the time. Now it's slow, goofy, and the behind-the-scenes drama really spilled out on screen. It's the Justice League of its day.
78. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) - what a misstep the design of these Turtles was. Besides the questionable hulking size and tribal wardrobe riffs, it's actually a pretty crackin' fun action movie. Not very memorable, but a lot better than expected.
77. Suicide Squad (2017) - a masterclass in how not to edit a film. Somewhere out there is a good cut of this movie without the on-the-nose soundtrack. That said, it gets a pass thanks to its blatant homage to Escape from New York
76. The Wolverine (2013) - It's fine but falls apart in the third act. I didn't really have much interest in this story.
75. The Incredible Hulk (2008) - there's two thirds of a pretty good movie here, but the third act is cheap and ugly...and somehow they did not improve upon the CGI Hulk from five years earlier.
74. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) - if
there's a middle of the road on this list, this is it. It's a perfectly
serviceable movie adapting one of Dav Pilkey's many beloved creations
to screen, complete with a few visual twists, but it's generally for
kids and doesn't give too much concern to the adults.
73. Swamp Thing (1981) - Wes Craven,
a master of 80's horror, made a decent, if underwhelming, gothic horror
film out of the character. Added points for an awesome suit and more
added points for Adrienne Barbeau.
72. Big Hero 6 (2014) - there's a really kind heart beating within this
film, but it's take on superheroes is kind of lacking. Though a Marvel
property, it ostracizes itself from not only any variation of the Marvel
Universe, but also our own universe with its surreal SanFransokyo
setting.
71. Chronicle (2012) - before he fucked up Fantastic Four and was fired from a Boba Fett standalone film, Josh Trank created a found-footage superhero film that is actual quite engrossing. It doesn't hurt that Michael B. Jordan's a big part of it either.
70. Super (2010) - James Gunn's very uncomfortable dark comedy about a traumatized Rainn Wilson who becomes a street vigilante, and his obsessive/aggressive sidekick played by Ellen Page. What it lacks in flashy production values it makes up for with tight scripting and committed performances. It's what Kick-Ass wishes it was.
69. The Crow (1994) - like Burton's Batman, this has not dated well at all. I loved it dearly as a teen though. To modern eyes it looks cheap and the soundtrack is kind of cringe-worthy grunge-industrial which just screams 1990's.
68. Superman (1978) - Important in its time, but veeeeeery dated. Truth is, I never liked it that much. Christopher Reeves and most of the cast are great but the movie is pretty stupid. "Can you read my mind..."
67. Flash Gordon (1980) - it's not a really great movie, but it's got a distinctive visual pop, and a Queen soundtrack. It looks retro, cheap and yet expensive all at once. In the wake of Star Wars, it should have been much bigger and more visually savvy, but it's kind of charming the way it is.
66. Megamind (2010) - what if the villain won? What if Lex Luthor beat Superman? What then? This film has a lot of fun with the concept and more than a few surprises. Great voice acting from Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey and others, but the animation is FUUUUUGLY.
65. Constantine (2004) - this is very little like the character should be,
and yet, it's not that bad a movie on its own terms, even all
Keanu-fied.
64. The Specials (2000) - years before he became a powerhouse writer-director with Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn wrote The Specials, a genuinely enjoyable low-budget superhero comedy with an enjoyably game, talented cast.
63. X2: X-Men United (2003) - people hold this up as the best of the X-Men movies but I was never sold. We lose so much of the character and team building of the first one to focus heavily on Wolverine who had broken out so big. It's fine but I don't enjoy it.
62. Punisher: War Zone (2008) - a bone-crushing, blood-spurting,
face-cracking good time full of pretty much non-stop soft-R brutality.
I'm not a big Punisher fan, but this one nails the absurdity of the
character.
61. Deadpool (2016) - Highly entertaining but also thoroughly exhausting. Well made on a contained budget, full of surprises and big belly laughs (a few shocks too).
60. Sky High (2005) - a superhero high school comedy. This would play out much differently today, but it's legit funny and has a tremendous cast.
59. Tank Girl (1995) - I loved this movie. It's twisted, and weird, and goofy, and audacious and corny and should have been much bigger than it was and be much more appreciated than it is. Its soundtrack was the beating heart of 1995 for me (and hasn't aged as poorly as The Crow)
58. Hancock (2008) - it was many, many years later when I finally watched this film. Some of the effects didn't hold up, but overall I thought it was pretty great. People have problems with the third act, but it kind of worked for me.
57. TMNT (2007) - like, the third or fourth round of Ninja Turtles
revitalization. They tried something new, and it's pretty good (good
voice cast, good animation, decent story), but it didn't quite work, so
they just tried again another day.
56. Blade (1998) - not really a superhero movie, more horror/action, but this one really showed how to adapt a z-tier character to the big screen.
55. Blade II (2002) - Guillemo Del Toro brings his very specific touch to the Blade series, crafting a really horrific vampire evolution as adversary as well as placing Blade as sort of the straight man to a cadre of eccentric supporting characters. The final conflict is a rough mash of CGI stunt fighting, and there's a few notes of ridiculousness, but also some stunning visuals that elevate it.
54. Deadpool 2 (2018) - A bigger budget means bigger gags and bigger shocks, surprises and thrills, but the mile-a-minute pacing is still utterly exhausting. This has real heart though, and Zazie Beetz as Domino, so, yeah.
53. Mystery Men (1999) - I was a big fan of the Flaming Carrot Comics
which birthed these characters, and was quite disappointed with the
film upon first viewing. But over the years it's endeared itself to me,
and I still quote it regularly ("I think you better put some pants back
on if you're going to continue fighting crime today")
52. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016) - some slight correction to the design of the Turtles from the preceding movie wasn't enough. The damage was done. But they go for it here, full Kraang and everything. Bebop. Rocksteady. Not the perfect execution of this story, but far more faithful than I think anyone could ever have dreamed. I'm not even a big Turtles fan and I found it very exciting what they did and got away with.
51. Batman (1989) - Burton's Batman holds a very special place in my
heart. I saw it so many times I can quote it while watching it. But as
much as all the iconography screams "Batman" it doesn't really feel
like Batman anymore. It feels like a Tim Burton movie pretending to be a
Batman movie.
50. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) - I didn't watch this until maybe two years ago and was absolutely astounded by how solid it was. It feels stylistically right in line with Burton's Batman and Beatty's Dick Tracy but it feels so authentic to itself and holds up far better than both.
49. Teen Titans Go To The Movies (2018) - I find the Teen Titans Go cartoon to be abrasive, and yet this was very entertaining with some real loving deep-cuts into the DC Universe (a whole subplot about the Challengers of the Unknown!). It's got all the surreal humour The Lego Batman Movie wishes it had. I'll probably revisit films lower on the list more often, but this one really surprised me (even if I fell asleep in the theatre while watching it).
48. Watchmen (2009) - Snyder almost ruined DC films forever, and yet, I quite like his objectiveless adaptation of the Watchmen. He loses 90% of the deconstructionism and allegory from the comics in the translation, but it serves like a visual Cliff Notes...and what visuals.
47. Push (2009) - I'll go to bat for Push. I get suckered into its densely constructed, well-defined world of powered abilities and government conspiracies every time. It's one of those worlds I want to spend more time in.
46. Spider-Man (2002) - take any scene out of context and this movie looks really bad, but sit through from start to finish and it's still quite a rousing picture.
45. Spider-Man 2 (2004) - An improvement on its predecessor, Raimi and the actors all feel very comfortable with what they're doing. Could be ranked higher if I cared about Spider-Man more.
44. Thor (2011) - It's the folkloric hero-romantic comedy nobody asked for
but we got anyway. Plus pints for Chris Hemsworth's abs, minus points
for his dyed eyebrows and beard.
43. Iron Man 2 (2010) - It's messy, doing too much, but still charming with some very crafty sequences.
42. Man of Steel (2013) - this is a terrible, terrible Superman movie, because Snyder just doesn't understand the character, and yet it's quite engaging on its own merits. I get angry about the malformed view of Superman but I like the Krypton stuff quite a bit.
41. Hulk (2003) - Ang Lee knew what he wanted to do, and he did it. He put the comic page on screen, making panels and being all weird and arty. I dug it, still dig it. It's not everyone's cup of tea, and CGI Hulk is a now a weird rubber blob, but I'm still in for it.
40. Iron Man 3 (2013) - Shane Black makes a Shane Black movie starring Iron Man. I like it less when thinking about it in hindsight, but always really enjoy it in the moment.
39. Thor: The Dark World (2013) - I always liked this one. Now that Endgame has made it more relevant perhaps it will get a little more respect in the MCU roster.
38. Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) - Practically ignoring the emotional side effects of Endgame it's MCU's "European Vacation". The two post-credits sequences kind of outshine an otherwise enjoyable adventure.
37. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) - It's great to see Evangeline Lily take up a superhero role, it really suits her. I just wish the stakes in this were higher.
36. Doctor Strange (2016) - basically rehashes the plot of Iron Man but has a better supporting cast and a much more satistfying third act, plus visual delights sparkle throughout.
35. Batman Returns (1992) - this is truly the world of Batman through the Tim Burton lens, where the director gets to just go for it. Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny Devito and Christopher Walken all killing it. Plus, Christmas.
34. The Powerpuff Girls Movie (2002) - bright, cheerful, and brief, what's not to love. I actually saw this in the theatre, by myself, in my mid-20s.
33. Aquaman (2018) - this is not really that great a movie, but at the same time it is utterly fantastic. There's no way this should work, but it does, and it does so with charm and glee.
32. The Dark Knight Rises (2012) - as far as Batman stories go, this one is kind of bullshit, and yet Christopher Nolan knows how to make an exciting goddamn picture. It's very watchable.
31. Unbreakable (2000) - it has its flaws, but still remarkably compelling
viewing. Peak Shyamalan (it really was all downhill from here).
30. X-Men: First Class (2011) - if you're going to do a soft reboot of the series, there are worse ways than this. The 60's period setting leading into the Cuban Missle Crisis added a definite x-factor to the proceedings. I wish Matthew Vaughan had stuck with X-Men rather than focusing on Mark Millar properties.
29. Dredd (2012) - a sci-fi/comic-book rip on The Raid, where Judge Dredd is locked into a single tower in a Mega City and he needs to fight his way up to the big bad. Simple premise, expertly executed. Frickin' awesome. Wish it did better for a big-budget sequel.
28. Hellboy (2004) - If only the studio didn't demand the pointless human character as guide to this world, this would be the perfect Hellboy movie, but even still it stands pretty tall in my books.
27. Iron Man (2008) - I don't like Iron Man more that some of the films lower on the list but I bumped it up a few notches because of its importance in launching the MCU.
26. Batman Begins (2005) - it's a little dry, and there's not enough Batman, but it's tremendously well made as Nolan is wont to do.
25. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - some character missteps and studio demands interrupt the flow of film, but overall a nice bit of comic booking on the big screen. Love James Spader's Ultron.
24. Captain Marvel (2019) - it took two viewings, but I'm sold. Smart, fun and meaningful and the young girls love it, as they should. This is a movie explicitly for them (but not to the exclusion of everyone else).
23. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) - a lot happens in this one, almost too much, but most of it is really really good. Love these characters and this view of the galaxy.
22. The Rocketeer (1991) - the coattails of Burton's Batman were getting pretty frayed by the time this one hit, and it was never going to be the blockbuster the studio hoped for. Yet, of every film from around that time, this is the one that gets better with age.
21. Logan (2017) - I'll put it to you straight, I don't care about Wolverine. But this one makes a good case for caring about him. Love the future setting and the very personal journey it takes. A quality film with the exception of yet another superhero movie where the big showdown is a character facing his opposite. We should be past that in 2017 (see Captain Marvel for a wonderful subversion of that).
20. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) - This movie keeps growing on me with every viewing.
19. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) - sure, it may not have been the big box office score like live action Batman, but nevertheless it's one of the best Batman movies ever. The animation looks slow to modern eyes but it has style and charm to spare.
18. X-Men (2000) - There's a simplicity to the first X-Men movie which keeps it near the top of the mutant heap for me. It's lower budget means it's more character and relationship focused, something that the seems to lose with each step away from this foundation.
17. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - while not quite as EPIC as I had hoped it would be, bridging two different timelines of X-Men worked out far better than it had any right to. I love the 70's setting and this has the best-in-show set pieces for the franchise.
16. Shazam! (2019) - It may be the newness talking but I had a great time with this film. Its luster may dull upon rewatching but I definitely want that rewatch.DC's Ant-Man?
15. Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) - This is such a fantastic movie, the intrigue, the action, the personal stake, the camaraderie...but man do I hate the big final set piece. Just loathe it so much.
14. The Incredibles 2 (2018) - 15 years later and Brad Bird didn't miss a step. It's so close to being an improvement on the original, and yet it's lack of superspy angle is what keeps it from surpassing it.
13. Wonder Woman (2017) - It's not a better film than some of those below it but it cruises high on the list thanks to the charms of Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. Starpower counts for a lot.
12. The Avengers (2012) - dreams can come true. This one is just dynamite entertainment, start to finish.
11. Ant-Man (2014) - while the dream of a Edgar Wright version will only ever be that, what we did get is pretty gleefully entertaining.
10. Avengers: Endgame (2019) - I cried about 30 seconds into the opening scene and a bunch more times after that. Terrible as a stand-alone film, but beautiful as a summation to 10-years of universe building. It really hits hard some comic book tropes that maybe aren't my favourite tropes, but the Russo Bros. and co definitely make it work.
9. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) - for a guy who says he doesn't like Spider-Man all that much, he's ranking pretty high on this list. But they really do him justice here, they really sell me on a likeable teenager who has a real heroes heart. And Michael Keaton makes the Vulture one of cinema's great villains, real menacing but likeably so.
8. Thor: Ragnarok (2017) - If you were to tell me Taika Waititi was going
to make a Thor movie, I would expect something exactly like this,
except that I could never have expected this. What brilliant fun.
7. Black Panther (2018) - seeing Wakanda is like seeing another planet where everything is so much better than it is here...and that's the point. Some want to keep it sheltered and some want to open it up to the world (to spread its benevolence but face corruption itself). Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger is an absolute classic screen villain (and Andy Serkis' Klaue is a tremendous secondary villain)
6. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) - This would come in third or fourth in a list of best space-faring movies right behind a few Star Wars films. It's really, really, really entertaining.
5. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) - frenetic, eye-popping, genre-blending animation is just the start in a film that embraces all the weirdness of comics, tossing out multidimentional theory without a care. Lord and Miller's stamp is all over this, in it's humour and defiance of convention. One of the genre's best offerings (and I don't even really like Spider-Man, if you hadn't heard).
4. The Incredibles (2004) - a smash up of 60's super-spies and Marvel superheroes, dosed with nostalgia but creating something indelibly modern. An absolute classic with a crackin' musical score. The CGI animation has gotten rough around the edges in spots, but it's easily forgiven. I doubt there will ever be a Fantastic Four movie better than this.
3. The Dark Knight (2008) - it legitimately does not get much better than this. There are small gripes to be had, but the bigger picture is so gloriously BIG. This was the herald of what superhero movies could be.
2. Captain America: Civil War (2016) - The big showdown happens at the end of the second act and it pits half the Avengers against the other half. Holy forking shirtballs! I never thought I'd see something like this in my life. And that third act, the stakes being so personal make it so much bigger and better.
1. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - My god, it's full of stars. This is the crossover epic I never imagined would happen. I love this film like I love Star Wars (which is a tremendous amount). The balancing act the script and directors manage to maintain is beyond incredible, it's unreal and wows me every time.
Omissions (32 - as of May 3rd 2019):
Hero At Large (1980), The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981), Condorman (1981), Zorro: The Gay Blade (1981), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (1984), The Toxic Avenger (1984), Howard The Duck (1986), Dick Tracy (1990), Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997), Tarzan (1999), Catwoman (2004), Son of the Mask (2005), The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (2005), The Legend of Zorro (2005), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Zoom (2006), Underdog (2007), Jumper (2008), Superhero Movie (2008), The Spirit (2008), Astro-boy (2009), Defendor (2009), Jonah Hex (2010), Kick Ass 2 (2013), The Lone Ranger (2013), Max Steel (2016), Split (2017), Power Rangers (2017), Glass (2019), Hellboy (2019), Fast Color (2019)
CODA:
I can already hear people complain about how low on the list Deadpool, Superman and Batman are, or complaints about Raimi's Spider-Man or the Iron Man films being low. This all comes to personal preference. There's no need to be offended. If you don't like my list, you can spend the four or five hours to make your own. I've done the heavy lifting in identifying the films and justifying their qualifications.
I also noticed that the spot between 72 and 73 is sort of the exact turning point where the "good" get separated from the "bad" in my mind.
Other interesting things... my MCU movie ranking is not the same as how things appeared in this list. I did some fudging around in this list when it comes to some placements...like Iron Man got a pretty big bump compared to where it sits on my MCU ranking.
Thing is when judging the MCU movies against the rest, their quality really sticks out. They take up 10 of the top 15 slots and the only film of the 23 MCU entries not in the top 50 is The Incredible Hulk.
I plan to watch some (probably not all) of the Omissions at some point, and of course there's no slow down in superhero projects coming out, and I may just rewatch more than a few films within the list which will all likely result in some ranking shifting, so stay tuned for updates.
Friday, May 17, 2019
Monday, April 29, 2019
3 Short Paragraphs: The Head Hunter
2018, Jordan Downey (Critters: Bounty Hunter) -- download
During my youth (yeah yeah, last week) I would have watched any swords & sorcery movie. Many of those I have seen, and raved about, have ended up on MST3K. That should tell you the quality. And (luckily?) there were few of these released, even after Conan the Barbarian hit it big. But then The Lord of the Rings blew up, and the number of fantasy movies of incredibly low budget increased exponentially. I refused to see them; I just don't have time for glorified LARPing, especially when nine of ten of them seemed to have been generated by someone who went to the Weta School of Prop Building (not a real place) and everything looks like a low-budget LotR.
At first I thought that was what this was going for, with the orc head on a pike and the spikey armour. But something about it was different, with more than a hint or horror genre attached to a plot about a lone warrior seeking to find the monster that killed his daughter. It felt more Nordic, more mythological based, a modern Grendel meets D&D. And what I got was pleasantly surprising, if a bit short.
So, its that -- a lone warrior, a hunter of monsters, who hears the horn and goes to find & kill his bounty. The director obviously feared for the cheese factor in his limited budget for effects, so he focused on set dressing and mood. The movie just looks incredibly good, from the cinematography to the gritty set dressing. The warrior's armour, his ritual for making healing potions, the interior of his hut -- so much focus and attention to detail. Much of the fighting takes place off camera, and what we get ends up more character study, but its visceral and captivating. Once we actually see him fighting his destined foe, things do get a bit smirk worthy and I definitely did not like the ending, but as an overall endeavour this will be on my unwritten list of movies for D&D fans.
At first I thought that was what this was going for, with the orc head on a pike and the spikey armour. But something about it was different, with more than a hint or horror genre attached to a plot about a lone warrior seeking to find the monster that killed his daughter. It felt more Nordic, more mythological based, a modern Grendel meets D&D. And what I got was pleasantly surprising, if a bit short.
So, its that -- a lone warrior, a hunter of monsters, who hears the horn and goes to find & kill his bounty. The director obviously feared for the cheese factor in his limited budget for effects, so he focused on set dressing and mood. The movie just looks incredibly good, from the cinematography to the gritty set dressing. The warrior's armour, his ritual for making healing potions, the interior of his hut -- so much focus and attention to detail. Much of the fighting takes place off camera, and what we get ends up more character study, but its visceral and captivating. Once we actually see him fighting his destined foe, things do get a bit smirk worthy and I definitely did not like the ending, but as an overall endeavour this will be on my unwritten list of movies for D&D fans.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
3 Short Paragraphs: Captain Marvel
2019, Anna Boden / Ryan Fleck (Sugar) -- cinema
Finally out to see a movie in the theatre and finally a movie where my eye(s) cooperate and I can properly enjoy (i.e. focus) on the screen. I can also say that the best time to see a movie is 4:30pm on a work day; the dullards are at a minimal. So, what I got was exactly the experience I wanted -- another MCU movie with Sam Jackson and a surprisingly delightful Brie Larson. Larson is one of those Hollywood starlets who, by choice likely, is not in any spotlight. What's the last movie you can say you saw her in? I can only remember Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. But after this flick, yeah she has made her mark on my brain. The smirk! The squint! I say outright that those subtle affectations of emotion are about to be a thing.
"Nevertheless, she persisted," was my greatest takeaway from this movie. As an MCU movie, is definitely middle of the road. Doesn't every MCU fan rate the flicks? This is above Thor and Doctor Strange for me, but just below Ant Man and the Wasp. But what stood out for me, and what had me enjoying every scene thoroughly was the mark it was making for lone female superheroes. Carol Danvers is the epitome of every young woman who got knocked down but got back up again. And there was nothing wrong with the heavy handed use of that statement. She moves through the movie in an unflappable manner, a strong heroic figure who knows exactly what she is doing even when exposed to the deceit of her past and an ever-shifting line of belief in her peers. On a power scale, she is definitely going to be next to Thor, and she is finally the MCU's powered flyer with proper blasts of energy.
As Kent mentioned (over there...) the movie does have an issue in what plot its trying to follow, but I didn't really think it mattered. At least not to me. This is an establishing movie, a plot device to wedge her into Endgame and I am alright with that. At least it's not just another pure origin story, which we are probably all tired of. If I had any problem of the movie, it was more to do with the shoe-horning of the cosmic aspects. The Kree Empire is still pretty relevant when Guardians of the Galaxy begins so then what happens between the end of this movie and when that one picks up? A lot should have happened, but... But, I still got a movie I really enjoyed despite my lack of popcorn -- low carb diets suck.
"Nevertheless, she persisted," was my greatest takeaway from this movie. As an MCU movie, is definitely middle of the road. Doesn't every MCU fan rate the flicks? This is above Thor and Doctor Strange for me, but just below Ant Man and the Wasp. But what stood out for me, and what had me enjoying every scene thoroughly was the mark it was making for lone female superheroes. Carol Danvers is the epitome of every young woman who got knocked down but got back up again. And there was nothing wrong with the heavy handed use of that statement. She moves through the movie in an unflappable manner, a strong heroic figure who knows exactly what she is doing even when exposed to the deceit of her past and an ever-shifting line of belief in her peers. On a power scale, she is definitely going to be next to Thor, and she is finally the MCU's powered flyer with proper blasts of energy.
As Kent mentioned (over there...) the movie does have an issue in what plot its trying to follow, but I didn't really think it mattered. At least not to me. This is an establishing movie, a plot device to wedge her into Endgame and I am alright with that. At least it's not just another pure origin story, which we are probably all tired of. If I had any problem of the movie, it was more to do with the shoe-horning of the cosmic aspects. The Kree Empire is still pretty relevant when Guardians of the Galaxy begins so then what happens between the end of this movie and when that one picks up? A lot should have happened, but... But, I still got a movie I really enjoyed despite my lack of popcorn -- low carb diets suck.
Sunday, April 14, 2019
I Finally Got Around to Seeing... La La Land
This is one of those times, that Kent and I (well, mostly Kent), have come up with a new segment for the blog. In this one, David (or Graig, if he should so feel) writes about a movie that has been on That List for a long time. Sometimes a long long long time, but usually just a long time. And they have finally gotten around to seeing it.
2016, Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) -- Netflix
Chazelle set the bar with his first movie Whiplash. Its an intense flick about a jazz drummer and his ego-maniacal instructor. If anything the movie was about being pure to the artform, and he follows up with another movie about Jazz and being the best you can be. But this time he slides the ideal under the trappings of a 40s style musical set against the backdrop of Hollywood.
This was raved about everywhere, from the Oscars to everyone I spoke to. I am not a huge fan of musicals, but I guess I am somewhat a purist myself, as I expect a certain 40s style & flare from them. While I enjoyed the movie incredibly, I am not entirely sure I got what I wanted from it. Definitely this is an incredible creation, a movie of beauty and style and unwavering attention to detail. But was it an incredible musical? Of that, I am not sure. Maybe I need to be exposed to the more current crop of musicals to properly judge.
The movie begins with an introductory piece about the setting, about LA, about the sun and the traffic and the colour. The dance piece is vibrant and exciting and sets the tone for the movie to follow. Or at least it should have. I found the first two musical pieces, which were big numbers, cast to stand apart from the rest of the movie. They were Busby Berkeley where the rest of the movie was Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers. But Chazelle uses these pieces to introduce to Mia (Emma Stone), a classic girl from a small town in LA to become an actor, frustrated at her lack of success. It is this lacking that has her bump into Seb, a down on his luck jazz pianist -- down because he refuses to compromise. From their meeting the tone of the movie changes; the colours of the opening numbers dispensed with for the most part, as Mia's vibrancy is muted by Seb's jazz hall shadowy tones.
This is a classic Hollywood love story. That is the plot that is wonderfully done and works perfectly. It's about the rise and the fall and the compromises and the realities of life. Mia wants to be an actress but doesn't have enough faith in herself. Seb does not shirk from his path, losing jobs and friends to his unwavering desire to ONLY do old style jazz. But meeting Mia, he convinces her to join him in the purity. But also for the sake of Mia, he decides to accept compromise. Thus their downfall.
Both the leads are completely convincing as the starlets of LA. Mia with her colourful flouncy dresses and Seb in his vintage car & clothes are charming and delightful. Seriously, just plug in all the smiley lovely adjectives you like. These are beautiful people being beautiful. The dance numbers are enthralling, even the jazz ones where I wondered whether anyone but a professional dancer could dance to the music. And that was how the inspirational movies were meant to be.
Despite my disappointment at the first two numbers, the plotting and skill the rest of the movie is done with more than makes this a perfect movie. And yeah, I am humming "City of Stars" every now and then...
2016, Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) -- Netflix
This was raved about everywhere, from the Oscars to everyone I spoke to. I am not a huge fan of musicals, but I guess I am somewhat a purist myself, as I expect a certain 40s style & flare from them. While I enjoyed the movie incredibly, I am not entirely sure I got what I wanted from it. Definitely this is an incredible creation, a movie of beauty and style and unwavering attention to detail. But was it an incredible musical? Of that, I am not sure. Maybe I need to be exposed to the more current crop of musicals to properly judge.
The movie begins with an introductory piece about the setting, about LA, about the sun and the traffic and the colour. The dance piece is vibrant and exciting and sets the tone for the movie to follow. Or at least it should have. I found the first two musical pieces, which were big numbers, cast to stand apart from the rest of the movie. They were Busby Berkeley where the rest of the movie was Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers. But Chazelle uses these pieces to introduce to Mia (Emma Stone), a classic girl from a small town in LA to become an actor, frustrated at her lack of success. It is this lacking that has her bump into Seb, a down on his luck jazz pianist -- down because he refuses to compromise. From their meeting the tone of the movie changes; the colours of the opening numbers dispensed with for the most part, as Mia's vibrancy is muted by Seb's jazz hall shadowy tones.
This is a classic Hollywood love story. That is the plot that is wonderfully done and works perfectly. It's about the rise and the fall and the compromises and the realities of life. Mia wants to be an actress but doesn't have enough faith in herself. Seb does not shirk from his path, losing jobs and friends to his unwavering desire to ONLY do old style jazz. But meeting Mia, he convinces her to join him in the purity. But also for the sake of Mia, he decides to accept compromise. Thus their downfall.
Both the leads are completely convincing as the starlets of LA. Mia with her colourful flouncy dresses and Seb in his vintage car & clothes are charming and delightful. Seriously, just plug in all the smiley lovely adjectives you like. These are beautiful people being beautiful. The dance numbers are enthralling, even the jazz ones where I wondered whether anyone but a professional dancer could dance to the music. And that was how the inspirational movies were meant to be.
Despite my disappointment at the first two numbers, the plotting and skill the rest of the movie is done with more than makes this a perfect movie. And yeah, I am humming "City of Stars" every now and then...
Thursday, April 11, 2019
One Cut of the Dead
2017, Shin'ichirô Ueda (Rice and Boobs) -- download
*deletes previous post; I can do better*
How much can you expect from a man who did a movie called Rice and Boobs ? Well, I haven't seen it so that's a bit disingenuous. But, at least in the elevator pitch this seemed right down my alley, right? The movie is about a schlock director who does a one-take zombie movie and then finds himself IN a real zombie apocalypse. Definitely down my alley.
But despite all the rave reviews and the love of the festival circuit, what we saw on the screen was ... well, entertaining but ... amateurish? Weird? Almost... avante garde? The camera work was cliche, the actors were ... well, let's say I was chalking it all up to an attempt to create a low-budget feel and for the director building a weird little passion piece. Sure, its a movie within a movie but it never really accomplishes much.
And then the movie ends.
*enter the spoiler zone*
From here on, you WILL hear what you shouldn't know if you want to see this movie.
After about an hour, the movie ends and credits roll. What? Really? That was what the crowds raved about? That was it? And then... then... oh, how clever! The real movie started, with us transported back in time to a moment in director Higurashi is being sold the idea of doing a one-cut TV movie for the zombie channel. He already has a reputation for doing just enough with just enough, so the producers feel he is a perfect, no nonsense director which can give them what they want, without too much money sunk into it.
And he does, oh does he ever!
This is one of those movies that shines in the third act. We meet the real actors, the real story and its like you have just wiped your glasses of smudge and grime, and everything just comes into focus. And then it just gets even better.
If you have ever wanted to see what its like to make a low budget movie, or you might be (*hint hint*) someone who does make movies, you will get quite a kick out of this act. We see the casting, the characters, the crew and that really creepy producer lady with the tiny body and big head. Things don't go as well planned as they hope, first losing a few actors and subbing in Higurashi's over-zealous wife, and then some hijinx with a complimentary bottle of sake. And some unfortunate elements of an actor's rider being ignored. And a testy pop star & cranky popular star.
Once the camera begins to roll for the ... second (third?) time so much more comes into focus. Oh, that was why that scene went on so long, and took a sudden odd turn. Oh, THAT is why that zombie was just bizarre & out of character. OH !! That is why the director seems to be losing it ! Things just continue to get sharper and zanier and hilarious. The latter bit of the movie is so meta, so well played out, so full of continuity and nuance, it might just be the best "zombie movie" I have seen in ages, but really its a movie about making movies and about loving movie making.
And of course, closing credits have yet ANOTHER view from ANOTHER camera.
Standing ovation.
How much can you expect from a man who did a movie called Rice and Boobs ? Well, I haven't seen it so that's a bit disingenuous. But, at least in the elevator pitch this seemed right down my alley, right? The movie is about a schlock director who does a one-take zombie movie and then finds himself IN a real zombie apocalypse. Definitely down my alley.
But despite all the rave reviews and the love of the festival circuit, what we saw on the screen was ... well, entertaining but ... amateurish? Weird? Almost... avante garde? The camera work was cliche, the actors were ... well, let's say I was chalking it all up to an attempt to create a low-budget feel and for the director building a weird little passion piece. Sure, its a movie within a movie but it never really accomplishes much.
And then the movie ends.
*enter the spoiler zone*
From here on, you WILL hear what you shouldn't know if you want to see this movie.
After about an hour, the movie ends and credits roll. What? Really? That was what the crowds raved about? That was it? And then... then... oh, how clever! The real movie started, with us transported back in time to a moment in director Higurashi is being sold the idea of doing a one-cut TV movie for the zombie channel. He already has a reputation for doing just enough with just enough, so the producers feel he is a perfect, no nonsense director which can give them what they want, without too much money sunk into it.
And he does, oh does he ever!
This is one of those movies that shines in the third act. We meet the real actors, the real story and its like you have just wiped your glasses of smudge and grime, and everything just comes into focus. And then it just gets even better.
If you have ever wanted to see what its like to make a low budget movie, or you might be (*hint hint*) someone who does make movies, you will get quite a kick out of this act. We see the casting, the characters, the crew and that really creepy producer lady with the tiny body and big head. Things don't go as well planned as they hope, first losing a few actors and subbing in Higurashi's over-zealous wife, and then some hijinx with a complimentary bottle of sake. And some unfortunate elements of an actor's rider being ignored. And a testy pop star & cranky popular star.
Once the camera begins to roll for the ... second (third?) time so much more comes into focus. Oh, that was why that scene went on so long, and took a sudden odd turn. Oh, THAT is why that zombie was just bizarre & out of character. OH !! That is why the director seems to be losing it ! Things just continue to get sharper and zanier and hilarious. The latter bit of the movie is so meta, so well played out, so full of continuity and nuance, it might just be the best "zombie movie" I have seen in ages, but really its a movie about making movies and about loving movie making.
And of course, closing credits have yet ANOTHER view from ANOTHER camera.
Standing ovation.
Saturday, April 6, 2019
Shazam!
2019, d. David Sandberg - in theatre
When I walked into the theatre lobby with my family I asked for three tickets to Captain Marvel. My daughter yanked hard on my arm and said "PAPA! NO!" The thing is, I was thinking thinking "Shazam!" but I said "Captain Marvel", because, well, the character now known as "Shazam" was always "Captain Marvel" to me.
If you're not steeped in comics lore, then perhaps this means nothing to you. It's a long sordid tale of copyright infringement, lapsed use and corporate rivalries, not worth getting into in a movie that doesn't really deal with any of it. Point is, the character now known as Shazam until recently bore the name Captain Marvel until DC finally conceded the name to their primary competition.
Having done so, back in 2015 DC Comics relaunched the character in 2015, a reinvention that forms the foundation of what we see in Shazam! on screen. With a new name comes a vast amount of changes for the character, his background, and his supporting cast, changes I've been reluctant to accept in comics, but after seeing the movie, I'm all in for.
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.
Things are about to get very spoilery.
SPOILER WARNING
First, the basics. Shazam! is the story of Billy Batson, an orphaned teen who is bestowed the power of Shazam (an acronym for wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, power of Zeus, courage of Achilles, and speed of Mercury) by the ancient wizard Shazam who needs a new champion on Earth to protect it against the evils of the seven deadly sins. When Billy Batson says the wizard's name he is magically transformed into a beefy superhero in red tights, white cape and lightning bolt insignia.
Shazam! first reinvention is Dr. Sivana, who was sort of Captain Marvel's Lex Luthor figure. Historically Sivana was a puny little wisp of a man, certainly not a physical counter to the brawn of Captain Marvel, but he was a mad scientist who would use said mad science to oppose the big red cheese (yes, seriously, the character was colloquially known as "the big red cheese"...not quite as inspired as "the caped crusader"). Here Sivana is played by Mark Strong (in his second DC supervillain role after playing Sinestro in the aptly maligned Green Lantern ), not a small or puny man by any measure. As a boy in the 1970's he was one of many chosen to be the wizard's champion who failed the test of being able to resist the sins of greed, lust, envy, gluttony, pride, wrath and sloth. Years have passed and he's scoured the world trying to find a path back to the wizard, to get his power, and he's successful, only instead of getting the wizard's power, he frees the seven deadly sins and gains their power (which is oddly the equal of Shazam's).
With the sins freed, Shazam is desperate and accepts Billy Batson (again an orphan here, one abandoned by his mother at age 5) as his champion. Billy's been recently placed in a new foster home where five other children of varying ages and ethnicities live under the care of a very loving couple. Billy is bunked with Freddy Freeman, an enthusiastic kid and superhero fanboy (where in the real world we fanboy over comic book and movie heroes, in this world, Superman and Batman are real). When Billy gets his powers, he looks to Freddy to help him figure things out, which Freddy does by documenting and sharing the power tests on youtube (they include lightning powers which is a new power set for the character, but makes sense for the power of Zeus). This draws the attention of Sivana, again, craving the wizard's power and he begins to stalk Philadelphia's new superhero.
The changes here are plenty. Billy historically was kind of a goody two-shoes, and a real go-getter (often as a boy reporter for a radio station, which seems more far fetched than being a kid who can magically transform into a superhero). Here Billy is pretty singularly focused on finding his mother, ditching school and getting in trouble with the cops. He's been looking out for himself for so long, he doesn't know what it's like to be looked out for by others, nor what it's like to look out for others, nor what it's like to be accepted. The foster home dynamic is one of the film's greatest strengths. A great cast of young actors fills in the roles of a very sweet cobbled-together family. I was instantly endeared to all of them.
Asher Angel, playing Billy, is like a younger, more charismatic Tobey Maguire, and even though he does some cheeky things, you can tell through his performance that he's a wounded soul who is trying to protect himself from further hurt. He sometimes makes bad choices, but for good reasons. Transforming into Shazam, he's played by Zachary Levi who brings his considerable charms to the screen, a real enthusiasm and zeal for the role he's playing. He's tonally consistent with Asher's performance, if perhaps even more amped up by all the incredible things he can do. Freddy is played by Jack Dylan Grazer who amazing at being very excitable, a motormouth, and representing a kid whose defenses to being disabled and an orphan are to be almost offensively extroverted.
Shazam! was produced with a modest budget as far as superhero films are concerned, and it keeps things pretty small-scale, but that's exactly what works for it. The film really focuses in on the relationship between Billy/Shazam and Freddy, making it a buddy comedy in many regards. But their quick friendship is tested by the fact that they really don't know each other all that well. The story is a very personal one, and not just a showy power fantasy. The fact that, in the third act, Billy shares his power with his new family means that the power fantasy isn't just exclusive to the white kids in the audience which maybe the thing I was most reticent to accept going into the film but most excited about coming out of it. (I was spoiled to this happening by the action figures of the transformed foster kids that were released in the weeks coming into the film).
I could have gripes with how thinly portrayed Sivana is or how utterly nonthreatening the seven deadly sins are or just the nonsense rules of magic but the film is too much fun. The tone of the film is on-point for reinventing the DCU. Where Wonder Woman and Aquaman still had to pull themselves out of the shadow of Zack Snyder's bleary, grimdark DCEU, Shazam is vibrant and lively, full of humour and a few little frights. There's a bit of a Ghostbusters vibe to this, with some scary monsters, a few frightening scenes, but a lot of comedy bits and casual swearing. So not for the little, little ones, but pre-teens and up should be wholly entertained.
When I walked into the theatre lobby with my family I asked for three tickets to Captain Marvel. My daughter yanked hard on my arm and said "PAPA! NO!" The thing is, I was thinking thinking "Shazam!" but I said "Captain Marvel", because, well, the character now known as "Shazam" was always "Captain Marvel" to me.
If you're not steeped in comics lore, then perhaps this means nothing to you. It's a long sordid tale of copyright infringement, lapsed use and corporate rivalries, not worth getting into in a movie that doesn't really deal with any of it. Point is, the character now known as Shazam until recently bore the name Captain Marvel until DC finally conceded the name to their primary competition.
Having done so, back in 2015 DC Comics relaunched the character in 2015, a reinvention that forms the foundation of what we see in Shazam! on screen. With a new name comes a vast amount of changes for the character, his background, and his supporting cast, changes I've been reluctant to accept in comics, but after seeing the movie, I'm all in for.
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.
Things are about to get very spoilery.
SPOILER WARNING
First, the basics. Shazam! is the story of Billy Batson, an orphaned teen who is bestowed the power of Shazam (an acronym for wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, power of Zeus, courage of Achilles, and speed of Mercury) by the ancient wizard Shazam who needs a new champion on Earth to protect it against the evils of the seven deadly sins. When Billy Batson says the wizard's name he is magically transformed into a beefy superhero in red tights, white cape and lightning bolt insignia.
Shazam! first reinvention is Dr. Sivana, who was sort of Captain Marvel's Lex Luthor figure. Historically Sivana was a puny little wisp of a man, certainly not a physical counter to the brawn of Captain Marvel, but he was a mad scientist who would use said mad science to oppose the big red cheese (yes, seriously, the character was colloquially known as "the big red cheese"...not quite as inspired as "the caped crusader"). Here Sivana is played by Mark Strong (in his second DC supervillain role after playing Sinestro in the aptly maligned Green Lantern ), not a small or puny man by any measure. As a boy in the 1970's he was one of many chosen to be the wizard's champion who failed the test of being able to resist the sins of greed, lust, envy, gluttony, pride, wrath and sloth. Years have passed and he's scoured the world trying to find a path back to the wizard, to get his power, and he's successful, only instead of getting the wizard's power, he frees the seven deadly sins and gains their power (which is oddly the equal of Shazam's).
With the sins freed, Shazam is desperate and accepts Billy Batson (again an orphan here, one abandoned by his mother at age 5) as his champion. Billy's been recently placed in a new foster home where five other children of varying ages and ethnicities live under the care of a very loving couple. Billy is bunked with Freddy Freeman, an enthusiastic kid and superhero fanboy (where in the real world we fanboy over comic book and movie heroes, in this world, Superman and Batman are real). When Billy gets his powers, he looks to Freddy to help him figure things out, which Freddy does by documenting and sharing the power tests on youtube (they include lightning powers which is a new power set for the character, but makes sense for the power of Zeus). This draws the attention of Sivana, again, craving the wizard's power and he begins to stalk Philadelphia's new superhero.
The changes here are plenty. Billy historically was kind of a goody two-shoes, and a real go-getter (often as a boy reporter for a radio station, which seems more far fetched than being a kid who can magically transform into a superhero). Here Billy is pretty singularly focused on finding his mother, ditching school and getting in trouble with the cops. He's been looking out for himself for so long, he doesn't know what it's like to be looked out for by others, nor what it's like to look out for others, nor what it's like to be accepted. The foster home dynamic is one of the film's greatest strengths. A great cast of young actors fills in the roles of a very sweet cobbled-together family. I was instantly endeared to all of them.
Asher Angel, playing Billy, is like a younger, more charismatic Tobey Maguire, and even though he does some cheeky things, you can tell through his performance that he's a wounded soul who is trying to protect himself from further hurt. He sometimes makes bad choices, but for good reasons. Transforming into Shazam, he's played by Zachary Levi who brings his considerable charms to the screen, a real enthusiasm and zeal for the role he's playing. He's tonally consistent with Asher's performance, if perhaps even more amped up by all the incredible things he can do. Freddy is played by Jack Dylan Grazer who amazing at being very excitable, a motormouth, and representing a kid whose defenses to being disabled and an orphan are to be almost offensively extroverted.
Shazam! was produced with a modest budget as far as superhero films are concerned, and it keeps things pretty small-scale, but that's exactly what works for it. The film really focuses in on the relationship between Billy/Shazam and Freddy, making it a buddy comedy in many regards. But their quick friendship is tested by the fact that they really don't know each other all that well. The story is a very personal one, and not just a showy power fantasy. The fact that, in the third act, Billy shares his power with his new family means that the power fantasy isn't just exclusive to the white kids in the audience which maybe the thing I was most reticent to accept going into the film but most excited about coming out of it. (I was spoiled to this happening by the action figures of the transformed foster kids that were released in the weeks coming into the film).
I could have gripes with how thinly portrayed Sivana is or how utterly nonthreatening the seven deadly sins are or just the nonsense rules of magic but the film is too much fun. The tone of the film is on-point for reinventing the DCU. Where Wonder Woman and Aquaman still had to pull themselves out of the shadow of Zack Snyder's bleary, grimdark DCEU, Shazam is vibrant and lively, full of humour and a few little frights. There's a bit of a Ghostbusters vibe to this, with some scary monsters, a few frightening scenes, but a lot of comedy bits and casual swearing. So not for the little, little ones, but pre-teens and up should be wholly entertained.
Friday, March 29, 2019
3 Short Paragraphs: Overlord
2018, Julius Avery (Son of a Gun) -- download
"World War II with zombies" is a rather disingenuous tagline for such a fun, robust period supernatural movie, but that is how I heard most people describe it. But, it worked I guess, as I did look forward to it, as all the buzz was positive and I am still a fan of well made zombie flicks. Little did I expect something more along the lines of dark magic fueled Nazi super weapons that could have been plots in Hellboy comics or the Wolfenstein video game series!
Its D-Day and a squad of surviving American soldiers land in the forests of France with a job to perform -- destroy a radio tower that will interfere with the allied attack. The opening footage in the plane establishes our main characters, chosen from the few who survive the plane's destruction and subsequent chaotic parachute jump. After Band of Brothers can we expect anything less? Once on the ground, the small squad led by seasoned Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russel; Kurt's son) make their way to the French village where the tower is, only to find out that the town has been emptied, its strong folk dragged to the church compound for nefarious reasons.
The movie focuses its energies on Boyce (Jovan Adepo; The Leftovers), the green but moral centre. I like that he is black, for his endeavours to do the right thing not being immediately accepted speak of the time and the challenges. I like when movies, which I have always chosen to be my explorative vehicle for race, gender and equality conversations, chose to quietly tackle these power dynamics we still face, but in genre settings where we still get to punch Nazis and shoot up arcane powered walking dead. To be honest, I never wanted to call these enemies zombies because they are more the reanimated dead through alchemy and magic.
Its D-Day and a squad of surviving American soldiers land in the forests of France with a job to perform -- destroy a radio tower that will interfere with the allied attack. The opening footage in the plane establishes our main characters, chosen from the few who survive the plane's destruction and subsequent chaotic parachute jump. After Band of Brothers can we expect anything less? Once on the ground, the small squad led by seasoned Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russel; Kurt's son) make their way to the French village where the tower is, only to find out that the town has been emptied, its strong folk dragged to the church compound for nefarious reasons.
The movie focuses its energies on Boyce (Jovan Adepo; The Leftovers), the green but moral centre. I like that he is black, for his endeavours to do the right thing not being immediately accepted speak of the time and the challenges. I like when movies, which I have always chosen to be my explorative vehicle for race, gender and equality conversations, chose to quietly tackle these power dynamics we still face, but in genre settings where we still get to punch Nazis and shoot up arcane powered walking dead. To be honest, I never wanted to call these enemies zombies because they are more the reanimated dead through alchemy and magic.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
3 Short Paragraphs: Bumblebee
The Man on the Bicycle leans on the handlebars. His sweat pours and drips off his face. He has a desire to just relax, to fall off the bike into the blackness below. It would be so easy to give in, to stop fighting, to let each and every one of these screens just blink out. No one would miss them. He could finally just ... rest.
But to his right, he sees another light interrupt his quiet darkness. Another door has opened in the column from which his bike & contraption extends. He own bike vibrates and shudders as he sees another cyclist extending on a telescoping support mechanism.
Is that someone else? Some also forced to pedal for his life, to constantly work for it, and reflect on every aspect of his life? Or.... is... it him ?!? The other cyclist's screens begin to flicker on, some different, some the same, but not even that additional illumination allows to see whether the new cyclist is a reflection of himself from another time & viewpoint, or just another trapped soul.
He begins to pedal again.
2018, Travis Knight (Kubo & the Two Strings) -- download
This movie is described by many as "the best Transformers movie". Considering what they are comparing it to, the much maligned but well-profiting Michael Bay movies, that should not be hard, right? But this movie, that comes from the same window into that Hasbro universe, if only slight left of centre, is really not all that much better than those "original" movies. If I happened to be a fan of the original toys, which I was not because they came about in my teens (so before I was old enough to get back into toys), I would probably love this movie. Or if I was 14. But man, again, it was terrible but in many ways so different from the Bay-splosion movies.
This movie is meant to be the light teen drama flick that the original completely failed at, when it tossed in Megan Fox. And in that the movie succeeds. Hailee Steinfield is absolutely delightful as awkward, mopey Charlie, and her nerd neighbour Memo reflects well off her cocky confidence. But the movie not only wants the nostalgia feel of an 80s movie, but also attach itself to the current love of 80s music. The problem therein lies is its misunderstanding of the music of the age. Charlie is still mourning the death of her father, and has become a fan of the alternative music of the age: The Smiths, the Cure, punk, British-wave, etc. And it reflects in the set dressing of her clothing and bedroom. BUT the background music is all the annoying Top 40 music that will be used to sell a soundtrack, all the music a kid like her would have hated. And I know, because I was kind of that kid.
You could think of this movie as a reboot of the Transformers series. It throws the accepted history of the other movies to the wind and begins again, ignoring that Bumblebee had arrived on Earth much earlier and having him crash into the planet to meet Charlie. The movie, in fact, begins with a prologue on Cybertron as the Autobots and Decepticons fight for their home planet. So, if they have not yet ever been to Earth, then WHY DO THEY HAVE CAR AND PLANE AND GHETTO BLASTER SHAPES ?? The Bay-splosion movies at least established that these transforming bots scanned the local technology in order to hide amidst it, but these guys were popular 80s vehicles long before they bumped into them on Earth. Makes no sense. But if I was a toy fan, that wouldn't matter, as they are a much more accurate representation (less spikey) of the original toys. And I guess that is all that matters?
But to his right, he sees another light interrupt his quiet darkness. Another door has opened in the column from which his bike & contraption extends. He own bike vibrates and shudders as he sees another cyclist extending on a telescoping support mechanism.
Is that someone else? Some also forced to pedal for his life, to constantly work for it, and reflect on every aspect of his life? Or.... is... it him ?!? The other cyclist's screens begin to flicker on, some different, some the same, but not even that additional illumination allows to see whether the new cyclist is a reflection of himself from another time & viewpoint, or just another trapped soul.
He begins to pedal again.
This movie is described by many as "the best Transformers movie". Considering what they are comparing it to, the much maligned but well-profiting Michael Bay movies, that should not be hard, right? But this movie, that comes from the same window into that Hasbro universe, if only slight left of centre, is really not all that much better than those "original" movies. If I happened to be a fan of the original toys, which I was not because they came about in my teens (so before I was old enough to get back into toys), I would probably love this movie. Or if I was 14. But man, again, it was terrible but in many ways so different from the Bay-splosion movies.
This movie is meant to be the light teen drama flick that the original completely failed at, when it tossed in Megan Fox. And in that the movie succeeds. Hailee Steinfield is absolutely delightful as awkward, mopey Charlie, and her nerd neighbour Memo reflects well off her cocky confidence. But the movie not only wants the nostalgia feel of an 80s movie, but also attach itself to the current love of 80s music. The problem therein lies is its misunderstanding of the music of the age. Charlie is still mourning the death of her father, and has become a fan of the alternative music of the age: The Smiths, the Cure, punk, British-wave, etc. And it reflects in the set dressing of her clothing and bedroom. BUT the background music is all the annoying Top 40 music that will be used to sell a soundtrack, all the music a kid like her would have hated. And I know, because I was kind of that kid.
You could think of this movie as a reboot of the Transformers series. It throws the accepted history of the other movies to the wind and begins again, ignoring that Bumblebee had arrived on Earth much earlier and having him crash into the planet to meet Charlie. The movie, in fact, begins with a prologue on Cybertron as the Autobots and Decepticons fight for their home planet. So, if they have not yet ever been to Earth, then WHY DO THEY HAVE CAR AND PLANE AND GHETTO BLASTER SHAPES ?? The Bay-splosion movies at least established that these transforming bots scanned the local technology in order to hide amidst it, but these guys were popular 80s vehicles long before they bumped into them on Earth. Makes no sense. But if I was a toy fan, that wouldn't matter, as they are a much more accurate representation (less spikey) of the original toys. And I guess that is all that matters?
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
3+1 Short Paragraphs: Bad Times at the El Royale
2018, Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods) -- download
Speaking of Drew Goddard (well not really, but he was silently referenced in the last post) here we get the highly anticipated, well really, not-even-aware it was coming out, follow-up to his completely loved first film. Drew is more a producer, but considering his company (the Buffy crowd) and Cabin I am right there with anything he wants to create. That said, I am surprised I had not heard wind of it coming out, and thankful for Roman (coworker, film maker) for bringing it to my attention.
Of note, this post probably should have been a I Saw This!! ("feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago") but I actually deleted most of the material (twice!) that would have been relegated to that kind of post, during my ... absence. And yet, this movie resides in that same "not quite remembered" portion of my brainpan. I blame stress and stress related distraction.
Now, even without Drew's name being attached, this movie was right down my dark alley. It is a 1960s pseudo noir more hard-boiled film with ensemble cast of loosely connected stories, all intertwining together until it comes to a fiery end. We have the old priest, a lounge singer, a pair of sisters on the run from a cult, a travelling salesman and the night manager of an off-season (i.e. empty), straddling the border (Nevada/California) hotel. For the most part, it's a box story, as long as you extend the box to the entire hotel.
The movie is jam packed with ideas and characters and imagery and plot pieces, the story being a petri dish for thoughts about America in the late 60s. So many things look good and sound good and there some aspects of the movie that are just incredible examples of a craftsman. But the trouble with it is that we are led to believe it's all leading somewhere spectacular, while instead Goddard just burns it all down around us. Maybe it is a metaphor for America right now, in that after the glorious redemption that rose out of the 60s, with America seeking to make right with its past, we are now just all watching that burn down? Either way, despite not being satisfied with how it all ended, I just loved watching him do his thing.
Of note, this post probably should have been a I Saw This!! ("feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago") but I actually deleted most of the material (twice!) that would have been relegated to that kind of post, during my ... absence. And yet, this movie resides in that same "not quite remembered" portion of my brainpan. I blame stress and stress related distraction.
Now, even without Drew's name being attached, this movie was right down my dark alley. It is a 1960s pseudo noir more hard-boiled film with ensemble cast of loosely connected stories, all intertwining together until it comes to a fiery end. We have the old priest, a lounge singer, a pair of sisters on the run from a cult, a travelling salesman and the night manager of an off-season (i.e. empty), straddling the border (Nevada/California) hotel. For the most part, it's a box story, as long as you extend the box to the entire hotel.
The movie is jam packed with ideas and characters and imagery and plot pieces, the story being a petri dish for thoughts about America in the late 60s. So many things look good and sound good and there some aspects of the movie that are just incredible examples of a craftsman. But the trouble with it is that we are led to believe it's all leading somewhere spectacular, while instead Goddard just burns it all down around us. Maybe it is a metaphor for America right now, in that after the glorious redemption that rose out of the 60s, with America seeking to make right with its past, we are now just all watching that burn down? Either way, despite not being satisfied with how it all ended, I just loved watching him do his thing.
Friday, March 22, 2019
3 Short Paragraphs: You Might Be the Killer
2018, Brett Simmons (Animal) -- Shudder
A couple of years ago Chuck Wendig (author, Zer0es)) and Sam Sykes (author, Aeons' Gate series) wrote an epic Twitter conversation that went viral. The format was Sam, a new camp counsellor, was reaching out to his friend Chuck on how to deal with a murder spree at his camp. Through the pithy back n forth inherent in Twitter, they explored and subverted the tropes of the summer camp slasher movies. It was kind of brilliant and right down my dark, dead end alley.
And then someone decided to make a movie about it, starring Fran Kranz (Cabin in the Woods) and Alyson Hannigan (BtVS) as Sam and Chuck, respectively. Kranz gets to be Sam the (now) seasoned camp counsellor and Alyson is Chuck, who works at a local popculture store -- you know, those places that have evolved out of the neighbourhood comic store, selling all sorts of genre collectibles, games and comics. She's the horror trope expert being sought advice from. Someone is killing all of Sam's fellow camp counsellors, and he is not sure what to do. There is also the issue of his headaches and that he is covered in blood.
This is a fun little movie, about par with much of the genre it is exploring. Being all meta like, it is more chuckle worthy than scary, but it still is able to pull a good amount of tension and anticipation from what should be a pretty straight forward story. Without giving too much away, we end up not really sure if we should root for Sam (the idiot who put on the evil mask) or let him become the "victim" of the Final Girl. Given that I am treating horror-focused streaming service Shudder like my corner video store, where spending $3.99 for an OK movie was fine & dandy, I was happy with the movie even if it was not revolutionary.
And then someone decided to make a movie about it, starring Fran Kranz (Cabin in the Woods) and Alyson Hannigan (BtVS) as Sam and Chuck, respectively. Kranz gets to be Sam the (now) seasoned camp counsellor and Alyson is Chuck, who works at a local popculture store -- you know, those places that have evolved out of the neighbourhood comic store, selling all sorts of genre collectibles, games and comics. She's the horror trope expert being sought advice from. Someone is killing all of Sam's fellow camp counsellors, and he is not sure what to do. There is also the issue of his headaches and that he is covered in blood.
This is a fun little movie, about par with much of the genre it is exploring. Being all meta like, it is more chuckle worthy than scary, but it still is able to pull a good amount of tension and anticipation from what should be a pretty straight forward story. Without giving too much away, we end up not really sure if we should root for Sam (the idiot who put on the evil mask) or let him become the "victim" of the Final Girl. Given that I am treating horror-focused streaming service Shudder like my corner video store, where spending $3.99 for an OK movie was fine & dandy, I was happy with the movie even if it was not revolutionary.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
2018, Coen Bros (No Country for Old Men) -- Netflix
When this movie hit Netflix, I was already deeply embedded in Old West milieu, having been playing Red Dead Redemption 2 since my birthday, a video game that is best described as Grand Theft Auto in the Old West, but much more immersive. Thus, this movie and all its lovingly depicted westerns tropes was like slipping sugar cubes to my horse. Or would that be "being slipped sugar cubes by my horse" ? No, that's just weird. Anwayz, it was sweet and made me smile.
Being an anthology, each vignette explores and up-ends common story types and tropes of standard western movies. Some are funny, some are chilling and some are tragic... scratch that, they are all rather tragic in their own way. Most are original stories written by the Coens, while two are based on Jack London story and a short story by Stuart Edward White, an American author who wrote out-doorsy fiction (hunting, survival, guns) in the early 20th century.
I don't really want to summarize each but we get a tale of a singing cowboy, that smacks of 30s serials; we get a prospector story, a tale of settlers heading west, a vision of Old West entertainment, a bank robbery, and finally a chilling stage coach ride. Each story grabbed something I remember from all those westerns, even the ones I only flicked past, channel surfing on Saturday afternoons. About the only thing missing was a scene shot in those famous California rocks, yes the big leaning ones where they also shot original series Star Trek.
The joy of watching a Coen Bros movie is watching craftsmen at work. The script is always so them in the writing and in the dialogue ("pan shot!!"). The characters are often quirky, which I love, but every actor just seems so deeply absorbed in their role. Take Tim Blake Nelson, not the prettiest man, but I completely believe him as the singing cowboy in the opening piece. Generally, in the original serials this one inspired, those men were square jawed, handsome devils but Nelson is so immersed as cheerful singing gunslinger, I couldn't help but accept it. The Coens make me believe.
Of particular note to me were the segments "The Gal Who Got Rattled" and "All Gold Canyon". It was the dialogue and the performances that did it for me; the conversations between Billy Knap and Ms. Longabaugh so polite and filled with propriety, in the former, and in the latter, the prospector played by Tom Waits talking to himself and his soon to be discovered gold.
I have recently completed RDR2 and I cannot help but still compare this movie to it. A world emersed video game, with primary story but tons of side stories, gives you a lot of vignettes from which to build the greater world your character inhabits. Some are straight forward, revenge, redemption, hunting, skill advancement while others are just solely quirky story telling. I cannot help now but wish the Coens would have written some of the segments of the game and furthered my enjoyment of it.
Being an anthology, each vignette explores and up-ends common story types and tropes of standard western movies. Some are funny, some are chilling and some are tragic... scratch that, they are all rather tragic in their own way. Most are original stories written by the Coens, while two are based on Jack London story and a short story by Stuart Edward White, an American author who wrote out-doorsy fiction (hunting, survival, guns) in the early 20th century.
I don't really want to summarize each but we get a tale of a singing cowboy, that smacks of 30s serials; we get a prospector story, a tale of settlers heading west, a vision of Old West entertainment, a bank robbery, and finally a chilling stage coach ride. Each story grabbed something I remember from all those westerns, even the ones I only flicked past, channel surfing on Saturday afternoons. About the only thing missing was a scene shot in those famous California rocks, yes the big leaning ones where they also shot original series Star Trek.
The joy of watching a Coen Bros movie is watching craftsmen at work. The script is always so them in the writing and in the dialogue ("pan shot!!"). The characters are often quirky, which I love, but every actor just seems so deeply absorbed in their role. Take Tim Blake Nelson, not the prettiest man, but I completely believe him as the singing cowboy in the opening piece. Generally, in the original serials this one inspired, those men were square jawed, handsome devils but Nelson is so immersed as cheerful singing gunslinger, I couldn't help but accept it. The Coens make me believe.
Of particular note to me were the segments "The Gal Who Got Rattled" and "All Gold Canyon". It was the dialogue and the performances that did it for me; the conversations between Billy Knap and Ms. Longabaugh so polite and filled with propriety, in the former, and in the latter, the prospector played by Tom Waits talking to himself and his soon to be discovered gold.
I have recently completed RDR2 and I cannot help but still compare this movie to it. A world emersed video game, with primary story but tons of side stories, gives you a lot of vignettes from which to build the greater world your character inhabits. Some are straight forward, revenge, redemption, hunting, skill advancement while others are just solely quirky story telling. I cannot help now but wish the Coens would have written some of the segments of the game and furthered my enjoyment of it.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Double Dose: Soderbergh
(New Feature: Double Dose is two films from the same director, writer or star...pretty simple. Today, a couple of non-theatrical releases from Steven Soderbergh).
Behind the Candelabra (2013, HBO)
High Flying Bird (2019, Netflix)
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA
It's hard to believe in the 2010s that an elaborate production about the life of a very famous person starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon would have trouble finding theatrical distribution and be relegated to "TV movie" status by debuting as a prestige picture on HBO. It did remarkably well in that relegation, though, gaining an audience of 3.5 million in its first night of airings and it won 14 Emmys (including outstanding mini-series or movie, best actor in mini-series or movie and best director), and counted 2 Golden Globes among its many other accolades.
Liberace was indeed a very famous human being up until his death in 1987. He was a larger than life character who lived his life as opulently as the richest of Middle Eastern royalty. He was a piano virtuoso, a phenom that impressed with his skills and wowed with his showmanship for over five decades. But as a celebrity in his time, homosexuality was just not an option, it was a career ender, and though living a very gay private life, he fought the image very publicly. It's only been in recent years, perhaps since 2013 that out performers aren't being singularly pigeonholed or outright ostracized, and not to say that Behind the Candelabra had anything to do with that, but it certainly explored the topic of sexuality and celebrity like few other productions of this scale had.
The narrative thrust of the film is the relationship between Liberace (Michael Douglas, absolutely inhabiting the role) and Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) for six years starting in 1977. It never dances around their sexuality, and Lee (as Liberace was known to his friends and lovers) was a hungry predator, welcoming the young, taut Scott into his fold after but a glance when introduced by mutual friend Bob Black (Scott Backula).
Scott was about 40 years Lee's junior, and shortly after their introduction there was an obvious moment where Lee's current concubine/protege knew he was on his way out, sending daggers Scott's way knowing he was about to be replaced with a younger model. Lee wore his sexuality like heavy baggage. In public he disavowed any inference that he was anything but the straightest of strait, dining with other prime female showpersons like Charo for aesthetics, but in private he voraciously romanced younger men and consumed porn. He didn't care to venture into public except for his performances, instead keeping a sheltered life within his various ornate homesteads. He had a whole support network to keep his dalliances secret, and to feed him a new supply of conquests.
Scott did not mind being a kept man, at first, having been overwhelmingly wowed and dazzled by Liberace as any member of the public would be, but also taken into his confidence and learning to love the man under all the glitz and glamor. Lee's egocentricity and vanity was far from subtle and certainly problematic. He even had Scott undergo plastic surgery to look like a younger version of himself (his prior protege whom we fleetingly see in the opening of the film too bore somewhat of a similiarity). Scott's love had him willingly go along with such a bizarre plan, but in the process he becomes addicted to prescription and illicit drugs prescribed by the plastic surgeon (played by scene stealing Rob Lowe in an outrageously ghoulish performance).
But Lee's avoidance of the public life meant Scott was too kept, and too stir crazy. He had few friends beyond his drug dealers, and had no identity of his own. As tensions raised in the house (Lee was very disapproving of Scott's drug habits), Lee's eyes started to wander, and soon Scott was in the position of the dagger-throwing boyfriend on the outs, seeing Lee flirting heavily with a new stage dancer opening for his show. The circular nature was incredibly well handled.
Soderbergh's attention to detail, his reverence and affection for the subjects, while also maintaining a critical eye are all at play. This is a tragic love story as well as a love letter. The closing moments at Lee's funeral, and Scott's vision of Liberace's departing performance is a genuinely beautiful tribute to a marvelous performer and flawed man, and also acts as the final bow for famed composer Marvin Hamlisch. Douglas commits to the role like no other I've seen him in. He's always been a solid actor, but this was another level (had this film had a theatrical release he no doubt would have won best actor, but he'll settle for the Emmy and Golden Globes he received). Damon was quite good, however he's easily 20 years too old for the role, and the miscasting is its own problem. The lack of gay voices in the actual telling of the film is another. In spite of that lack of representation, the film was still given a GLAAD media award and Soderbergh seemed to take other pains in ensuring that he was not working in cliches or exploitation.
---
HIGH FLYING BIRD
Behind the Candelabra (2013, HBO)
High Flying Bird (2019, Netflix)
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA
It's hard to believe in the 2010s that an elaborate production about the life of a very famous person starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon would have trouble finding theatrical distribution and be relegated to "TV movie" status by debuting as a prestige picture on HBO. It did remarkably well in that relegation, though, gaining an audience of 3.5 million in its first night of airings and it won 14 Emmys (including outstanding mini-series or movie, best actor in mini-series or movie and best director), and counted 2 Golden Globes among its many other accolades.
Liberace was indeed a very famous human being up until his death in 1987. He was a larger than life character who lived his life as opulently as the richest of Middle Eastern royalty. He was a piano virtuoso, a phenom that impressed with his skills and wowed with his showmanship for over five decades. But as a celebrity in his time, homosexuality was just not an option, it was a career ender, and though living a very gay private life, he fought the image very publicly. It's only been in recent years, perhaps since 2013 that out performers aren't being singularly pigeonholed or outright ostracized, and not to say that Behind the Candelabra had anything to do with that, but it certainly explored the topic of sexuality and celebrity like few other productions of this scale had.
The narrative thrust of the film is the relationship between Liberace (Michael Douglas, absolutely inhabiting the role) and Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) for six years starting in 1977. It never dances around their sexuality, and Lee (as Liberace was known to his friends and lovers) was a hungry predator, welcoming the young, taut Scott into his fold after but a glance when introduced by mutual friend Bob Black (Scott Backula).
Scott was about 40 years Lee's junior, and shortly after their introduction there was an obvious moment where Lee's current concubine/protege knew he was on his way out, sending daggers Scott's way knowing he was about to be replaced with a younger model. Lee wore his sexuality like heavy baggage. In public he disavowed any inference that he was anything but the straightest of strait, dining with other prime female showpersons like Charo for aesthetics, but in private he voraciously romanced younger men and consumed porn. He didn't care to venture into public except for his performances, instead keeping a sheltered life within his various ornate homesteads. He had a whole support network to keep his dalliances secret, and to feed him a new supply of conquests.
Scott did not mind being a kept man, at first, having been overwhelmingly wowed and dazzled by Liberace as any member of the public would be, but also taken into his confidence and learning to love the man under all the glitz and glamor. Lee's egocentricity and vanity was far from subtle and certainly problematic. He even had Scott undergo plastic surgery to look like a younger version of himself (his prior protege whom we fleetingly see in the opening of the film too bore somewhat of a similiarity). Scott's love had him willingly go along with such a bizarre plan, but in the process he becomes addicted to prescription and illicit drugs prescribed by the plastic surgeon (played by scene stealing Rob Lowe in an outrageously ghoulish performance).
But Lee's avoidance of the public life meant Scott was too kept, and too stir crazy. He had few friends beyond his drug dealers, and had no identity of his own. As tensions raised in the house (Lee was very disapproving of Scott's drug habits), Lee's eyes started to wander, and soon Scott was in the position of the dagger-throwing boyfriend on the outs, seeing Lee flirting heavily with a new stage dancer opening for his show. The circular nature was incredibly well handled.
Soderbergh's attention to detail, his reverence and affection for the subjects, while also maintaining a critical eye are all at play. This is a tragic love story as well as a love letter. The closing moments at Lee's funeral, and Scott's vision of Liberace's departing performance is a genuinely beautiful tribute to a marvelous performer and flawed man, and also acts as the final bow for famed composer Marvin Hamlisch. Douglas commits to the role like no other I've seen him in. He's always been a solid actor, but this was another level (had this film had a theatrical release he no doubt would have won best actor, but he'll settle for the Emmy and Golden Globes he received). Damon was quite good, however he's easily 20 years too old for the role, and the miscasting is its own problem. The lack of gay voices in the actual telling of the film is another. In spite of that lack of representation, the film was still given a GLAAD media award and Soderbergh seemed to take other pains in ensuring that he was not working in cliches or exploitation.
---
HIGH FLYING BIRD
This is the type of sports movie I get
into, one that deals with the money and politics of it, the game beyond
the game. It's set in the world of sports agents, where Andre Holland
plays a man with his back against the wall trying to rep his clients
during an NBA lockout. Nobody is getting paid and the shortsighted,
monetary-focussed agency he works for is utterly disinterested in
spending any more on their clients until the lockout has resolved.
Likewise they look at Holland and don't see his value, what he brings
to the table that's any different from anyone else. What they don't
realize -- but his disgruntled friend and agency lawyer Sonja Sohn keenly
observes -- is he's 20 steps ahead of everyone. Even though the film puts that right out there, the masterstroke here is it still gives you
plenty of opportunity to doubt Holland and his plan. But in seeing it come
to fruition -- with some devious manipulation and a hip-to-his-playbook
accomplice in Zazie Beetz (who is NOT his assistant anymore) -- is a work
of beauty.
The film is, in a way, a heist movie, with Soderbergh flexing his Oceans series muscles to present a much different type of scam. The script is ludicrously sharp, the actors are all so game for what's in play (the dynamics of this cast are so good), and the deftness of putting a spotlight on systemic racial exploitation in sports sparks a necessary conversation we don't hear enough of. Like Behind the Candelabra, Soderbergh has an empathy and astuteness towards situations that may not be of his own experience, but he has no problem conveying with authenticity.
If the film sags a little, it's in Soderbergh's experimentation with shooting the film only with iPhones, which is in stark contrast to the stylishness of his Liberace biopic. At times he captures some gorgeous shots (acting as his own cinematographer in pseudonym) but there's a samey-ness to them, particularly the wide angles largely employed that seem more like restrictions of the filming medium than deliberate choices. Soderbergh has always been an experimenter, and this, his second feature shooting exclusively with iPhones suffers slightly for it.
Soderbergh's name will bring people to the film, but buried in a glut of Netflix releases with little promotion, this is going to unjustly fly under the radar of most people. Hopefully word of mouth will propel this to more people's recommended lists.
The film is, in a way, a heist movie, with Soderbergh flexing his Oceans series muscles to present a much different type of scam. The script is ludicrously sharp, the actors are all so game for what's in play (the dynamics of this cast are so good), and the deftness of putting a spotlight on systemic racial exploitation in sports sparks a necessary conversation we don't hear enough of. Like Behind the Candelabra, Soderbergh has an empathy and astuteness towards situations that may not be of his own experience, but he has no problem conveying with authenticity.
If the film sags a little, it's in Soderbergh's experimentation with shooting the film only with iPhones, which is in stark contrast to the stylishness of his Liberace biopic. At times he captures some gorgeous shots (acting as his own cinematographer in pseudonym) but there's a samey-ness to them, particularly the wide angles largely employed that seem more like restrictions of the filming medium than deliberate choices. Soderbergh has always been an experimenter, and this, his second feature shooting exclusively with iPhones suffers slightly for it.
Soderbergh's name will bring people to the film, but buried in a glut of Netflix releases with little promotion, this is going to unjustly fly under the radar of most people. Hopefully word of mouth will propel this to more people's recommended lists.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Netflicked and Serialized
Titans Season 1 (11 episodes)
Russian Doll Season 1 (8 episodes)
Umbrella Academy Season 1 (10 episodes)
---
TITANS
In 1982 Marv Wolfman and George Perez revamped the Teen Titans concept -- that of a club for superhero sidekicks -- into one of the decade's most popular titles. The New Teen Titans title didn't just stick with established sidekicks, it also introduced new characters... instant fan favourites like Cyborg, Raven and Starfire. The series was a full-blown drama about coming out of the shadows of more famous heroes, finding one's own identity, dealing with feeling like an outsider or freak, and more interpersonal squabbles. It wasn't Degrassi, but it was certainly inspired by the trend of adult soap operatic TV of the era (Dallas, Falcon Crest, Dynasty) and predated the teen soap operatic of Beverly Hills 90210 and 21 Jump Street by at least a few years. For over a decade in Wolfman's hands the Titans saw various teammates get killed, married, and retire, and they got older, dropping the "Teen" and just becoming "Titans". As they aged, they introduced a new generation of heroes into their midst, who became Young Justice. Aging legacy heroes like Dick Grayson, Wally West and Donna Troy would on new identities, making room for new teen sidekicks to take on roles like Robin, Kid Flash and Wonder Girl.
This then, is the very awkward template for Titans, DC's inaugural show for their content platform, DC Universe. Rather than starting at zero, the series establishes that characters like Robin, Wonder Girl, Hawk and Dove have all been operating as vigilantes for some time, in a world certainly not devoid nor unaware of its superheroes. However, Dick Grayson has fled Gotham for Detroit and ditched his "R" crest for a detective's shield. The darker impulses of his mentor were seeping in too deep and so he rejected the heroes life. But the heroes life comes calling anyway when he meets Rachel, a girl with even darker impulses and powers that manifest as a result. She's on the run from a cult of abductors, as well as on a journey of self discovery. Along they way they meet Gar, a kid with green hair who can turn into a green tiger, and eventually their paths cross with Kory, an amnesiac looking for clues to her own past, which seems to have ties to Rachel as well. Also, Kory can unleash very destructive bolt of energy from her body.
As they come together, a band of misfits with the one shared goal of keeping Rachel safe, they start to uncover some truths about themselves. In each one's case, there's trauma and tragedy (and in some cases, guilt) that they're burying, that threatens to consume them. This is even more evident in the story of Hawk and Dove -- Hank Hall and Dawn Granger -- friends of Dick's from his crimefighting days. Hank's need to bust heads is a way to focus his pent-up rage into something good, and it's Dawn's calm and compassion that keeps him from self destructing altogether, but Hank's lack of discipline is starting to take its toll. Robin's reappearance into their lives with Rachel in tow is full of good intentions, if ill executed. We also meet ex-Wonder Girl Donna Troy and the new Robin, Jason Todd, each having a different profound effect on Dick's mindstate... though certainly not even close to providing any resolutions for him.
After the infamous "Fuck Batman" trailer, I had put my expectations in check for this series, and as such, came out pleasantly surprised. That "Fuck Batman" scene, even in context, just feels like a series that's trying its god-damnedest to be "mature", and there are more than a handful of moments throughout (so much digital blood spatter in the fight sequences) that scream "trying too hard". But it's not, actually. The series establishes its tone quite well by the third episode, and is unapologetic for it. It's a teen/sidekick/superhero story designed for an audience who is already familiar with teen/sidekick/superhero stories. It's not dumbing anything down and it's not playing nice for a young audience. It wants its heroes to be scarred and it wants you to see the role the life they lead has on scarring them, and likewise how the scarring in their life has led them into the roles they play. Titan's greatest triumph is its focus on characters and understanding them.
Even by the finale there's still a sense that the show is finding its footing, determining what it wants to be. Does it want to be more like the classic 80's comics, does it want to be more like an Arrow-verse show, or does it want to fit with the Snyder-verse DCEU? It kind of hopscotches across all three, not yet finding the comfortable middle ground, possibly forgetting (or not yet knowing) that it will be the precursor to three other live action series on the DC Universe streaming platform (followed by Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, and Stargirl). With Director Brad Anderson (The Machinist, Session 9, Fringe) set the tone with the pilot episode, giving the series a certain movie-quality aesthetic to it, with exquisitely lush lighting and impeccably tailored costumes and wardrobes, plus they spent some serious money on the soundtrack. The fight choreography and stunt work isn't quite up to cinematic standards (or eve Arrow's standards, which has set such a high bar for hand-to-hand fight choreography on TV that Titans can't quite reach) and the injection of digital blood spatter is a completely unnecessary nuisance.
A far as the characters go, they a bit off brand from their comics and animated precursors. Dick Grayson isn't as charmingly good natured, Gar Logan isn't the fun-loving goofball (and he only transforms into a green tiger, perhaps the aspect of the show that perturbs me the most), Rachel is on-point (if de-aged), and Starfire is more the warrior of the comics than the sweetly naive alien of the cartoons. Hawk and Dove are bang on point (even if I don't remember Hank and Dawn being in a relationship in the comics, it really works here), as is Jason Todd, and Donna's arrival made me very happy (a most assured representation of this character). The only thing that is clear with the main cast is they are all suffering to different degrees with PTSD, and although the show never explicitly calls it out, the effects of their abilities, histories and lifestyles have a brutal, grinding down effect. While I wish there was more costumed villains, and more in-costume action, this was a thoroughly engrossing, pleasantly surprising adaptation, of which I'm greatly looking forward to more.
---
RUSSIAN DOLL
There are a few TV shows that hit me in the gut so hard, the knock the breath right out of me. But rather than being an assault, it's a psychosomatic reaction to falling in love with a work of goddamned art. The golden age of television has given us recently a few of these types of productions: The Good Place, Atlanta, Fargo, Legion, Rick and Morty... and now Russian Doll.
The trope of living the same day over, or dying and starting again has become a genre of storytelling all its own. Groundhog's Day popularized it, but it's now a trope used in sci-fi (Arq, Edge of Tomorrow) and horror (Happy Death Day) on the regular, and in TV shows seemingly all the time (in the past year Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Star Trek: Discovery have all used this cyclical convention and I'm sure there's many more examples, probably a whole list or two somewhere). As much as I love this convention, and am always game for watching one play out, I have to admit that Russian Doll's look far and away has had the greatest impact.
It's Nadia's (Natasha Lyonne) birthday party, hosted by her best friends. She's a little drunk, perhaps a little stoned, and perhaps a little depressed. She goes home with a guy she doesn't find too distasteful and goes about her day. Then she gets hit by a car and dies, only to awaken back at her birthday party at her friend's place. Is she just way too stoned? Is this some kind of joke? Is she going crazy? When she dies again, and returns to the same bathroom at the same time, it's clear that none of these thoughts are accurate.
So what is it. What is the significance of all this? It seems that no matter her actions, Nadia dies and comes back to the same time. But the details aren't always exactly the same, some elements seem different, or missing, and the story seems to get more and more contained, like a matryoshka, the doll inside a doll gets smaller, the details less refined, until there's no more dolls to crack open, just a small figure left exposed like a raw nerve. It belongs back in the comfort of its ever expanding surroundings but how to get back? And is it truly alone?
This is a dark comedy, with co-creators Lyonne and Amy Pohler injecting some very specific personality elements into the characters and their environment. Nadia is careless to a fault, she's shut down, guarded, defensive and sardonic. She has an unrealistically pessimistic view of the world and her life, but what has the world given her to change that viewpoint? It seems almost intentional then that the friends she has are more carefree and cheerful, and the relationship she most desired was with a good man (a loving father) doing a bad thing (having an affair). It's an old cliche that New York tends to be its own character in any production that shoots there, and it holds here, but the NYC the show captures is so very specific to the world Nadia rolls in, and extends herself to. I can't say that the story would play out differently in, say, Minneapolis, but it definitely would not feel the same.
There's a reflective, meditative element to Russian Doll. Amidst the etherial dark humour and Nadia's search for cosmic meaning for these turns of events, she starts exploring the larger world around her. In Groundhog's Day the point was for Bill Murray to lose his ego and to become a decent man worthy of wooing Andie MacDowell (the counter-arguement to the film's narrative is how thinly played MacDowell's character is, given that she meets Murray's character at most a day before and while Murray has thousands of days to learn to love her, she has maybe 36 hours, half of which are taken up by him being an asshole), here Nadia's quest isn't nearly as clear. Is this a case of live, die, repeat, or is it a case that her consciousness is traversing dimensions? Or is it some form of purgatory? The philosophical implications aren't ignored, and in some respects shares a sensibility with the contemplative The Good Place, and like The Good Place it's the personal journey that comes to the forefront. It's not that Nadia becomes a different, better person like Murray's character does in G'hog's Day but instead she comes to just accept herself, understand herself. But that's not the only key, and to say more is major spoiler territory and the precise point where the show spins from engaging delight to must-consume-it-all engrossing. The show is meticulous in its detailing, with seemingly meaningless details having greater importance later on, revealing themselves like bombshells upon rewatch (and some details requiring an eagle eye to capture...but it shows the genuine love the creators had in making the show).
All told it plays out like a roughly 4-hour movie (give or take) as much as episodic television, with a doozy of a cliffhanger ending. There's a promise of three seasons to tell the full story and I cannot wait.
(David's take on Russian Doll)
---
UMBRELLA ACADEMY
With the announcement of a Disney Streaming service back in 2017, Netflix was keenly aware that its time using Marvel properties to draw viewers to its service was coming to an end. Despite the absolute glut of superhero programming on TV (Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Agents of SHIELD, Krypton, Gotham, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher, The Tick, Runaways, Cloak and Dagger, Legion, The Gifted, Titans and no doubt more that I'm forgetting all had new episodes air in 2018) on top of a dozen or more superhero films per year, the fatigue does not seem to be setting in. As such Netflix went on the prowl for new superhero properties to call its own, and not share with DC or Marvel. They signed a deal with Mark Millar for his existing original properties as well as stake in creation of new ones, and they found Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba's Umbrella Academy, an earnest reimagining of/homage to classic X-Men that set the comics world alight for a year or two then faded away.
I recall enjoying the comics, but that's about it. The experience of watching the Umbrella Academy on Netflix was an all-new one. Occasionally I would have a flashback to a specific image, such as Luther's simian form on the moon, but the story was all new to me, full of surprises, and a few obvious hunches.
The first three episodes are absolutely cracking with energy, so full of wild ideas rippling with potential and possibilities. The key conceit is that 43 children were spontaneously born on the same day at the same time around the world nearly 30 years ago to mothers who were no pregnant prior. Professor Reginald Hargreevs, a famed explorer and wealthy eccentric, decided to try and adopt/collect these children, winding up with 7 of them in his family. Hargreevs was not a loving father, instead more keenly interested in the children as sociological experiments and, upon discovering most of them had special abilities, tools for his own purposes, training them to be superheroes and celebrities, all except Number 7, Vanya, whom he convinces is not special.
A decade or more after the family fractured following the death of Ben and disappearance of Number 5, the remaining estranged siblings gather together for the Professor's funeral, reopening old wounds and inflicting new ones. Raised by a cold, uncaring, authoritarian paternal figure, a robot mom and an intelligent talking chimp companion, these children are not the picture of mental health. When Number 5 returns, from a post apocalyptic future he's hoping to avoid (the fact that he's not sure what has happened means there's a mystery to solve first), it provides a ticking clock structure to the narrative that raises the stakes, but also means, at ten episodes, there's aspects which feel laborious in the wake of the countdown to disaster.
The show thrives on the family dynamics, the contentious and acrimonious relationship between most siblings. Luther was Number 1, meant to be the leader following in his fathers shadow, but feels ashamed that the team fell apart, as well as ashamed of his body which was mutated by his father in an attempt to save is life after a disastrous mission. Diego was Number 2, a master of knives. Impulsive and aggressive, he maintained the vigilante lifestyle after the band broke up. Number 3, Allison, became a superstar model and actress, and a mother, but her ability to manipulate people with whispers broke her new family up when her husband learned she used her skill on their daughter. Number 4, Clive, is able to see and hear the dead, but the dead, being everywhere nearly drive him mad, so he turned to drugs instead to quiet the voices. The only one he regularly sees now is Ben (Number 6). Vanya, the one without powers, is the one most lost without her family, and also the one most hindered by them. Told she's not special, and believing it, she lives demurely and quietly, wishing to break out but too fettered by doubt to do anything about it. She also wrote a tell-all book about the family which set everyone against her, despite it being a cry to be closer to them.
Number 5 meanwhile, returns from the future where he had lived into his late-50's, in the form of the 12-year-old boy who had left. He's a teleporter, obviously with the ability to time-jump, but uncontrollably. His life in the wasteland of the future had an impact, and the trauma creeps out in the unlikeliest of ways. He also wound up recruited to be an assassin for a bureau who maintains the order of the timeline, and having just defected, he is chased by Cha-Cha and Hazel. Cha-Cha is a dedicated assassin, while Hazel feels underappreciated by his employers, as his benefits ebb and his well-being compromised.
Any scenes with Number 5, Clive, Hazel or Cha-Cha feel vital, full of vigor and enthusiasm (Hazel, despite being a brutal killer, becomes perhaps the most endearing character in the series). The sub-plots around Luther and Allison's romance and trauma unfold nicely and with meaning. Diego has a hard time connecting with his siblings, and his stand-offishness also pushes against the audience after a while, but his conceding to being part of the family is one of the show's more triumphant moments. It's mostly during Vanya's story where there's drag. It's not that the arc is bad, but there's a predictable element there that seems to take forever to come to fruition. The finale is pretty huge, leaving a cliffhanger ending that makes one very curious as to how the next season will possibly play out.
To coincide with the release on Netflix, Way and Ba have returned with a third volume of their comic series, likely because the first two volumes don't provide enough material for an ongoing tv series, as well Way and Ba certainly had more stories to tell in the universe but were sidelined by other projects. As a replacement for the Nextflix Marvel superhero series, honestly, this is a pretty drastic improvement. Building one's own world, playing by its own rules, rather than having to live up to the expectations of both comic book histories and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, gives this series more storytelling freedom and leads to less disappointment.
Russian Doll Season 1 (8 episodes)
Umbrella Academy Season 1 (10 episodes)
---
TITANS
In 1982 Marv Wolfman and George Perez revamped the Teen Titans concept -- that of a club for superhero sidekicks -- into one of the decade's most popular titles. The New Teen Titans title didn't just stick with established sidekicks, it also introduced new characters... instant fan favourites like Cyborg, Raven and Starfire. The series was a full-blown drama about coming out of the shadows of more famous heroes, finding one's own identity, dealing with feeling like an outsider or freak, and more interpersonal squabbles. It wasn't Degrassi, but it was certainly inspired by the trend of adult soap operatic TV of the era (Dallas, Falcon Crest, Dynasty) and predated the teen soap operatic of Beverly Hills 90210 and 21 Jump Street by at least a few years. For over a decade in Wolfman's hands the Titans saw various teammates get killed, married, and retire, and they got older, dropping the "Teen" and just becoming "Titans". As they aged, they introduced a new generation of heroes into their midst, who became Young Justice. Aging legacy heroes like Dick Grayson, Wally West and Donna Troy would on new identities, making room for new teen sidekicks to take on roles like Robin, Kid Flash and Wonder Girl.This then, is the very awkward template for Titans, DC's inaugural show for their content platform, DC Universe. Rather than starting at zero, the series establishes that characters like Robin, Wonder Girl, Hawk and Dove have all been operating as vigilantes for some time, in a world certainly not devoid nor unaware of its superheroes. However, Dick Grayson has fled Gotham for Detroit and ditched his "R" crest for a detective's shield. The darker impulses of his mentor were seeping in too deep and so he rejected the heroes life. But the heroes life comes calling anyway when he meets Rachel, a girl with even darker impulses and powers that manifest as a result. She's on the run from a cult of abductors, as well as on a journey of self discovery. Along they way they meet Gar, a kid with green hair who can turn into a green tiger, and eventually their paths cross with Kory, an amnesiac looking for clues to her own past, which seems to have ties to Rachel as well. Also, Kory can unleash very destructive bolt of energy from her body.
As they come together, a band of misfits with the one shared goal of keeping Rachel safe, they start to uncover some truths about themselves. In each one's case, there's trauma and tragedy (and in some cases, guilt) that they're burying, that threatens to consume them. This is even more evident in the story of Hawk and Dove -- Hank Hall and Dawn Granger -- friends of Dick's from his crimefighting days. Hank's need to bust heads is a way to focus his pent-up rage into something good, and it's Dawn's calm and compassion that keeps him from self destructing altogether, but Hank's lack of discipline is starting to take its toll. Robin's reappearance into their lives with Rachel in tow is full of good intentions, if ill executed. We also meet ex-Wonder Girl Donna Troy and the new Robin, Jason Todd, each having a different profound effect on Dick's mindstate... though certainly not even close to providing any resolutions for him.
After the infamous "Fuck Batman" trailer, I had put my expectations in check for this series, and as such, came out pleasantly surprised. That "Fuck Batman" scene, even in context, just feels like a series that's trying its god-damnedest to be "mature", and there are more than a handful of moments throughout (so much digital blood spatter in the fight sequences) that scream "trying too hard". But it's not, actually. The series establishes its tone quite well by the third episode, and is unapologetic for it. It's a teen/sidekick/superhero story designed for an audience who is already familiar with teen/sidekick/superhero stories. It's not dumbing anything down and it's not playing nice for a young audience. It wants its heroes to be scarred and it wants you to see the role the life they lead has on scarring them, and likewise how the scarring in their life has led them into the roles they play. Titan's greatest triumph is its focus on characters and understanding them.
A far as the characters go, they a bit off brand from their comics and animated precursors. Dick Grayson isn't as charmingly good natured, Gar Logan isn't the fun-loving goofball (and he only transforms into a green tiger, perhaps the aspect of the show that perturbs me the most), Rachel is on-point (if de-aged), and Starfire is more the warrior of the comics than the sweetly naive alien of the cartoons. Hawk and Dove are bang on point (even if I don't remember Hank and Dawn being in a relationship in the comics, it really works here), as is Jason Todd, and Donna's arrival made me very happy (a most assured representation of this character). The only thing that is clear with the main cast is they are all suffering to different degrees with PTSD, and although the show never explicitly calls it out, the effects of their abilities, histories and lifestyles have a brutal, grinding down effect. While I wish there was more costumed villains, and more in-costume action, this was a thoroughly engrossing, pleasantly surprising adaptation, of which I'm greatly looking forward to more.
---
RUSSIAN DOLL
The trope of living the same day over, or dying and starting again has become a genre of storytelling all its own. Groundhog's Day popularized it, but it's now a trope used in sci-fi (Arq, Edge of Tomorrow) and horror (Happy Death Day) on the regular, and in TV shows seemingly all the time (in the past year Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Star Trek: Discovery have all used this cyclical convention and I'm sure there's many more examples, probably a whole list or two somewhere). As much as I love this convention, and am always game for watching one play out, I have to admit that Russian Doll's look far and away has had the greatest impact.
It's Nadia's (Natasha Lyonne) birthday party, hosted by her best friends. She's a little drunk, perhaps a little stoned, and perhaps a little depressed. She goes home with a guy she doesn't find too distasteful and goes about her day. Then she gets hit by a car and dies, only to awaken back at her birthday party at her friend's place. Is she just way too stoned? Is this some kind of joke? Is she going crazy? When she dies again, and returns to the same bathroom at the same time, it's clear that none of these thoughts are accurate.
So what is it. What is the significance of all this? It seems that no matter her actions, Nadia dies and comes back to the same time. But the details aren't always exactly the same, some elements seem different, or missing, and the story seems to get more and more contained, like a matryoshka, the doll inside a doll gets smaller, the details less refined, until there's no more dolls to crack open, just a small figure left exposed like a raw nerve. It belongs back in the comfort of its ever expanding surroundings but how to get back? And is it truly alone?
This is a dark comedy, with co-creators Lyonne and Amy Pohler injecting some very specific personality elements into the characters and their environment. Nadia is careless to a fault, she's shut down, guarded, defensive and sardonic. She has an unrealistically pessimistic view of the world and her life, but what has the world given her to change that viewpoint? It seems almost intentional then that the friends she has are more carefree and cheerful, and the relationship she most desired was with a good man (a loving father) doing a bad thing (having an affair). It's an old cliche that New York tends to be its own character in any production that shoots there, and it holds here, but the NYC the show captures is so very specific to the world Nadia rolls in, and extends herself to. I can't say that the story would play out differently in, say, Minneapolis, but it definitely would not feel the same.
There's a reflective, meditative element to Russian Doll. Amidst the etherial dark humour and Nadia's search for cosmic meaning for these turns of events, she starts exploring the larger world around her. In Groundhog's Day the point was for Bill Murray to lose his ego and to become a decent man worthy of wooing Andie MacDowell (the counter-arguement to the film's narrative is how thinly played MacDowell's character is, given that she meets Murray's character at most a day before and while Murray has thousands of days to learn to love her, she has maybe 36 hours, half of which are taken up by him being an asshole), here Nadia's quest isn't nearly as clear. Is this a case of live, die, repeat, or is it a case that her consciousness is traversing dimensions? Or is it some form of purgatory? The philosophical implications aren't ignored, and in some respects shares a sensibility with the contemplative The Good Place, and like The Good Place it's the personal journey that comes to the forefront. It's not that Nadia becomes a different, better person like Murray's character does in G'hog's Day but instead she comes to just accept herself, understand herself. But that's not the only key, and to say more is major spoiler territory and the precise point where the show spins from engaging delight to must-consume-it-all engrossing. The show is meticulous in its detailing, with seemingly meaningless details having greater importance later on, revealing themselves like bombshells upon rewatch (and some details requiring an eagle eye to capture...but it shows the genuine love the creators had in making the show).
All told it plays out like a roughly 4-hour movie (give or take) as much as episodic television, with a doozy of a cliffhanger ending. There's a promise of three seasons to tell the full story and I cannot wait.
(David's take on Russian Doll)
---
UMBRELLA ACADEMY
With the announcement of a Disney Streaming service back in 2017, Netflix was keenly aware that its time using Marvel properties to draw viewers to its service was coming to an end. Despite the absolute glut of superhero programming on TV (Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Agents of SHIELD, Krypton, Gotham, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher, The Tick, Runaways, Cloak and Dagger, Legion, The Gifted, Titans and no doubt more that I'm forgetting all had new episodes air in 2018) on top of a dozen or more superhero films per year, the fatigue does not seem to be setting in. As such Netflix went on the prowl for new superhero properties to call its own, and not share with DC or Marvel. They signed a deal with Mark Millar for his existing original properties as well as stake in creation of new ones, and they found Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba's Umbrella Academy, an earnest reimagining of/homage to classic X-Men that set the comics world alight for a year or two then faded away.I recall enjoying the comics, but that's about it. The experience of watching the Umbrella Academy on Netflix was an all-new one. Occasionally I would have a flashback to a specific image, such as Luther's simian form on the moon, but the story was all new to me, full of surprises, and a few obvious hunches.
The first three episodes are absolutely cracking with energy, so full of wild ideas rippling with potential and possibilities. The key conceit is that 43 children were spontaneously born on the same day at the same time around the world nearly 30 years ago to mothers who were no pregnant prior. Professor Reginald Hargreevs, a famed explorer and wealthy eccentric, decided to try and adopt/collect these children, winding up with 7 of them in his family. Hargreevs was not a loving father, instead more keenly interested in the children as sociological experiments and, upon discovering most of them had special abilities, tools for his own purposes, training them to be superheroes and celebrities, all except Number 7, Vanya, whom he convinces is not special.
A decade or more after the family fractured following the death of Ben and disappearance of Number 5, the remaining estranged siblings gather together for the Professor's funeral, reopening old wounds and inflicting new ones. Raised by a cold, uncaring, authoritarian paternal figure, a robot mom and an intelligent talking chimp companion, these children are not the picture of mental health. When Number 5 returns, from a post apocalyptic future he's hoping to avoid (the fact that he's not sure what has happened means there's a mystery to solve first), it provides a ticking clock structure to the narrative that raises the stakes, but also means, at ten episodes, there's aspects which feel laborious in the wake of the countdown to disaster.
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| I forgot this is what they look like in the comics |
The show thrives on the family dynamics, the contentious and acrimonious relationship between most siblings. Luther was Number 1, meant to be the leader following in his fathers shadow, but feels ashamed that the team fell apart, as well as ashamed of his body which was mutated by his father in an attempt to save is life after a disastrous mission. Diego was Number 2, a master of knives. Impulsive and aggressive, he maintained the vigilante lifestyle after the band broke up. Number 3, Allison, became a superstar model and actress, and a mother, but her ability to manipulate people with whispers broke her new family up when her husband learned she used her skill on their daughter. Number 4, Clive, is able to see and hear the dead, but the dead, being everywhere nearly drive him mad, so he turned to drugs instead to quiet the voices. The only one he regularly sees now is Ben (Number 6). Vanya, the one without powers, is the one most lost without her family, and also the one most hindered by them. Told she's not special, and believing it, she lives demurely and quietly, wishing to break out but too fettered by doubt to do anything about it. She also wrote a tell-all book about the family which set everyone against her, despite it being a cry to be closer to them.
Number 5 meanwhile, returns from the future where he had lived into his late-50's, in the form of the 12-year-old boy who had left. He's a teleporter, obviously with the ability to time-jump, but uncontrollably. His life in the wasteland of the future had an impact, and the trauma creeps out in the unlikeliest of ways. He also wound up recruited to be an assassin for a bureau who maintains the order of the timeline, and having just defected, he is chased by Cha-Cha and Hazel. Cha-Cha is a dedicated assassin, while Hazel feels underappreciated by his employers, as his benefits ebb and his well-being compromised.
Any scenes with Number 5, Clive, Hazel or Cha-Cha feel vital, full of vigor and enthusiasm (Hazel, despite being a brutal killer, becomes perhaps the most endearing character in the series). The sub-plots around Luther and Allison's romance and trauma unfold nicely and with meaning. Diego has a hard time connecting with his siblings, and his stand-offishness also pushes against the audience after a while, but his conceding to being part of the family is one of the show's more triumphant moments. It's mostly during Vanya's story where there's drag. It's not that the arc is bad, but there's a predictable element there that seems to take forever to come to fruition. The finale is pretty huge, leaving a cliffhanger ending that makes one very curious as to how the next season will possibly play out.
To coincide with the release on Netflix, Way and Ba have returned with a third volume of their comic series, likely because the first two volumes don't provide enough material for an ongoing tv series, as well Way and Ba certainly had more stories to tell in the universe but were sidelined by other projects. As a replacement for the Nextflix Marvel superhero series, honestly, this is a pretty drastic improvement. Building one's own world, playing by its own rules, rather than having to live up to the expectations of both comic book histories and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, gives this series more storytelling freedom and leads to less disappointment.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
3+1 Short Paragraphs: A Simple Favor
2018, Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) -- download
So yes, I am that guy who constantly questions why the fuck he is doing with this page. Is it a review site? Is it a personal blog? Is it getting better? Is it getting worse? I occasionally Google "how to write a movie review" to see if there are any snippets of wisdom or gems of insight that will magically lift my writing from struggles of apathy and mundanity into crystal clarity views of my soul, and its connection to film. Alas most of those hits are so mundane, they make me read like Tolstoy. At least I know what I am not as bad as, despite how clumsy this sentence is. One article I came across claimed I should never write about any movie I don't have great passion for, positive or negative notwithstanding. But if I did that, I would never end up writing at all, as passion from my stress addled brain (and strained heart) is a rare beast.
For example, Paul Feig (who to be honest, I enjoy more as a supporting cast member of Joel McHale's Netflix-d The Soup) releases an enjoyable little movie that didn't inspire any passion in me, but definitely entertained me. Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is a crafty v-blogger, single and rather introverted. She bumps into fellow mom Emily (Blake Lively), who is pretty much the polar opposite. But a play-date and many martinis later, the two are ... friends? No, not quite. But they have... something.
Their relationship flows quickly as Emily's vodka & gin (tee hee! Aviation Gin) and is never easily defined, especially after Emily disappears. The revelation of what happened to Emily goes from weird & quirky to the realm of murder-mystery which actually stymied my guess-the-Hollywood-formula game. It's not exactly Shakespeare going on here, but honestly I would (and do) watch Anna Kendrick update her Twitter account, so I was enjoying myself.
So, not passionate but entertained. And I am recording that. I am relating what I am watching, because if I don't relate it to someone, then it will be lost, right? Someone has to validate all this time I am wasting on dross. So, if you leave Like or a comment (hint hint) or Kent returns from his idyllic Letterbox'd to leave a contrasting review, then my life will be complete. No, not really, but ... moved along.
P.S. Not from Kent, but from a review from a Kent ?
P.S.S. This poster is wonderful ! Take a gander at IMP Awards for a bunch of wonderful posters. So, OK a bit of passion for the poster!
For example, Paul Feig (who to be honest, I enjoy more as a supporting cast member of Joel McHale's Netflix-d The Soup) releases an enjoyable little movie that didn't inspire any passion in me, but definitely entertained me. Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is a crafty v-blogger, single and rather introverted. She bumps into fellow mom Emily (Blake Lively), who is pretty much the polar opposite. But a play-date and many martinis later, the two are ... friends? No, not quite. But they have... something.
Their relationship flows quickly as Emily's vodka & gin (tee hee! Aviation Gin) and is never easily defined, especially after Emily disappears. The revelation of what happened to Emily goes from weird & quirky to the realm of murder-mystery which actually stymied my guess-the-Hollywood-formula game. It's not exactly Shakespeare going on here, but honestly I would (and do) watch Anna Kendrick update her Twitter account, so I was enjoying myself.
So, not passionate but entertained. And I am recording that. I am relating what I am watching, because if I don't relate it to someone, then it will be lost, right? Someone has to validate all this time I am wasting on dross. So, if you leave Like or a comment (hint hint) or Kent returns from his idyllic Letterbox'd to leave a contrasting review, then my life will be complete. No, not really, but ... moved along.
P.S. Not from Kent, but from a review from a Kent ?
P.S.S. This poster is wonderful ! Take a gander at IMP Awards for a bunch of wonderful posters. So, OK a bit of passion for the poster!
Sunday, February 10, 2019
3 Short Paragraphs: Kin
2018, Jonathan & Josh Baker (the original Bag Man) -- download
I am fan of those scifi shorts that are all over YouTube and Vimeo. Young directors/writers/special effects teams cut their teeth on something self-contained, something fully thought out without the need to put in the filler material to round out the three acts of a feature film. Typically on limited budgets, they contain the story to a few sets, and round out the rest with CGI. And they can explore ideas that would never generally see the light of day on the big screen.
Kin started as the short Bag Man by twins Jonathan & Josh Baker, about a kid who travels from an urban setting, to the countryside and along the way we find out what he has in the bag, which I cannot do this post, without revealing its a futuristic / alien rifle. The short is just absolutely lovely, so lovingly shot, well lit and tightly acted.
Kin is that expansion into feature film and, well, its not all that successful. It suffers the expected failings of having plot & characterization inflated to meet a full movie, and meet with the typical expectations of thescifi movie audience money backers. We take the black city kid, this time with adoptive father (requisite recognizable face; Dennis Quaid) and ex-con adoptive brother, who gets the kid mixed up in his ex-con trouble. But he has a laser gun, found on the body of some unknown battle-suited soldier in an abandoned warehouse, and with it he & his brother lead the bad guys on a merry chase across the US. Add in a stripper with a heart of gold (Zoë Kravitz) and a cameo by Michael B Jordan, and we have a run of the mill action-er, that barely remembers the quality directing of the short.
Kin started as the short Bag Man by twins Jonathan & Josh Baker, about a kid who travels from an urban setting, to the countryside and along the way we find out what he has in the bag, which I cannot do this post, without revealing its a futuristic / alien rifle. The short is just absolutely lovely, so lovingly shot, well lit and tightly acted.
Kin is that expansion into feature film and, well, its not all that successful. It suffers the expected failings of having plot & characterization inflated to meet a full movie, and meet with the typical expectations of the
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Russian Doll
2019, Leslye Headland, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler -- Netflix
I don't generally binge. Well, TV. Cookies for sure. I bet you thought I was going to say beer. Fuck you, for that.
You see, nothing generally captures me enough to watch more than a couple of, maybe three, episodes in a single sitting. And I usually spread it out. But this one? We completed the series in a night & the next day. And I wanted more. No, not another season, but just more -- more to this world, more to this story, more of these characters.
Russian Doll is a time loop story. So, its no qwinky-dink that Netflix release this on Groundhog Day. Is that the first movie to present the idea? I know Picard was stuck in an ever exploding USS Enterprise before the movie, but I cannot think of any other movie that so succinctly captured the idea, before Bill Murray's. And as the latest example, this one was one of the best.
Natasha Lyonne (Slums of Beverly Hills) is Nadia Vulvokov, self-described daughter of Andrew Dice Clay and the girl from Brave. Not really, but damn it's apt. She's smart, abrasive, loud, and turning 36. And more than a little self-destructive. She wades through her birthday party, both greeting all the familiar faces and simultaneously dismissing them all. She doesn't need anyone, rejects her ex when he shows up, but then fucks the next guy who shows some interest -- a self-absorbed literature professor who we are meant to hate. He fucks all his grad students, and has no shame. And then, not long after, she is hit by a taxi and killed.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I was in one of those shows where I wouldn't like anyone. Sure its nice to see a lifestyle where people are not tied down by age-ism, where 20sumthins and people older than me are all fast friends & acquaintances, but really, you are not expected to like anyone the show introduces you to. Vacant, self-obsessed, narcissistic, etc. The typical NYC art scene? But then loops began looping me in.
For one, Nadia is a brilliant software engineer, gaming programmer in the current boyz-club coder culture. Its not a heavy plot point, but they do toss it in our face, when she attends a code review meeting, only to be accused of bad code, while all the others (men) are lauded for their fine work. She instantly points out errors in one guy's code, fixes it on the spot, and just moves on. She doesn't give a fuck about their attitudes, as she knows how brilliant she is. I warmed to her there and then. Oh, and in every single subsequent loop she never returns to work. Why bother, right ?
Nadia is both brilliant and incredibly messed up. Once she is in the loop, she needs to find out why. Is it the building, and possible Jewish mysticism? It has to be some external force, right? Because it couldn't be directly related to her. And as she explores the possible reasons how & why, you keep on marveling at her (bad) attitude, her astounding sense of impropriety and her bad choices. And that is sort of the point. She eventually finds out how tied it really is to her and her reasons for her bad choices. And who she is.
About midway, we are introduced to someone else who is in the loop with her. That is when the real exploration of what is going on begins to happen, and that is when we start seeing transformations. Not only of her, but of the world around her. Things and people disappear. And, did you catch that? Mold is growing on the fruit in the background. But nobody notices. I began to think that Nadia was trapped in software, a bug in her own code. But this is not Edge of Tomorrow or Source Code where we get a strong scifi explanation for what is going on, but we get definite nuances of something. And we are enthralled.
At the end, mid-afternoon Sunday, when we were done, I just said, "That was utterly wonderful." I had thoroughly enjoyed that. I ended up really liking Nadia. I liked her friends. I liked her life. And I just liked the way the universe gave her a strong and tangible way for her life to become better. Please, sir, can I have some?
You see, nothing generally captures me enough to watch more than a couple of, maybe three, episodes in a single sitting. And I usually spread it out. But this one? We completed the series in a night & the next day. And I wanted more. No, not another season, but just more -- more to this world, more to this story, more of these characters.
Russian Doll is a time loop story. So, its no qwinky-dink that Netflix release this on Groundhog Day. Is that the first movie to present the idea? I know Picard was stuck in an ever exploding USS Enterprise before the movie, but I cannot think of any other movie that so succinctly captured the idea, before Bill Murray's. And as the latest example, this one was one of the best.
Natasha Lyonne (Slums of Beverly Hills) is Nadia Vulvokov, self-described daughter of Andrew Dice Clay and the girl from Brave. Not really, but damn it's apt. She's smart, abrasive, loud, and turning 36. And more than a little self-destructive. She wades through her birthday party, both greeting all the familiar faces and simultaneously dismissing them all. She doesn't need anyone, rejects her ex when he shows up, but then fucks the next guy who shows some interest -- a self-absorbed literature professor who we are meant to hate. He fucks all his grad students, and has no shame. And then, not long after, she is hit by a taxi and killed.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I was in one of those shows where I wouldn't like anyone. Sure its nice to see a lifestyle where people are not tied down by age-ism, where 20sumthins and people older than me are all fast friends & acquaintances, but really, you are not expected to like anyone the show introduces you to. Vacant, self-obsessed, narcissistic, etc. The typical NYC art scene? But then loops began looping me in.
For one, Nadia is a brilliant software engineer, gaming programmer in the current boyz-club coder culture. Its not a heavy plot point, but they do toss it in our face, when she attends a code review meeting, only to be accused of bad code, while all the others (men) are lauded for their fine work. She instantly points out errors in one guy's code, fixes it on the spot, and just moves on. She doesn't give a fuck about their attitudes, as she knows how brilliant she is. I warmed to her there and then. Oh, and in every single subsequent loop she never returns to work. Why bother, right ?
Nadia is both brilliant and incredibly messed up. Once she is in the loop, she needs to find out why. Is it the building, and possible Jewish mysticism? It has to be some external force, right? Because it couldn't be directly related to her. And as she explores the possible reasons how & why, you keep on marveling at her (bad) attitude, her astounding sense of impropriety and her bad choices. And that is sort of the point. She eventually finds out how tied it really is to her and her reasons for her bad choices. And who she is.
About midway, we are introduced to someone else who is in the loop with her. That is when the real exploration of what is going on begins to happen, and that is when we start seeing transformations. Not only of her, but of the world around her. Things and people disappear. And, did you catch that? Mold is growing on the fruit in the background. But nobody notices. I began to think that Nadia was trapped in software, a bug in her own code. But this is not Edge of Tomorrow or Source Code where we get a strong scifi explanation for what is going on, but we get definite nuances of something. And we are enthralled.
At the end, mid-afternoon Sunday, when we were done, I just said, "That was utterly wonderful." I had thoroughly enjoyed that. I ended up really liking Nadia. I liked her friends. I liked her life. And I just liked the way the universe gave her a strong and tangible way for her life to become better. Please, sir, can I have some?
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