3 Short Paragraphs: No Reservations

2007, Scott Hicks (Snow Falling on Cedars ) -- Netflix

Even though most of my energy will be to the horror movie I just watched, I have to clear these out before they get relegated to the I Saw tag.  Seems rude for some of them; for others, like this one, not so much. Normally food movies are always a good pick for a day when nothing else on the My List hits, and one that is a remake of a popular European movie usually makes for a win. All of the great food movies are remakes of others (slap me on that one; the originals are great to begin with) and there are only a few that originated over here. I refuse to link to any listicals as they all seem to want to include Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. A pile of giant candy does not a food movie make.

This is a remake of  the German movie Mostly Martha, and not a dramatization of the Anthony Bourdain book. The latter would have been better. Kate is the chef at a popular resto in Manhattan. She dedicates her entire life to the place, focusing on food all day and often all night and even waking up on her days off to visit the early markets. The movie wants us to believe it is to her detriment, but really, the people in the kitchen like her and its only her inability to deal with asshole customers that sends her to a shrink. The sudden death of her sister plops a niece in her lap and the single woman has to learn about life work balance.

This is a good plot. She accepts her new role as adoptive mom and attempts to insert the new relationship into the existing working one. Things don't work out and her work begins to suffer, which then inserts Aaron Eckert into the resto. More conflict. All good for drama. But the movie presents everything in a quick cut, snap snap snap snap snap snap, style that never allows anything to be absorbed. I just never felt a story was being told, which would have been forgivable if I was looking forward to the next food scene, but those were sorely lacking, making me doubt it was even a proper food movie.

Plus, I never trust a movie with only one known poster.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: Fear the Walking Dead

2015, AMC -- download

The premise of Fear the Walking Dead is a great one -- if the main series started weeks after the outbreak, how did it come about?  OK, not exactly how it came to happen, but more, what was it like in those early hours, days and weeks? What was the fall like? What was it like when nobody believed it was happening? Origin story its not, but introduction it is.

The fucking problem is that they spun the drama in the same exact way as they narrowed the plot on The Walking Dead. Again, we have to deal with fearing the humans more than we have in fearing the dead. Yes, I get it, that is the successful formula that draws in the viewers, but this is a new show, couldn't we have had at least one decent person? And I mean a decent person who isn't proven to be a liability?

I fear the world we are living in where we accept doing whatever it takes, no matter the cost. And our pop culture reflects us, so...

The show starts with introducing us to two connected families. Travis is dating Madison but was married to Liza. There are teens in each family, including Maddie's heroin addict son Nick, the first to experience the walking dead, as his (dead) junkie (ex?)girlfriend eats the rest of the junkies in their shooting gallery. The slow burn of the first episode shows strong bonds between them all, albeit strained ones. The hints of what is to come are there, with fewer and fewer students showing up at the school where Maddie and Travis work, weird stories in the news, and the basement dwelling internet kid spouting enigmatic "it's happening!" rants.

There were a lot of complaints about the first episode, in that it was too slow and didn't have enough zombies in it. Oh shut up; how can you do a proper intro story if you don't take your time and establish the characters and the environment they are living in? How can you see how quickly civilization falls if you don't actually see the calm but nervous exterior of it? If I had any problem is that they didn't establish it enough. Where was the flu that was killing people? Oh there were minor mentions of it keeping students at home, but nobody actually is sick in the entire episode. Well, nobody that isn't already bitten. The virus killed people as a flu to begin with, before people got back up and bit other people, then continuing the infection. The primary element of the first series is not that the main characters are survivors but also immune and/or carriers of the virus. If they got sick, they beat it, if they ever got sick to begin with. And where was the social media? Sure, the internet kid knew things few others did but if this was happening nation wide, it would have been all over Facebook and Twitter. But no, they made vague comments about the Internet being down and moved on. They do understand that is why and how the Internet was made, right? It doesn't go down because some cities go black. It finds the route around. Oh well, this is Your Parent's internet -- not understood.

The fall happens by episode three, leading all the characters back together behind quickly built fences and chain link gates. The Army is here to protect them, but no not really, because this is a WD show, and thus the army is as much or more an enemy than their dead neighbours. Abuse, corruption and an agenda that expands far beyond protecting civilians is at play. But why? Why the fuck would the American government sink resources and men into temporarily protecting people if their final agenda was not to actually do so? It was a means to a conflict for the show, which didn't ring so true.

Amongst our main survivors, Travis stands as the naive one, where I just wanted him to be the moral one. They keep on proving him wrong and he keeps on being a decent, stand up guy. Its like the show thinks helpful, nice people are morons and the only ones who should survive are evil people. They even present the capable survivor as a man who once "disappeared" people in El Salvador, a torturer and evil regime man who fled the country when his power base was taken down. He is presented as the hero who figures things out. Again and again, Travis is proven an idiot, until finally, he himself is given so much evidence of the necessary evils in man, that he believes it himself.

Talk about bleak.

In the last few scenes of the last episode, the junkie character Nick is relaxed and even toned, even though he hasn't had his fix in ages. No longer jonesing, no longer detoxing, he seems somewhat... happy. When asked, he claims that all his life he has been trapped in this nightmare, and finally, it seems like the rest of the world is catching up. While part of me cringes at that, I actually see that. As one of those guys who always felt at odds with the world, never fitting in, never part of the wife, family, house, job world (but not really having any viable alternatives) I get what he is saying. He now no longer has to worry about being the standup guy, like his mother's BF, he can just be a survivor like everyone else. And if there is anything a junkie is good at, its surviving when all is at its worse.

Again, weeeee bleak.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

2014, Ana Lily Amirpour -- download

Yeah, I am not sure what to make of that one. This is one of those times where I need to see what other people said, in order to gel the collection of thoughts racing around up there into something cohesive. But first, the basics.

This is a black & white movie set in an imaginary Iranian world, a run down oil town called Bad City. I say imaginary, because the strict rules we know to be in existence in Iran seem to be... lacking in this movie. A pimp who looks like Ninja from Die Antwoord hassles the handsome young rocker and his father, who happens to be junkie. A young girl in chador and stylish breton stripe top (mod to his rocker) walks the dark streets alone at night, and turns out to be the town's vampire. Hookers, artfully placed (but not plotted) transexuals and kids in beat up tweed jackets also wander the broken down streets. And a balloon and a cat. The cat has the best role.

Its as if someone thought a chador sort of looked like Dracula's cape and ran with it. "Fresh take on the vampire mythos," is the usual thing reviewers say when they have nothing to say about the vampire mythos. There is no mythos here, just a morose "young" girl (remember, vampire main characters are rarely actually young) who eats people and feels a little sad about it. Let the Right One In did it much much better and this just ends up being a stylish bit of pop art.

As slow paced as Under the Skin was, but without the pay off or shock value, I am not sure the incredibly well shot, well acted bits can make up for this being an utter yawn.

The poster is damn nice.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: The Town That Dreaded Sundown

2014, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (Glee, American Horror Story) -- download

I just thought, this would probably be better titled 31 Nights of Halloween.

Most recently I commented on It Follows, on movies that are trapped in the 70s, not set in that era but carrying the look & feel of it. The 70s were a key period for horror movies, when genres were created and they jumped out of drive-ins & matinees into prime time viewing and popularity. The Cold War was winding down, so fears shifted to the more local, serial killers and monsters in the woods, religion and familial. So, its not surprising that in the minds of film makers, the 1970s just feels like a place where horror movies happen -- the clothes, the cars, the homes and decor and the attitudes of the people, are how a horror movie appears in the mind of the creator.

The House of the Devil had the feel, its followup The Innkeepers did as well, but it wasn't until It Follows that they just abandoned trying to feel like the 70s, but went for it as a conscious design choice. The Town That Dread Sundown is already a genre bender, being simultaneously a remake and sequel and homage to its predecessor.  But it also choose to have all design elements, clothing, cars and people jump straight out of 1976. But they have the Internet.

The original 1976 movie was about a slasher killer in the 40s, The Phantom Killer, and that movie was set in the 40s. But this movie, set now & then, is about the town of Texarkana, where every Halloween they show the 1976 movie on screens all over both sides of town, the town being divided down the middle, straddling Texas and Arkansas. So, they know about the actual movie, and are the town where the original real killings happened.  Yes, the Phantom Killer is real, as in our real real. The movie begins with a young couple leaving the showing of the movie, heading off to lover's lane, only to be attacked by The Phantom, in his eponymous sack cloth hood, with one blue eye staring out. The young man is killed, but she is spared, so she can spread the word.

At first the genre & time bending is distracting, especially the scene where we are briefly introduced to a soldier returning from overseas, and the airport, his uniform and all the trappings say he is coming back from Vietnam, but we gather it has to be somewhere sandy. Also, I am convinced that the collection of Texas and Arkansas law enforcement officers are meant to appear similar to the original movie, but I cannot confirm, as I have not seen it. But the fact that the original, and I mean real, Texas Ranger who headed the investigation was M. T. "Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas and ours is Lone Wolf Morales, I am not stretching. Luckily, things loosen up as we slip into the plot.

This is not a ground breaker, nor do I think it is trying. Its a slasher flick with some twists. I have to admit, this is the first slasher I have seen who uses a silenced pistol. Addison Timlin is great as the survivor wondering why she was spared, wondering about her connection to all of this (her parents were killed when she was a child, driving her home from a pajama party where the movie was being showed) and doing her own investigation. Quickly, the town assumes its persona, and everyone locks their doors and abandons the streets after dark. Not that it helps.

The most fun parts are where the movie crosses over with investigations into the original, real life, killings and with the 1976 movie itself. The character Charles Pierce, is the son of the original's director (not real, character) and is wrapped up in his father's legacy, and is, of course, one of our suspects, as all proper slasher flicks have to  have us doing most of the proper investigating, while law enforcement stumbles. This movie is pure to that, as we see them accomplishing nothing, but turns it on its head as well. They are investigating but we just don't see it.

In the end, despite her role in the movie having been engineered by the killer himself, she actually plays the proper part in the movie we are watching -- she survives and room is left open for a proper sequel.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: Dark Was the Night

2014, Jack Heller (mostly a producer Bad Milo, The Scribbler) -- download

We like Kevin Durand, that guy from where Kent came from currently playing the rat catcher turned vampire smoosher on the sorely lacking vampire TV show, The Strain, shot here in TO. He has the calm, powerful exterior I like in my heroes. Strangely enough, the star of Stake Land, which Kent and I enjoyed immensely, sits as a supporting character in this movie, and has that same quiet, calm power as Kevin Durand's sheriff character, out to protect his family from CGI wendigos.

Really, is that giving things away? No, not really. Its a monster movie focused around weird things that go stomp in the night, in the woods. Three toed hooved monsters are scaring horses, eating all the deer and driving away the birds. Sheriff Shields, while dealing with the death of a child (Marmy called that one immediately; yes she knows her tropes) and divorce, is also confronted with something perhaps out of legend, that runs quickly on two legs but also disappears into the trees. Why hasn't it already eaten everyone in  town, if its Of Legend? Because it has a remote hunting ground, only recently disturbed by loggers.

I liked this one, but I am always more partial to monster movies than ghosties. Durand may be a bit too sombre and all too often staring sorrowfully at his toes, but he makes the Good Sheriff. He figures out something is there, in a decent amount of time, in order to move the lingering townsfolk (most run off because of a mega snowstorm, not because of monster) into a church with too many windows and wooden doors. And yes, being American, he also brings with him his automatic weapons.

The unbelievably terrible CGI lizard creature with hoofs is dispatched after some guns and a solid stabbing, but ends the movie with something I didn't quite expect -- no, not a single monster, no not The Mated Pair, but.... OK, an entire nest was disturbed up north. When the dozen or so forest rangers show up in the morning, after the snow storm, they are only going to find an empty town filled with blood splatters, gun shot blasts and clawed, splintered wood. Modern day Roanoke, as Marmy put it.

Maybe we should sit down and begin writing the sequel for them.

What I Am Watching: Season(s) Complete

Longmire, Netflix
The Last Ship, TNT
Mr Robot, USA

Its been a while since I covered this topic, and I may have to follow it up soon if I start watching anything regularly this coming fall season. But let's go over some recently completed seasons of shows I enjoyed.

Longmire was cancelled by A&E last spring and a ton of voices screamed in the darkness, as the cliffhanger shooting of Branch Connelly (yes, still a stupid name) left us hanging.  I've been watching it since it started, and I have become quite invested in those characters. But moreso in the mood of the show. Its a sombre, lone cowboy on the range mood that lingers with me long after the episodes have ended. Its never any one episode or any one thing that sticks, just a theme and feeling left behind as the credits roll.

Netflix walked in like a big ol hero and presented season 4. Against my good judgement, I binge watched over a weekend. Now I have to wait a year for more.

I realized last night as I listened to a mix I made with the closing credit song from the final episode of the season, that I am easily manipulated into watching certain shows. Aging, quiet men with a certain amount of melancholy about them easily click for me. Not always; Hinterland only presented the concept but gave no method of attaching myself to the lead. But in Walander, Case Histories and Longmire I find myself drawn into the melancholy of the characters. Kurt Walander has the weight of the tragedy & horror  he experiences, Jackson Brodie has a terribly tragic past and Walt Longmire starts the series coming out of a depression, after his wife's murder. I am a bit of a brooder, and aging, so its easy to see where I connect with these  guys.

The show has run along the ever connecting thread of the murder of Walt's wife. Each of the three seasons pulled at the fraying mystery, eventually leading us to David Ridges, a "white warrior" and a man in the employ of Jacob Nighthorse, business man and casino builder. But it takes some digging by Branch, the deputy who has been at odds with Sheriff Walt Longmire since the series began, to find the true story. It was Branch's own unhealthy obsession with Ridges that lead him out of the Sheriff's department and into his wealthy father's business. And there he found out the motive and truth behind the murder that spawns the show.

Spoiler spoiler spoiled.

That discovery leads to Branch's death. At the hands of his father. Yes, the show killed of one of main characters, a not entirely unloved character but not a popular one. He was ever the yin to Walt's yang, always doubting, more savvy in the public eye and more likely to play the right game of politics. Walt didn't like him much but finding Branch's body was obviously devastating. Someone in his employ was dead, someone who they suspected (due to delicately placed hints) had committed suicide, someone who Walt had been letting his annoyance win over, instead of catching the terminal details. Walt feels responsible.

This was the kind of plot point you couldn't stretch out for another season, so in three quick episodes they discover Branch did not kill himself and we watch Barlow Connelly struggle with what he has done -- is he faking that breakdown? The arc ends with death by cop, but not quite. Barlow wants to die but Walt also wants  him dead.

The next season.... I mean, episode resumes with Walt on the veranda, the deck that overlooks all that big wide space he owns, a massive amount of mostly untouched green valley. He is reading and reading, drinking can after can of Ranier beer. The FBI investigates, clears Walt and he returns to work a month later. Walt replaces the bookcase he wrecked last season. A new loaner deputy, a new crush for Vic (who has mysteriously dumped her crush on Walt) and its back to business as usual.

So, how does a series continue when the center thread of its plot has been unravelled? Things have been explained. Stories have been summed up. There has been closure. Rightfully, the show doesn't start pulling on another one, but does continue on some lingering secondary plot points from seasons past. The hated casino has been built, bringing new crime and new reasons to loathe Jacob Nighthorse. Cheyenne Batman Hector is dead, but his ghost lives on and Henry steps into his shoes. This is primarily Henry's season, one where he gets to speak more than calm, incredibly articulate one liners. We see emotional development, expansion and struggle. The tension between Vic and Walt is explored in other, less healthy ways leading to another season ending cliffhanger. No yarn sized thread to follow, just a whole lot of threads woven together by the characters we have already become attached to.

Darn nabbit, I shouldn't have binge watched.

The Last Ship is my anti-Walking Dead. Where the latter is all about the failure of mankind, and not much about the rise above its weaknesses, the former is all about that. I have mentioned it is centered on the rah-rah American ideal, one generated by co-creator Michael Bay, but one that is sorely needed in this show. The planet has been mostly devastated by a virus, and it needs the last known working American naval ship to continue working on the cure, and more importantly, bring it to the people.

Last season ended with the cure found and the Last Ship dealing with the first despotic remnant of a government they find. With her put down, the crew's next step is to work with land based labs, manufacture and distribute the cure, and then see what is left of the world. That is interrupted by a submarine full of madmen who destroy all the labs, firing long range missiles and wiping out so many survivors. Fucking madness. The crew of this sub, of European origins, has already completely nuked France (literally) and devastated the European countryside. Their goal is to infect (and kill) any survivors in order to reveal the naturally immune. The Immunes will then rise up and create a whole new world. Psycho Messiah stuff.

Evil. Very real evil. And a proper Big Bad for the Last Ship and its crew to fight.

The thing I notice about this show, the primary thing that The Walking Dead and The Strain are so rightfully criticized for, is the lack of filler episodes. This show is full steam ahead to a goal and it follows that agenda faithfully. Each and every episode, barring one weird, confusing one about rescuing kids, is about fighting this enemy in The Immunes. Its not as simple as shooting a sub, because, well its a sub. But The Immunes are also winning the land based political and ideological battle via the charisma of its leader and some magical cell phone technology. The crew of the ship are labeled evil aggressors while the immunes secretly deliver the infection via virus laden teddy bears, in case you didn't know they were evil.

Its nice having a shift from current depressing dramatic action to a show where things can go right. The crew is always making strides forward, despite some pretty dramatic losses. They are always focused on doing the right thing. Its an American ideal that hasn't been around since the 80s, before they tainted their own morality with torture and Doing What Has To Be Done. Sure, its a little overbearing, including the addition of a President they can worship, but at least its heart is in the right place.

The whole point of the tortured drama at the heart of The Walking Dead is that we are never sure what Rick is doing is the right thing. Sure, he shows results and protects his people, but at what cost?  The Last Ship wants us to like and respect the people involved. And I do.

Mr Robot was a profound shift in my television watching this season. The hacker (that's belittling it, really) show that borrows ideas and thoughtspaces from so much else, just perfectly clicked with me. After that astounding first episode, I was hooked.

Profound shift? Despite the prevalence of non-standard TV and my accessibility to it, the non-network shows like True Blood, The Walking Dead, Mad Men, etc. in the last few years, I have been watching less of those. TV has once again started to feel like derivative crap. Or at least a big bag of meh. I haven't been as faithful to my What I Am Watching but take my word for it, I have mostly reverted back to network TV and familiar downloads. Standard TV is easier to digest than getting indigestion from cable shows that disappoint.

But Mr Robot feels so different, so utterly new, I had to watch.

Elliot, our "hero" is a socially awkward, emotionally damaged hacker working for a software security firm. He is also being coaxed into a hack which will have world wide ramifications. I covered all this in my review of episode one, but it sits as the plot of the entire season, even as we learn more about Evil Corp and what it has personally done to Elliot and his family. Evil Corp -- initially called E Corp, but then Elliot references "everyone calls it Evil Corp" and then for the rest of the show, everyone does. We are seeing this world through Elliot's eyes, slightly skewed, painfully truthful and somewhat shadowy. We are, afterall, Elliot's imaginary friend.

Hello friend. Don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.

In my commentary on the first episode, I mention Mr Robot might not be real. Taking on the idea that the show is borrowing / homage-ing Fight Club, Mr Robot (played by Christian Slater) is the show's Tyler Durden, and once you approach the show with that premise in your head, things become so much fun. Wait, wasn't he just interacting with someone?  Oh but there is Elliot in the background, sitting alone, not being noticed or interacting. And if this is true, then when Elliot is introduced to the hacker group F* Society, for the first time, then he is.... introducing.... himself? Yeah, Elliot is much more messed up then the first episode suggested.

Then the show trips over the Sony hacks and the Ashley Madison hacks and references to the Planetary comic and and and.... This show will require another watching to just enjoy the second level of references. Detailed, intricate, involving.  Weeee,

31 Days of Halloween 2015: Last Shift

2014, Anthony DiBlasi (Dread) -- download

This year we resurrect (raise from the dead; make undead) our binge watching of movies appropriate to the Halloween season. No, not all horror movies because, and you can read me in detail going on about this in previous years, it is always so often difficult to classify a movie as horror, if it is not entirely meant to scare you. Comedy horrors, monster flicks, psychological thrillers all are perfect for Halloween watching, but not always horror. So, into the fray once more go we.

We, Marmy and me, not Graig and me.  Kent is not much for the horror, especially the crap horror we often watch. It is still hard to find quality stuff for this binge, especially since we may have already seen the best of the last year or so already.

Last Shift is about a young rookie cop spending the night in a small police station on its last night. before it is shut down. The crime scene clean up crew is showing up in the wee hours of the morning to collect the last of the last of the bloody, contaminated contents of the evidence locker. Rookie has to hang around and let them in. No one else is in the station. Well, no one but her and the ghosts.

So, explain this element of horror movies to me, where the ghosts walk by in the shadows behind the main character but not seen by the main character. What is the fucking point of a ghost trying to scare the person on the other side of the fourth wall but not their victim? Why? Yes, I am asking about the ecology of evil spirits. As a D&D player, this would be in the third paragraph of their monster entry -- their motivations. But no, I can see no point.

Also, chair stacking? That tried and true characteristic of poltergeists? Do they suddenly gain extreme dexterity in the afterlife?  Unlike that guy on Queen W who stacks rocks on rocks, ghosts often seem to be able to defy gravity with their quick and skillful stacking. I would be applauding, not nervous. OK, maybe a little nervous.

So, yes, this station is filled with over the shoulder scares and stacked chairs. Just over a year ago, the cops brought in three members of a murder cult. They leader and his last two minions had just finished murdering seven women and a few cops when they were taken down and dragged to this small station. One of those cops was the rookie's daddy. She is a bird with a broken wing, but picking up where he left off.

What continues is a decently produced & directed scary jump movie but oh so filled with the tiring irrationalities of someone being messed with by ghosts. Even once she starts putting two and two together, she doesn't summon other cops or go running into the night. Nope, stay by the phone, investigate every fricking noise and ignore the anal retentive placement of crime scene photos placed on the hallway floor. She even doesn't get phased by the friendly ghost of her father's partner, who again, just messes with her. She stays when she should go and she doesn't tell the people she should.

The trope after trope display goes nowhere and ends up in the fulfillment of the murder cult's legacy -- to drag her down into hell with them, because her daddy took them down. With weird minor hints of an evil older than the Devil, she doesn't stand a chance against them. Both Marmy and I wished the movie could have had her pick up in a battle against these creatures of the shadows, maybe finally assisted by her daddy or his hole-in-his-head partner. Alas no, she just kills Joe and has to be put out of her own misery.

3 Short Paragraphs: A Walk Among the Tombstones

2014, Scott Frank (writer The Wolverine, Get Shorty) -- netflix

Will Liam Neeson ever step out from the shadow of Taken? Does he even care to? He's 63 this year, so the idea of playing as many action star type roles is probably appealing, before he is relegated to only the Old Man roles. Since becoming the guy with a specific set of skills, people accept him as the quiet, stable man capable of great violence, and that lends itself to crime fiction. This one, based on the novel by Lawrence Block, is the kind of middle of the road work, more an enhanced TV episode than striking motion picture, but it was solid and I enjoyed it.

Scudder is an ex-cop from the 90s, with the short trench and goatee back then, ex because he was involved in the shooting of three would-be armed robbers who shot the owner of his favourite bar. He was drunk at the time, angry in his retribution and careless in his response. He is now a recovering alcoholic working the unlicensed private eye job, doing jobs for people, looking much as we just plain Neeson. That day long ago haunts him, but not for the reasons we think.

The snapshot on one instant of his life, that we have as the plot of the movie, is where he is approached by a local drug lord whose wife has been kidnapped. The drug lord cannot go to the cops, of course.  Scudder rejects his request but changes his mind when the drug lord explains the full story; that his wife is already dead; the ransom paid but they killed and dismembered her anyway. What follows is a classic crime investigation of the seedy underbelly, well The Seedy Underbelly,  because that is where these stories always occur. But Neeson is give more here, more to chew on, more to present to us, more to think about, as he investigates the serial kidnappings & killings and makes decisions about who he is working for, why and who he is up against. Its an unremarkable movie but I rather recommend it. In much the way I am happy to see actors acting, in all range of movies, I am happy to see a decently movie created, for a director has to direct, even if it isn't Oscar worthy, as long as they do it with heart and concerted effort.

DC Animated times 4

Son of Batman (2014, d. Ethan Spaulding) - netflix
Justice League: War (2014, Jay Oliva) - netflix
Batman: Assault on Arkham (2014, Jay Oliva, Ethan Spaulding) - netflix
Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts (2015, Butch Lukic) - Teletoon

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DC Entertainment's direct-to-video animation wing has been steadily cranking out animated features for almost a decade now, with seemingly more and more productions being released each year.  Despite being a pretty huge DC fan (well, I was anyway) and was a fairly religious watcher of their animated output (particularly their Batman and Superman animated runs leading into Justice League in the 90's and early 2000's), it didn't take long before I not only stopped buying their new animated movies but began ignoring them altogether.

Though originally starting as original stories, or at least semi-original stories inspired loosely by existing story lines, the run of DC Animated movies quickly devolved into lazily adapting existing stories.  I had read most of the stories being adapted (or I purposely skipped them for disliking the creative team) so I had no real need to invest any more time or money into these animated features.  The features I had seen to that point, like Justice League: New Frontier, Green Lantern: First Flight or All-Star Superman just didn't feel very satisfying.  They took long form stories and compressed them into a rougly 75-minute animated feature and that compression never seemed to serve the story particularly well.  The fact that there was no continuity between features and the voice casts would change dramatically from one to the next also didn't help maintain my interest.  The biggest problem I saw at the time was they were adapting fairly recent stories, one which were already well enough told and available, when they could have gone back into DC's deep, deep repositories and found some vintage stories and updated them for modern audiences but in a new medium.

The final straw for me was when The New 52 hit (wherein DC Comics cancelled their entire line of books and relaunched their entire universe with different and in some cases radically altered versions of their characters) and the DC Animated features coming out were reflecting these so very recent stories.  I was already quite disinterested in the New 52.  Animated adaptations seemed like the furthest thing I was interested in.

So, after so long, why the recent spell of DC Animated watching?  I'm not exactly sure. Partly a burning desire to watch something with superheroes in it, and having only a shorter amount of time to spare, and even a little curiosity.

Of the four I watched in the past two weeks, Son of Batman is perhaps the most egregious example of what I dislike about these animated features. It runs at a stilted pace, the characters don't feel connected to one another at all, and the animation gets lazy (when the man-bats spew out of the ocean there seems like hundreds of them taking to skies as the same animation repeats itself, but moments later it only looks like a couple dozen actually flying out there, with what looks like the same image of Man-bat repeated over and over but at different sizes to fake out some depth).  There's a lot of animated nonsense, things happening on screen to create action or visual drama but are utterly pointless, and a lot of egregious death but with no real sense of any relevance to death.

  This film is a very loose adaptation of Grant Morrison's initial Batman run from a few years back (though he's not even given story credit) which introduces Bruce Wayne's son, Damian, into the DCU.  It was a storyline I wasn't very fond of, but this is a poorer rendition of it.  The voice casting isn't bad (Jason O'Mara makes a decent Batman) but again, it just doesn't feel like the actors are relating to one another (in all likelihood they're recording their lines separately) and there no warmth at all to it.  Plus, they didn't even have Damien do his trademark teeth-sucking "tt".

But it was watching Justice League: War and noting Jason O'Mara again as Batman that I realized that this current spate of DC Animated movies was looking to tie together as a cohesive universe, using a consistent voice team and  a small stable of directors).  The "War" story is based off the first story arc of the New 52 Justice League, by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee.  That storyline also served as a complete reintroduction to the DC Universe for the readers at the time, so there was a lot of groundwork it was trying to lay.  A lot of that ground-building spills into this feature, such that there's no sense of familiarity between the characters (Flash and Green Lantern have met prior though), everyone gets an introduction but few get an actual story (pretty much only Cyborg and Shazam have what could be described as a character arc here).

War isn't terrible, it's almost saved by a surprisingly quippy Green Lantern (a role usually reserved for the Flash), but at the same time it doesn't really fulfill the needs of a movie very well.  It feels like a pilot episode of a new program, introducing things, but unsure of itself or where it's really going to wind up.  The post-credits sequence hint at Aquaman's arrival, leading into the Justice League: Throne of Atlantis feature released this year (based off another comic-book arc from the same series).  Likewise Son Of Batman received a sequel this year in Batman vs Robin, again loosely adapting events from the Morrison run, and followed by Batman: Bad Blood to come next year, delving into Morrison's Batman and Robin run wherein Dick Grayson takes over as Batman and Damian's mentor.

Stepping aside from adaptation though, there's Batman: Assault on Arkham which actually takes place in the Batman/Arkham video game universe, something I'm largely unfamiliar with.  This film is largely a Suicide Squad movie, with Batman taking a supporting role, and what it does so brilliantly is manage to navigate all three of the DC Comics Universe, the classic DC Animated Universe and the Arkham videogame universe almost effortlessly.  Returning is the ultimate Batman voice actor, Kevin Conroy, as well as CCH Pounder returning as Amanda Waller, while Troy Baker does a mean impersonation of Mark Hamill's Joker, as does Hynden Walch of Harley Quinn pulling back the DC Animated vibe into it, while the look and feel draws completely from the video games (though it's not nearly as dark, the character designs, including Batman's weird pupils, are here), and overall it feels like a Suicide Squad story (more modern Squad than classic '80's but still not bad).

Son of Batman was a pretty bloody affair, but it was also blindly so.  As characters wound their way through piles of ninjas, cleaving them with swords, or tearing down man-bats, they were so faceless that they were the utmost of expendable, and their fights were meaningless.  In Assault on Arkham, we're watching bad people (the Suicide Squad is a team of criminals who are forced into serving the government to perform dirty tasks for which they need maximum deniability) invade a maximum security criminal asylum in order to achieve their objective (finding a particular Maguffin) but obviously things aren't clean and the bad people start killing prison guards.  Though sometimes played for laughs, each guard killed feels like a tiny punch in the gut.  We're along for the ride with Deadshot, Harley and company, and as such we're rooting for their success, in a way, but at the same time, it's almost better if they're stopped.   Which is why Batman flits around in the background.  By having a real hero partiicpate in the proceedings it continually reminds us just how bad the people at the center of the story are.

Assault on Arkham is a definite "mature audiences" picture, and not for the kids.  There's excessive violence and plenty of swearing and it feels quite natural.  It feels like an "R" rated production that isn't held back by anything, allowing the creative team to tell the story they set out to tell.  That it's an original story is also definitely in its favor as it allows for an "anything can happen" vibe.  Set loose from the constraints of any continuity it really does manage to surprise and occasionally shock, but it also entertains quite well to.  The action sequences are not only well done, but inventive, with more than a few moves that I've never seen before (Batman's facepalm to Harley was a classic).  Quite easily the best of the DC Animated features to date, one I'd more than likely revisit multiple times.

Finally, there's Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts, the first of a new line of direct-to-video movies meant to promote and sell toys, namely the awfully ugly Batman Unlimited line.  Normally a new toy line gets an accompanying Saturday morning or weekday cartoon to keep the toys fresh in kids minds, so this tactic of forcing them to buy it is kind of counter-intuitive.  It presumes buy-in on the toy line in advance, rather than promoting it.

This new Unlimited series takes place in an alternate world (well, even more alternate than usual superhero stories), one where there's flying cars and all building seem to be sky scrapers and the police aren't that keen on superheros.  It's sort of a Blade Runner/Fifth Element  kind of vibe.  This story finds Batman, Nightwing, Red Robin, Flash, Green Arrow (the latter two included more than likely because of their prominent TV series) squaring off against the Penguin and a cadre of animal-themed villains (including Cheetah and Killer Croc) and a trio of robotic animals, as they try to suss out what is their master plan.

Though the futuristic setting is kind of ho-hum, and the costume designs are largely terrible, this wasn't actually that bad of a feature.  It's pretty juvenile compared to most other DC Animated features, but that's for the best given what its purpose is.  The characters, even Batman, are pretty light on their toes, so there's a lot of fun quipping and creative fights happening on screen (plus the Flash is very much a Wally West-style Flash, so that's welcome any day), and the overall scenario is kind of silly in a big, grand, 1960's suppervillain manner, so it pretty much demands that you don't take it too seriously.  Good for the kids, for sure

Overall, beyond Assault on Arkham these DC Animated features haven't exactly inspired me to dig deeper into the back catalog, but now with such easy access as they crop up more and more on Netflix, I just might when I'm bored or short on time.

3 Short Paragraphs: Insurgent

2015, Robert Schwentke (Red, R.I.P.D) -- download

Next up we have the sequel, next in the series, of Hunger Games Light. Dystopia, teenage girl protagonist, rebellion against a more power authority. And like the second Hunger Games, the second Divergent is where things really rebel. And yet, again, I am still not sure how being divergent plays into anything other than as a DNA marker for being a rebel. Whatever, not important. It's now a DNA marker for being insurgent.

The first ended with the main character running away, after exposing the evil leaders corrupting their form of government (a society broken into like minded ideals like intelligence, strength, selflessness, etc.) through mind control, deception and eradication. The hero(ine) runs away into... well, we are not quite sure, but I assume it had to be outside that really cool wall that surrounds the post apoc ruins of Chicago. I mean, they do farm out there, at least just outside the walls. But waaaay beyond the wall, only monsters lie. But no, apparently there was a wooded area we were previously unaware of and the farmers also live there. It's green, it's rural but it's still inside the wall. And that is where the gang ran.

The rest of the movie is a choppy bunch of terrible editing (terrible editing? probably technically fine but story wise, it blew) and an entirely forgettable plot about the evil leaders pretending they hadn't been exposed and carrying on with their previous nefarious, albeit derailed plans. Previously, being divergent meant you couldn't be mind controlled but that is no longer relevant, so now, being divergent means you potentially can open a bright battery powered box. This box supposedly has the original society designer's plans. Why the society designer would leave that hidden away inside of a poorly hidden analogy for Pandora's Box, I am not sure. But you need ____gent people to open it. So, scene scene scene after irrelevant scene leads to opening the box and finding out that divergent people were the plan all along. Society designers just like to fuck with people, so it seems. Just look at The Maze Runner if you doubt me.

3 Short Paragraphs: Getaway

2013, Courtney Solomon (Dungeons & Dragons) -- Netflix

In 13 years, this poor guy has directed 3 movies including the reviled D&D movie. But he has a ton of producer credits, so I guess he sticks to his strengths. Dungeons & Dragons was not Asylum level bad but it was not a very good movie and, well, neither is this one. Honestly, the only reason I was attracted to it was Ethan Hawke, and the plot kind of reminded me of Drive, the short lived series starring Nathan Fillion, i.e. guy's wife is kidnapped and he is forced to drive fast or never get her back.

So, yeah, a guy's wife is kidnapped so he has to drive fast fast fast in order to get her back. But here's the twist, the car is stolen, modded with webcams and The Internet (!!!) and the car's original owner, spoiled brat Selena Gomez still looking no more than 14 but all streeted up in ballcap and hoodie, finds the car and jumps in to steal it back. The Voice, John Voight with bad teeth and an even worse Eastern European accent, is the bad guy forcing Ethan (and Selena once she jumps in) to do the driving, watching & controlling events through the car's mods. This all takes place in a nameless (or I plain forgot) European city, so the real demographic is the same audience that Uwe Boll made use of, the resell market over there.

Not only does the movie not make much sense, not convince us Selena is a tech wiz who can hackety hack her car and the city, but it has some unbelievably glaring errors. Almost immediately after Selena gets stuck in the car, Ethan tosses her cell phone out the window so she won't call the cops, another appears in her hands. It reappears and becomes integral to the plot. She didn't have a second and they could have just edited that scene out, but no, and Solomon probably just didn't care enough. The rest of the movie is supposed to be fast driving but the city is so crowded and cobblestone streeted, he spends most of the time shifting. It wanted to be Bourne Meets Furious Vin Diesel but ended up kind of boring and frustrating.

3 Short Paragraphs: Inherent Vice

2014, Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master) -- download

No, not Paul WS Anderson of Resident Evil "fame".

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of those directors I expect is on the "needs to be watched" lists created by film aficionados. I still remember the buzz when Magnolia came out, with all the intertwining stories and extended cast. All of his movies get a lot of critical acclaim but I still wonder if they are popular with audiences. Not that it matters; I respect a creator that sticks to their ideal without all the bullshit we get when trying to make a movie popular & box office generating.

At its heart, the movie is a noir detective mystery. We get Doc, a hippy pothead in the 70s who runs a private eye business out of a medical clinic in Gordita Beach. His ex Shasta, the ex that he never got over, visits him and tells him of a conspiracy involving her new boyfriend, a local land magnate. And thus begins a twisted, convoluted tale that may or may not be exacerbated by paranoid drug delusions on Doc's part. Murder, conspiracy and politics all interweave, as they do in all the best noir, with the weird hint of humor from wacked out hippy culture.

There are a lot of characters in this movie, a LOT. From Bigfoot Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), the abusive cop with self image issues, to the dentist cum crime lord Dr. Blatnoyd (Martin Short) to land baron Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) to police informant / musician Coy Harlingen (Owen Wilson) to... it goes on. There's even a noirish narrator who doesn't actually seem to be part of the story, so maybe just a voice in Doc's head. It's a fun ride, all 1970s LA style where we focus on the flat, laid our architecture and geography as we do the clothing and cars. The paranoia of state vs hippy is as much a theme in the movie as a bad trip. I was just never quite sure the plot was as convoluted as Doc made it out to be.

P.S. The posters are a real treat, so I broke my unwritten rule and posted the best one.

3 Short Paragraphs: What We Do in the Shadows

2014, Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi (Flight of the Conchords) -- download

Yeah, Taika was the "Pieface" character in the Green Lantern movie. Imagine taking that resume entry to your grave.

Taika and Jemaine are part of the creative force behind the TV show Flight of the Conchords; Taika is not the other half of the comedy duo, but has worked with Jemaine in The Humorbeasts. Its not surprising the New Zealand comedy is small and intertwining. This movie, for example, pairs the two playing vampires living together. Yep, a group of differently aged vampires all doing the roommate thing for convenience and safety. But you know how well roommates get on after a time.

The movie is done mockumentary style, with Taika's Viago, an effete Anne Ricean vampire, trying to hold it together with the other three, while protecting the documentary team. Jemaine is Vladislav, the Dracula analog but not as sexually alluring & scary as he used to be. Deacon is the youngest of the lot, and the dick roommate. And Petyr is 8000 years old, gone all nosferatu in his old age.

Who does the dishes? Who cleans up the bodies? Who gets the blood? What do they do on weekends? How do they interact with the local werewolf bro pack? These are the comedic elements exposed to somewhat success. The movie does well to cover the one liners and standup punchlines early on, so they can drop into a story -- what happens when their Renfield brings her ex over to be food, but he ends up being made into a new vampire. So, new roomie. The comedy is subdued, very non-American, very much clinging to sketch comedy TV roots. Things never really go anywhere, but in enough direction to remind you, "Oh yeah, documentary crew."

Fantastic Four

2015, Josh Trank (Chronicle) -- cinema

Goshdarnnits, why do a bunch of bro's have to come into my theatre, sit directly in front of me and kill my quiet, enjoyable viewing of one. Texting, talking and laughing at each other's jokes, I almost got up and walked to demand my money back. But, as it turns out, even if they had been more civilized, I doubt I would have enjoyed the movie.

Yeah, Fantastic Four was a terrible movie. And not terribly bad but still fun. Just terrible. More so than I expected.

This movie has been getting a bad rap since Trank came on board. He did Chronicle back in 2012, and by my writing of it back then (dude, do some editing) you would think I didn't enjoy it. What I didn't enjoy were the characters; shallow, selfish and typical of today's commenting generation. No thinking, all action --- the kids, not the movie. They brought him in because he did "gritty superhero" well, but no, he really didn't. There is nothing fully "gritty" (whatever that means) about Chronicle, but for the fact it drops the trappings of the superhero genre, most obviously, the heroics.  But I did enjoy how he did the movie, the layout, the pacing and the run to the Akira style finish line. I had hope he would be allowed to do something very non-Marvel Studios, and definitely non-DC with this franchise.

After the middling lack of success of the other Fantastic Four movies, he was asked to make the characters a little darker, a little more grounded, and to draw just a little on the Marvel Ultimate universe, which did so well in Avengers. That quickly drew the ire of the fanbase. But really, when can you not draw the ire of some segment of the fanbase. Rabid fanboys (a cross gender term) are so very very tiring in their desire to have everything according to how they believe it should be. I am sure 1970s Fantastic Four fans hate Ultimate Universe and current prime universe fans find the old stuff boring. They will never be happy and the Internet is not happy unless they are complaining.

But then darker things started to come out of the reporting world, leveraged by today's social media. Trank was a tyrant, Trank was having issues with executives and resisting re-writes, the cast didn't like him. Not sure if I trust the earlier, and why wouldn't they resist the latter; that's Hollywood norm? And he wrecked a rented house? Sounds like Trank had issues across the board no matter how he interacted with the cast & crew. While being a jerk doesn't necessarily mean you make a bad movie, it sure sounds like it contributed.

The primary problem I have with this movie is the pacing and dialogue. There seem to be no real conversations, just line after line after line after line. Its all short sentences and exclamations. Nobody ever seems to really say anything to anyone else. There is no sincerity in any of their interactions, but for some heartfelt pleading from Franklin Storm. And its never really ever a story. Its just an introduction of characters, and conflict.

The plot seems riddled with "what the?" elements. For example, Reed Richards is a kid genius developing a teleportation machine in his garage. Through middle school all the way to high school he is working on it. But the teaching staff thinks he is an idiot. How can a supra-genius level theoretical physicist and engineer not get the top grades, not be seen as a shining star in his school? Someone would catch that. But no, useless conflict for the sake of it. High school science fair with nine year olds presenting beside him.

He is picked out of high school and sent on a scholarship to the Franklin Foundation. Scholarship; but one that barely seems to have any education to it, just a slaved assignment to work on their teleportation machine. There are so many times when the plot could have been served by some small details, to lead us gently from one scene to the next. Connecting threads. Reed might be really good at assembling junk in his garage, but apparently can magically carry that skill to bigger, more complicated equipment. He seems to have no engineering staff and does the welding himself. Seriously, why the fuck would he be welding pieces of metal together instead of working on the delicate machinery and algorithms that will make this machine transport matter from one place to another?!? For that matter, why the fuck is Sue Storm (whose only exposure to what her genius really is, is comments on pattern recognition) assigned to sew together the space suits?!?! She's a fucking genius, make some use of her!! Film creators have to step back and see the acts they are creating, and the follow up shooting fills in some details. That seemed to have been ignored here.

The dark, gritty part of the movie is supposed to come from the post-Get Powers act, where they turn Ben Grimm into a killing machine and are training Sue & Johnny to be the same. Reed has run/slithered away to Panama, and when we are supposed to understand it was so he could study what happened to them, to find a "cure". But we are never shown any emotional conflict on his part, for abandoning his friends, especially his best friend Ben. None of this would not have happened if drunk Reed hadn't teleported the gang into another universe on a whim. There should be some sort of emotion from Reed regarding this, but honestly, its because the stringing together of lines and scenes never allow for it. Try and explain it away with some references to Reed being an emotionally crippled genius somewhere on The Spectrum, but the actual movie doesn't support that.

Do I know whether to blame Trank or the second and third unit directors brought in later to reshoot and add and splice together the final film?  I have no clue. I am not skilled enough in Hollywood nuances to catch it, but I suspect both. We are left with a movie that has refraining to care about the characters, not even deeming to care about the Big Event that happens. There are little in the way of heroics, little in the way of emotional development and nothing likable to hold onto.

I am desperately trying to remember any scene that appealed to me, anything I enjoyed. The effects are serviceable, the camera work is acceptable. Ben Grimm looks good but damn, they should have given him pants -- he ain't no Donald Duck.

Superheroic Sequels, Remakes, Firsties and Failures

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 2014, d. Mark Webb
Avengers: Age of Ultron - 2015, d. Joss Whedon

(Rewatch) Iron Man 2 - 2010, d. Jon Favreau

(Rewatch) The Incredible Hulk - 2008, d. Louis Leterrier

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 2014, d. Jonathan Liebsman
Ant-Man - 2015, d. Peyton Reed
The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? - 2015, d. John Schnepp

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It's not that sequels can't be good, but it's a sequel's ability to capitalize upon what made the first film successful without sacrificing story, character or artistic expression that seems to be inherently tricky.  Not that I have anything other than a distant observer's impression of how films are made in the Hollywood system, but it seems that studio heads and producers always like to think of themselves as being the smartest people in the room, and also that whatever successes they have had they attribute to their savvy know-how and little to do with the actual talented directors, writers, actors and craftspeople involved.  As such sequels seem to get green lit with "more of these things from last time, plus whatever else is hot right now" attitude, rarely with any sense that aspects of cinema generally only work in context, not in a vacuum.

Batman Returns, Tim Burton's follow-up to the first superhero blockbuster in a decade, set an abhorrent precedent for what a sequel should be, creating a template that's continually mimicked but never properly understood.  By introducing two super-villains and centering the film on them, almost every sequel in the genre that has followed since (starting with Batman Forever) had done the same: more villains, more heroes, more big name casting, more, more, more, without ever truly understanding that it's actually having a story to tell that makes the endeavor worthwhile.  (A story is told in the documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened in which Tim Burton, in preparing for Batman Returns, expressed a strong dislike for superhero films.  When asked then why he was making a sequel, he replied that he wanted to apply the lessons learned and knowledge he'd gained from doing the first one to a film and do it right.  Batman Returns feels so much more like a Tim Burton film as a result).  The most notorious offenders in this light are probably Spider-Man 3 and Batman and Robin but they're far from the only bad ones.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is perhaps the most egregious example in the genre in modern day.  Not only are studios trying to make their films bigger while still using a 20-year-old outdated reference point they don't truly understand in doing so, but now they're under pressure to replicate Marvel's success of building a cinematic universe that spans multiple successful franchises while being loosely bound together.  The Amazing Spider-Man was itself an attempt to run away from the mistakes of the very recent past by starting again fresh, but it's like whatever lessons Sony had though they had learned were forgotten completely under the weight of having to keep up with the Marvel studios Joneses. If The Amazing Spider Man 2 is watchable at all, it's because it utterly coasts on the charming relationship between Emma Watson and Andrew Garfield, which heralds back to Mark Webb's original success as the indie-rom-com director of 500 Days of Summer.

Everything else in the film is an overwrought, convoluted mess (the poster above kind of sets the tone, don't it?).  A storyline set up from the first film, involving Peter Parker's parents and their disappearance, is revisited in the lengthy opening action sequence aboard an airplane that forgets to remind you in any way that this is a movie about Spider-Man, a guy who slings webs and crawls on walls.  The film then, busily, introduces Paul Giamatti as a Russian Gangster who Spider-Man stops, Jamie Foxx as a nebbish Oscorp employee Spider-Man saves, and some wholly unnecessary conflict in Peter and Gwen's relationship after the death of her dad in the last movie (the least of which being Peter's post-traumatic stress which he never deals with).  There's lots of hiding around Aunt May shenanigans, Peter delving into the mystery of his dad's disappearance, and the sudden reappearance of Harry Osborne and Peter's best friend from childhood (/Peter's best friend from the previous film series, for shorthand).  

Foxx is actually quite engaging as Max Dillon, even if he is quite literally playing a character straight out of Revenge of the Nerds.  If the film had focused on him as its sole villain and how he intersects with Peter's life, it would have made for a nice point-counterpoint between Peter as a well-socialized nerd-with-a-girlfriend and Max's I-make-people-wholly-uncomfortable-when-I'm-around-type nerd, pitting them as two similar people who make such different choices.  But Max, despite being the headline villain, is a minor part of the film.  Harry Osborne and his unscrupulous search for a cure for himself (the cure his father failed to find) winds up making him, and Oscorp as a whole, the central villain (there are articles online about how everything, literally, in this film revolves around Oscorp).

The film juggles it's seemingly dozens of plot threads with little success in any of them, exhausting the audience in the process (despite --or because of-- their incredible chemistry, the on-again-off-again Peter and Gwen story is its most aggravating).  By the time the big, equally overstuffed climax occurs (why do these films always seem to end with a big, visually cluttered cgi mess of an action sequence?), leading to yet another death on Peter's conscience, the film seems to have lost any sense of clarity on the journey its young hero is supposed to take.  All the while the film is setting up more and more Oscorp-created super villains (including Giamatti in a giant, mechanical rhinoceros suit of armor) for both sequels and spin-offs, not realizing that it's "more is more" drove the whole franchise aground.  

Despite making $700million plus worldwide, critical reaction was punishing and the audience reaction was a resounding "we're good thanks".  Such a brutal reception has driven Sony to it's third reboot of the character in less than a decade, and turning to Marvel studios to help them do it right.

But is that the right thing to do?

Marvel Studios has produced two phases of cinematic universe-building consisting of  a dozen films over an incredible 7-year span, and creating some of the biggest blockbusters ever in the offing.  But if you look there are some missteps and mistakes, with Avengers: Age of Ultron being the latest example.

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Coming out of the massive success of the first Avengers, one would think Joss Whedon would have had carte blanche to do what he wanted with the franchise.  Being a supreme geek, creator of fan-favourite (legion-following) television shows, and an expert juggler of action, comedy, drama and character, particularly in an ensemble setting, he proved with the Avengers what every Buffy, Angel and Firefly fan has known for two decades: he's talented and he gets it, so it would make sense that Marvel would just let him cut loose with a second Avengers.  But, as noted in my preamble, the studio and executives always know best, and their influence on the end result has created a mediocre picture where another massive blockbuster should have been.

Now, I'm a couple months removed from Age of Ultron and I only managed one viewing in the theatre despite wanting to see it again, so writing this "review" I have to couch it with the context of hazy memories.  When I see a big nerd film like Age of Ultron -- where the news and rumours movie sites have been dissecting trailers and reporting on all manner of conjecture and hearsay and fan theories -- the first viewing is always a result of measuring the film against what I've been told to expect.  In such regard, where I was looking to it to set up another 5 years of Marvel films, it was a failure, both in what it actually did manage to set up and what it didn't dare to do.

Age of Ultron isn't an awful film, it's actually a quite exciting and enjoyable one, but it features some choice moments of Marvel Cinematic Universe bloat that interfere with it being a great film like the first one.  Most notoriously is the executive interference mandating non-sequitur scenes which exist solely to set up future movies.  Where a Whedon-driven sequence with Ulysses Klaw adds some international James Bondian excitement that further deepens the MCU and also happens to insinuate some elements for a forthcoming Black Panther feature, it's also a useful part of the movie, providing Ultron with an indestructible body that becomes the Maguffin for the second act.   Likewise, Whedon was certainly made aware of the plans for a Civil War sequel for Captain America, and he delivers some beautifully executed sequences putting Cap and Iron Man verbally at odds with each other that will prove prescient to the uninformed upon Civil War's release. However, there's also a studio-mandated sequence where Thor goes off on his own to wade in a hot spring and have some visions which have a story-stunting effect on the film, truly killing the pacing and confounding audiences everywhere.  There's little to no purpose of this scene in the movie, beyond setting up the third Thor installment (more than a year in advance).  

Whedon has written comics and has certainly read his fair share.  He understands the shared-universe conceit intrinsically and negotiates not just the events of one prior movie but a half dozen while still understanding the bigger picture going forward.  The producers trusted him to do so, but only to an extent, and then you can tell they started forcing things upon him which he didn't believe in as a writer or director, and the film suffers for it.

On the one hand Age of Ultron is utterly over-stuffed with too many characters to give them all their due.  Suffering the most are the newest characters, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who have the unfortunate circumstance of not being established characters already.  With the film bringing almost all the major players (minus the noted absences of Jane Foster and Pepper Potts, and the no-place-for-him Loki) back together, anyone new beyond the central villain, is getting the short shrift.  Even the established characters at times feel slighted by the edit as is (knowing there was an earlier edit of the film running an hour longer doesn't help the film feel like it's missing scenes any less), but Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has a funny adversarial relationship with Hawkeye but has nothing more meaningful in the way of characterization than that.  Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olson) doesn't get much more than a pep talk.  What's more, they're supposed to be Eastern European which leads the actors to have uneven, awkward accents which help none (not to forget that X-Men: Days of Future Past had its own Quicksilver who was showcased in the film's standout sequence, something this film didn't even deign to try and top...it seemed to concede the better Quicksilver to Fox)

Much has been said of Black Widow's speech revealing her past, and the horrors she faced as a trainee in the Russian spy program, leading up to her being rendered sterile so that family wouldn't interfere with her espionage priorities.  There was a notable outcry damning the scene, but in a film that features parenting as a heavy narrative thrust (a major point is Tony Stark's role as father to Ultron), exploring this side of Widow is largely problematic because there are no other female characters on the team to represent anything else.  If that scene shows any weakness in the character, it's a vulnerability she's willing to present only to a person she loves. But also, remember, this in a scene where her romantic partner was showing his vulnerability as a byproduct of science-gone-wrong.  In a film where Widow needs to placate the Hulk in order to keep him from going out of control, Natasha once more needs to placate the man in order to keep him from just walking out (but it didn't work ultimately).  Many, many fans did not like the Black Widow/Bruce/Hulk relationship in the film (because it's one that's never existed in the comics, and fans are like that) but I thought the end result was quite fascinating, unexpected, and showed something intriguing in both of them.  My personal thought was that given how intensely her first encounter with the Hulk shook her in the first Avengers movie, she made a play for a relationship with Bruce as a means of taking control of her own fear.

Age of Ultron is not as direly messed up a sequel as so many other superhero films, but it's the first product of the Marvel Studios design that requires full buy-into the Marvel Studios design.  If you've not invested in at least some of the MCU up until now, and aren't ready to get excited about what's to come, this movie will make little sense or be of little interest.  Where one could step into The Avengers or even Captain America: Winter Soldier and be tremendously entertained, you have to want to see Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Thor and the Hulk together as your driving thrust to see the picture.  You have to want to see multiple new heroes come on the screen (and I didn't even talk about Vision).  You have to want to be teased for more films down the pipe.  You have to care about all these maguffins that will form the Infinity Gauntlet and give a crap about what it all means.  I'm a huge big comic nerd and this is long been my dream of how films should be, but now that films are like this, they're perhaps a bit too much inside their own little world to be completely accessible.  A film should be entertaining on it's own, and Age of Ultron is, but only too a point.  It seems like a slippery slope these films are going down, becoming accessible only for those who have poured over the whole back catalog multiple times and get the set up and pay off that's happening.

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Taking a step back, there's Marvel Studios biggest mess, Iron Man 2, which makes Age of Ultron look like Citizen Kane.  That's a tad hyperbolic.  A more apt comparison, if Iron Man is the Godfather, Iron Man 3 would be the Godfather 2 while Iron Man 2 would be the Godfather 3. 

This is textbook sequel-gone-wrong, still looking at the Batman Returns model of "more more more".  There's two new villains, taking a suddenly hot commodity, Mickey Rourke (coming off his career reviving The Wrestler) and putting him in a central role as Ivan Vanko, aka Whiplash, a Russian gangster/inventor whose father got cheated by Tony Stark's father and now he's looking for revenge.  Meanwhile Sam Rockwell plays a corporate head who is not as smart or talented as Tony Stark and suffers in his shadow.  Using every angle possible (including bringing in Whiplash) he steals Tony's technology, and threatens to commoditize it, not realizing how determined or resourceful his new partner is.

Rourke's Vanko is a scenery chewing nutball who makes for an interesting incidental character at best.  It would seem that Vanko was non-existent or only a minor character in the initial draft of the film but bolstered tremendously when Rourke was wooed aboard.  There's a comedic bent to the entire picture (much like the first one) but Rourke plays everything so sternly, even his weirdness is more intimidating than amusing, completely out of place.  Rockwell nails the tone perfectly and was likely intended to be the main villain, but seems unintentionally overshadowed here.  Too much time is spent on Vanko, and it's Tony Stark that suffers for it.

The story gives Stark two plots too many.  There's a heavy-handed living-up-to-his-father's-legacy story that finds him resurrecting the Stark Expo (an exhibit for great minds), which also has a hidden mystery from Howard Stark to be discovered (just like Amazing Spider-Man 2, a mystery from dad!).  He's also struggling to keep the American military at bay as the political system (including an unexpected cameo from Garry Shandling) attempts to force him to relish his technology, and then there's his massive ego which seems to be getting in his way of actually doing the good he wants to do.  And then there's a whole lot of business with S.H.I.E.L.D. for the sole purpose of seeding the Marvel Cinematic Universe leading into The Avengers, which puts Black Widow into the picture (not an unwelcome presence, but an unnecessary one thoroughly).  Not to mention Tony and Pepper exploring whether their relationship actually works, and also his friendship with Rhodey is strained because of Rhodey's military commitments.

Unlike Age of Ultron, which endeavors to have only one plot (with a couple of thematic through-lines and related character-driven sub-plots), Iron Man 2 has too many plots and too many sub-plots pulling Tony Stark in multiple directions.  Abandoning the Howard Stark mystery would have slimmed the film down a fair bit, as would have trimming the Vanko role to something smaller and scaling back or eliminating S.H.I.E.L.D. altogether.  It's actually not badly done, it's just overdone, overstuffed sometimes to the point of tedium.  It unfortunately sunk Jon Favreau's involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (he did reprise his role as Happy Hogan in Iron Man 3 so there was obviously no ill will in the separation), which is too bad, considering as how he practically launched the thing from his shoulders.  Iron Man 2 seemed like it was guided by the studio into its unfortunate shape, a lesson they learned for a time, but seem perilously close to repeating.

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The second film from Marvel Studios was a rapid relaunch of their Hulk franchise after both a critical and audience drubbing of the Ang Lee rendition earlier in the decade (I still quite like it, though I know I'm a very small minority).  After the success of Iron Man and the very popular post-credits sequence with Sam Jackson as Nick Fury intoning a bigger universe to come, Marvel quickly made sure that this new Hulk feature would start building their new cinematic universe, making reference to Captain America, and featuring its own post-credits sequence that found Tony Stark stumping for the Avengers initiative.  Though changing some of the details of the Hulk's origin (making it a part of an attempt at recreating the super-soldier serum that gave Captain America his abilities), the film doesn't outright negate the Ang Lee movie.  Though all the actors are different, the film picks up in a way that could ostensibly follow the events of the first movie (Bruce is on the run, Ross is on the hunt, Betty has moved on). 

Whether it was the fact that audiences had been so recently burned by a Hulk movie, or that Ed Norton wasn't exactly the action hero people could get behind, or because the Hulk of the film frankly looked like a Rob Liefeld illustration come to CGI life, or because the film unironically looked to the 1970's TV series for inspiration, it remains the most modest performer of the MCU movies thus far.  The fact that Norton and the Marvel producers didn't see eye-to-eye on the future direction of the character led to him dropping out of the Avengers (replaced with the warmer, more charming Mark Ruffalo) quickly made The Incredible Hulk an outlier, and until recently, abandoned as part of the MCU (it was recently announced that William Hurt would reprise his role as General "Thunderbolt" Ross in Civil War). 

My thoughts upon rewatching the film haven't changed since I first saw it.  The opening act, which follows Bruce as he tries to escape the military and his past, by hiding out in Rio, is great, leading to a terrific chase sequence through the streets of Rio after they discover his location. The leader of the squad is Emil Blonsky (a terrifically miscast Tim Roth) who agrees to undergo a new super-soldier trial (extracted from Banner) in order to go toe-to-to with the monster.  The middle act works well as drama and romance as it finds Bruce returning home, at first avoiding Betty (who's shacking up with Modern Family's Ty Burrell in the role of psychiatrist Leonard Samson), but then requiring her help.  The military, as they do, track him down and Blonsky gets to test out his new strength against the Hulk, only to find he's lacking.  The Hulk flees with Betty, and Bruce is back on the run, but with company this time.  They track down the anonymous scientist that had been helping Bruce try to figure out a cure for himself, only to once more be found out by the military and Blonsky, further mutated as the Abomination starts to wreck New York.  This leads to an exceptionally tedious, unimaginative, poorly rendered animated fight between two behemoths on Yonge Street in Toronto (failing poorly as an imitation of Harlem) that just drags on.  This third act fight is such a bore that it kills the film almost in its entirety.

I want to like this movie more than I do.  I think \Norton is genuinely interesting as Bruce Banner, and conveys his struggle in a unique way.  Although I actually find the references charming, I still think it was a bad decision commercially to look to a television show from over two decades past as a means to revitalize a stalled franchise (particularly after Schumacher tried the same thing to less success).  The influence of the Bixby/Ferrigno TV show slows the film down and really makes the human character the focus, where I think audiences wanted more Hulk Smash (especially coming out of the Ang Lee film).  Why else did people love him in The Avengers so much?  I still wonder what a sequel with Tim Blake Nelson as the mutated, big-headed Leader would look like.  

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While The Incredible Hulk was a quasi-reboot/quasi-sequel, the Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was a full-on re-imagining.  Or at least that was was was rumoured ahead of the film's release with certain reports stating the Turtles would be aliens, rather than mutants.  Things got out of control especially once the insanely awkward new appearance of the Turtles was leaked.  Monstrous, hulking 7-feet tall turtles with noses, and overly-ornate samurai-inspired armor and decorations over their shells, these were not faithful representations of a much beloved franchise.  Plus putting the often oversexualized Megan Fox in the role of April O'Neil seemed immediately demeaning to the character, and rumors that beloved character actor William Fichtner would be playing Shredder (a Japanese character in the comics and cartoon), had the fanbase old and new writing off the film.

It's well established I'm not a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I've seen my fair share of comics, cartoons and motion pictures that I know what's up with them.  So, that said, this wasn't altogether that dishonest a representation of them, with only a few exceptions.

The Turtles act pretty much in character as we've come to know them. Leonardo is the one who respects Splinter's teachings the most and thus acts as the de-facto leader, though his brothers don't see him as such for much of the film.  The petty bickering of the Turtles remains.  Donatello is the smart, nerdy, tech-geek of the group, while Raphael is the angry rebel.  Mikey is, as always, the dumb one, the partier, the goofball.  The archetypes are fully at play here, in fact they're utterly relied upon as there is little to no characterization or character development happening here.  This film depends on advance awareness of who these characters are in order to care about them, because their relationship dynamics and individual personalities don't shine through all that much.

Fox does a respectable job as April (even if she does start the film out doing a news report puff piece on a trampoline), and she is the central figure of the film.  The film does that Hollywood thing where it needs to create a throughline for all the characters stories and it ties the origins of the Turtles to her (they were like her pets at one point, though they lived in a lab run by her father and Ficthner's character).  April is eyed and ogled by the Turtles, and her cameraman/driver (played by Will Arnett) has a deep crush on her, but despite the character objectification I don't recall the camera actively objectifying her (not like Bay's Transformers did anyway).

Fichtner turns out to be an associate of the Shredder's, working on a plan to release a disease upon the populace so that they can cash in off the cure.  There's an inkling that the writers wanted to inject some sort of commentary here, but either didn't commit or were told to abandon.  It's a kids movie afterall, and it does play like one.  My daughter is a big Turtles fan and she quite enjoyed it (though, like everyone, she wasn't entirely sold on the look of the characters).  It's bright and colorful (unlike the 90's film version which piggybacked off the shadows-and-neon aesthetic drawn from Tim Burton's Batman) with a few decent action set pieces and it's largely inoffensive, heck it's even mildly enjoyable if not exactly memorable.  It definitely could have been a lot worse.  (I hope the sequel goes for broke and does the Kraang invasion, as it's really the Turtles story everyone's been waiting to see on the big screen).

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Ant-Man as a character was surely not high on anyone's list of comic book superheroes needing big-screen translation.  He's a C-list character (despite being an Avenger) at best, he's never held his own highly successful comic, at least three different people have held the mantle, and the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym, has a troubled publication history of spousal abuse, insanity, and numerous superhero guises.  If anything was getting cinephiles excited about the idea of the film during the decade it was in development, it was the fact that Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim) was the man at the helm, writing and directing it.  

Wright makes smart, savvy, funny, unique movies that are blockbuster concepts executed in an avant garde fashion (and on respectable budgets).  He started Ant-Man before Marvel Studios was the record-breaking blockbuster machine it is today, so for a long time it felt like it could very much be the first big-time Edgar Wright film, one that played with the Marvel Universe but didn't feel so much a product of the usual Hollywood system.

Well, as is so well known, Wright left the project, after such a lengthy development, deep into pre-production.  He had already cast Paul Rudd in the lead role (Rudd's an unlikely heroic figure, and known primarily for his comedic sensibilities, so it was telling already as to what kind of film it would be), and his departure came after reports of numerous rewrites and studio demands changing the nature of the story he wanted to tell.  The cinephile response was doom and gloom, the Marvel Studios machine had finally gone off the rails, and the film without Wright at the helm would be a trainwreck (no, not the Judd Apatow film that also opened the same day).


New director Peyton Reed (a noted comedy director for TV and film) came on board quickly and Adam McKay (Anchorman director and co-writer) was brought in for re-writes, which seemed to indicate that Marvel was looking for its first action-comedy, and though the desire to see Wright's vision come to fruition still dominated the conversation, things weren't perhaps as dire as initially thought. 

Well, turns out, Ant-Man is pretty great.  As I watched the film I could see Edgar Wright's hand at play (he and Joe Cornish still get screenplay and producer credit) but it feels like a Marvel bastardization (meant in the nicest way possible) of a Wright film.  The obvious changes made stand out, the ones that tie Ant-Man into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.  They're fun, but they're distractions, asides almost, that impact the flow of the film's story.  They make it feel like a Marvel film, which is honestly great, but it's also quite apparent that a full on Edgar Wright film would have stood out from the pack, and perhaps not in a complimentary way (if Wright had made it his way in 2009, between Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk, it probably would have felt more at home). 

The plot of Ant-Man is two-fold: first there's the heist, as Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) enlists ex-convict Scott Lang to help break into his own technology company he was forced out of and sabotage or eliminate the particle shrinking technology they're on the cusp of mastering...using particle shrinking technology Pym created decades before.  Second, there's the story of redemption for both characters, particularly in the eyes of their respective daughters.  Hank's daughter Hope (Evangeline Lily) feels like she was abandoned by her father after her mother disappeared, while Scott doesn't want to be a criminal in his young daughter's eyes.  Where I think the tone of this, a Marvel movie, differs from what would have been Wrights movie is the thrust of turning Scott Lang into a superhero. I suspect Wright would have settled for just "hero" where here Reed and the Marvel Studios producers seem intent on making him Avengers-worthy (a showdown between Scott and Anthony Mackie's The Falcon from Captain America: Winter Soldier on the new Avengers facility grounds certainly works hard to prove this point).

As a heist movie, it's decent.  As a superhero movie, it's alright.  As an action movie it's okay.  As a comedy, it's fine.  But put all together it's really great, tremendously enjoyable.  It doesn't do anything so good that it overshadows everything else, it all just works quite well together.  The casting is tremendous, Rudd's Lang isn't particularly tough or overly special.  He's smart enough, has a particular skill-set, and is a little fearless.  Rudd provides the comedic chops, but also the emotional weight as well that you believe he's really ready to what needs to be done so that his daughter (and, well, everyone, including himself, can be respected).  Douglas, whom I've never been much of a fan of, honestly seems to be having fun in this film.  His Hank Pym is often cold, with a hint of rage and an equal hint of sadness just underneath.  Douglas has screen gravitas which gives the impression of great intellect without having to frequently demonstrate it (in actions or words).  He fills the mentor role well.  I loved Lily as Hope Van Dyne.  She played the duplicitous role, exceptionally well, working with the villain, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), while secretly working for Hank, though still harboring deep resentment for her father.  She wants so desperately to wear the Ant-Man suit, and probably could any time she wanted to, but doesn't because she's hoping to rebuild her relationship with her father, not damage it further.  Michael Pena is wonderful as the chief comic relief as Scott's fast-talking, highly excitable, surprisingly competent colleague-in-crime.  The film manages to navigate him as a funny character without making him pathetic or a joke.  Even Stoll, as the bad guy who ousted Hank from his own company, who seeks to use Hank's daughter against him, who seeks to uncover dangerous technology Hank intentionally hid away for profit, still has a narrative drive.  He's still stinging from Hank rejecting him as a pupil after mentoring him for some time.  Though spiting Hank's wishes to keep the technology buried, he still seeks to impress.

The film deals with my all-time favourite superhero concept, that of legacy.  It gives brilliant glimpses of Hank Pym in action back in the 1980's and deals with the weight of his actions from a prior era.  The element of legacy stems more from Hope than it does from Scott.  Her desire to take on the role, to be a part of her father's history seems very important, whereas Scott wants to respect it (as much out of respect to Hank as out of respect to a seething Hope).  The film also sees Scott pushing the capabilities of the suit even further than Hank was willing to go (part of the superhero legacy is to surpass the mentor).  Even Darren Cross is part of Hank's legacy, just an unwelcome one.  I love the sense of history the film has to build instead of being yet another origin story, and that it weaves into existing and builds new Marvel Cinematic Universe history is both fun and exciting.  There's all that, plus it heavily and knowingly manipulates its audience with more than a few sentimental father-daughter moments, all of which I absolutely loved and responded to (for obvious reasons).

I have little doubt that Wright would have made a better overall standalone film, however it wouldn't have been the same franchise-starting, universe-complimenting film this is.  In what was as big a gamble as Guardians of the Galaxy and possibly even bigger potential disaster given the behind-the-scenes activities, Ant-Man sort of restored my faith in Marvel Studios ability to produce the hell out of a movie.  Though interference in the creative process to satisfy the needs of another project can prove problematic (Age of Ultron), Marvel has shown that when you combine the right talent who can work with the system, that it works rather well.  (I suspect the big test will be Guardians of the Galaxy 2).

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Producer and studio interference happens with almost everyone but the most elite of filmmakers.  It comes from people who become successful off the backs of other people's creativity and vision egotistically thinking that it's their influence that resulted in success.  Producers get to be in that enviable position of having money and thus having say, satisfying a creative itch without really having to do any of the work to see it to fruition.  The Kickstarter-funded documentary The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? isn't meant as an exposee of this behaviour and yet it quite clearly highlights why some movies are really truly awful in the face of strong creative vision, or never even get made at all.  The amount of hands at play in a major studio film, particularly one that features a tentpole, iconic character, would naturally be numerous, but this documentary really expounds upon how much of a collaborative effort it is, and just how hard it is to get a film of this scope made.

Director John Schnepp proves a passionate narrator and solid interviewer for the film.  Through his successful Kickstarter campaign, he managed to draw enough attention to land key figures in the film's production as interview subjects, including producer Jon Peters, director Tim Burton, various screenwriters, studio heads, and various effects talent.  With his own collection of memorabilia and new access to test videos, photographs, concept art and more, the documentary does an excellent job of giving the viewer a feel for what might have been, and not just for the end product, but what it could have been at different stages, from a joke to a nightmare to ultimately something that would have actually wound up resembling something recognizable as Superman.

What marvels me most about this documentary is how few people involved in the project have any reverence for the source material.  Unabashed fanboy Kevin Smith wrote the first two drafts, admittedly as fanfic, which were thrown out when Burton came aboard.  Burton himself expresses little connection to the character, which led to him really wanting to explore the alien and alienation that Superman and Clark must feel.  It was obvious producer Peters, in securing the rights to Superman, was less interested in doing the character justice than just making money off the big red S.  His take on the character was to strip Superman of so much of his iconic nature, such that at the onset his desire seemed to be making a Superman movie in name only.

As Schnepp peels back the layers, focusing in at first on the long publicly available imagery that has long made the endeavor the ridicule of message boards, he start to unveil some intriguing concepts and ideas that are both direct-from-the-page as well as new ideas that would have made wonderful visuals (Christopher Walken as Brainiac was the first such reveal to make me lament the film's loss).  Even without much history with the character, Burton doubtlessly had passion for the project, and a definite vision of what he was hoping to accomplish. The costume test footage with Nic Cage slowly reveals that despite not being an obvious choice, he had a definite take on the character (and we know Cage is a massive Superman fan, so he was likely ecstatic to take on the role), particularly pulling a Clark Kent who would have been far more awkward and nerdy (he likened him to being one of the San Diego Comic Con nerds) than any past.  There's no real insight into Sandra Bullock as Lois Lane or Chris Rock as Jimmy Olson (both as startlingly miscast as Cage, at first blush) but Kevin Spacey was revealed as being the first choice for Lex Luthor (and wound up playing him in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns).

By the time the film was pulled, Warner Brothers had been on a tremendous losing streak at the box office, they had sunk tens of millions into pre-production and never felt comfortable with the Superman film before them.  But Schnepp makes a strong case that what was lost would have been at the very least an interesting Superman movie, if not necessarily a successful one. 

The documentary itself feels under-produced, hindered by limited budget and even more limited experience.  Schnepp manages to tell a wonderful story through his interviews, even if they don't necessarily look great: camera positions are awkward, second-camera transitions are often jarring, and Schnepp is too often in frame (this isn't about him or his journey so he doesn't need to be so present).  There are live action and animated sequences, both which look terrible, but in a charming way.  They adequately capture an idea, sequence or effect without over-selling or under-representing what the final product might have been.  It gives the viewer just enough to let the image escape into the imagination and embolden it.

It is without a doubt a worthy documentary. Clearly everyone interviewed still has, over 15 years later, distinctive memories, hurt feelings, strong emotions and fondness for what they were attempting to create.  Had this been a documentary where only Schnepp's passion was conveyed and the creative team behind it was less enthusiastic, it would be a failure, but it's quite the opposite.  Intriguing, delightful, insightful and fun.  A genuinely good watch.