This Friday Only! Apocalypse Cancelled!

Today we have what's become a typical weekend. There is a middling yet high profile blockbuster release, a bunch of relatively unknown low profile crap, and it will all lose to Black Panther (2018) anyway. I couldn't believe that Tomb Raider (2018) failed to up-end Wakanda last week. I would have given that flick a better chance than Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), our big-ticket item this weekend. With another week of demand burned off Black Panther...maybe? Although at this point I almost think Tomb Raider and Pac Rim 2 are going after pretty similar mid-ground action demographics here. Before we really sink into that, I should acknowledge that we won't be getting into Midnight Sun (2018), Sherlock Gnomes (2018), or Unsane (2018).

Well, maybe just really quick, because there's weird things about all of these. Check out how weird the fucking Midnight Sun trailer is. Is this a comedy? A Nicholas Sparks-style drama? Like, is it trying to be The Fault in Our Stars (2014)? What is Rob Riggle doing here? This kind of slapdashery is what 2018 Hollywood is all about. And Sherlock Gnomes, holy fuck. This is somehow a sequel to Gnomeo & Juliet (2011), which came out seven whopping years ago. It features...those characters interacting with a Sherlock Holmes thing? With Johnny Depp as the voice of Sherlock Gnomes? Listen, you can't have both Sherlock Gnomes and Gnomes Watson. Like, we need to do better at puns. These kind of throwaway animated features that exist solely to purge adults of their money are some of the worst forms of lazy entertainment. It's so rough.

Unsane is a relatively low release by Steven Soderbergh. This is the one he shot completely on his iPhone, but with a cast of Claire Foy, Jay Pharaoh, and Juno Temple, and some kind of #MeToo gaslighting hook it actually does look interesting and timely. Soderbergh does nothing if not continuously make unconventional films by unconventional means. I'm not super into the iPhone angle, but apparently it's okay. You can never count his work out quality-wise, but this will make little to no splash in our lives.

John Boyega's lifetime best movie and role may end
up being Attack the Block (2011).

For that matter, neither will Pac Rim Uprising. I was and still am a huge fan of the original Pacific
Rim (2013), which remains one of the better modern original sci-fi blockbusters. That's a less specific group than you might think when you consider Oblivion (2013), Elysium (2013), and After Earth (2013), which are all pretty damn shitty. Pacific Rim does such efficient worldbuilding and wears its coolness on one sleeve with its campiness on the other in equal pride. It's wholly unashamed of how ludicrous it is, and that's a rare thing that has everything to do with Academy Award-Winner Guillermo del Toro's bizarre unflinching monster love.

It's a film that has problems, but gets you on board enough that you hardly stop to think of them. It also grew this underground demented fanbase. There was always a sense that this flick was too weird, too ostentatious, too bold regarding its niche subject matter to be a real hit. And it wasn't. $100 million domestic isn't much, but another $300 million worldwide was enough to justify a sequel, albeit a somewhat bastardized one without any of its leads or director. Something about Ron Perlman showing up legitimized this so much as a del Toro favourite. There's an emptiness in Uprising.

Now, it'd be insane to think "This movie doesn't have Ron Perlman, it sucks" (wait...is that really insane?), but that's just an example. The original seemed to be in an exclusive modern American Kaiju club that we hadn't ever really seen before. Uprising looks like fucking Power Rangers (2017). That didn't turn out well. But why? There's a fine line there. By strict genre terms, Power Rangers are Kaiju films, they have giant monsters and robots and stuff. Why does this look shitty?

If you look at it, I think it comes down to the CGI and effects. Pacific Rim wisely hid itself in rain and night and at the bottom of the sea. It looks really good and obscured while also adding to its mood of darkness highlighted by the neon glow of Hong Kong and an early sunrise from outer space. Uprising pits everything in stark daylight, which not only gives away the effect, but makes us stylistically think of inferior works like Power Rangers. I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Generally, I'm also struck by the weight of everything. The original had everything move really momentously, a little slower by our perception, with control and heaviness befitting giant robots and monsters. It was a little more grounded (maybe a stretch) in its weaponry, proportions, environment effects, and changed world. Uprising looks far too quick and floaty. It gets away from the "guys in suits" aesthetics and into effects, creatures, and robots who look throw together rather than carefully built.

The original is also surprisingly full of real damage and consequences. Even though Raleigh Beckett remarks that Jaeger Pilots were rock stars and never lost, by the time the audience gets into the main story, these blokes are getting their asses kicked. Jaegers hardly ever last longer than a few seconds into a battle, and even when they do, it's with busted limbs and smashed up weapons. There's a real sense of reality here, which again I know is weird to say in this outrageous movie, but it all adds up. People get hurt, they kind of suck, their plans get ruined, they sacrifice and improvise. It's a fun ride. Maybe we'll see that in Uprising, but it moreover looks like it's a cartoon.

Then there's this weird Nega-Gipsy. What the hell is going on there? It might be cool. Alternate reality? I always thought a cool idea for a sequel would be like, aliens coming down and taking over Jaegers so humans re-open the breach and start controlling Kaiju brains. That's not implausible! Jaeger on Jaeger action is something we haven't really seen yet - is this a rogue pilot? Taken over by Kaiju? Aliens?! All three?! I've been disappointed in big blockbuster traitor stories lately. This might not suck.

Pew Pew Pew!!

And I should apologize, I shouldn't just compare this to the original and bitch about it. I do, however, want to articulate why I was really excited in 2013 and totally disillusioned by this new film. As always I should say that I never cheer for a film to be bad. Whether or not a film succeeds, though, depends on if it achieves what it's trying to do. Pacific Rim was trying to be a big modern-day fun beat 'em up monster movie. Uprising may be trying to do the same, but that's actually a hard line to nail. I suspect it shall fail.

And this is probably all Steven DeKnight's fault. He's a first-time director that somehow landed on this project once Guillermo left and started making Oscar-winners. DeKnight was a showrunner on Daredevil, which I generally hated, but to be fair, that was probably more to do with the show being stretched four or five episodes longer than it should have been. It does seem, however, that this is more a dude coming in and trying to show he can take direction and make a buck on a big budget film rather than a monster-loving maniac putting his dream on the screen. That's a big difference.

In the end, this is probably the most accurate review we're going to get, and it's something that I get at all the time. So much effort, so much energy, and time and talent just to end up in a discount DVD bin at the gas station. I picture like, John Boyega spending hours alone in his trailer trying to hone his character. Or the key grip getting all the camera set-ups just right. Or the editor making sure every punch lands with just enough oomph. They went to school for this stuff. Months of work so that I can flip through it on FX while hungover on a Sunday afternoon in between NFL commercials two years from now. I'm sorry, I meant XFL.

What do you think? I used to call these March attempts at big movies "Halfbusters." You ever feel like Buena Vista is the only studio that's even trying anymore?

King Snatch - now that's a movie!

Here we are now in Week Two of the Summer Season (we ought to have a preview post at some point this year) and after a pretty strong first weekend both critically and commercially in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), we have what I'd suspect to be our first dud weekend. Well, Snatched (2017) ought to do fine, but I have no real burning desire to see that. Or King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) for that matter. Let's get into that one first:

"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government."

Now, a few years ago, this was planned as an epic six-film mega saga. That's obviously one of the stupider ideas to come out of Warner Brothers in a long time, although we somehow got eight films and counting out of Point Break (1991) with cars, so who knows. Guy Ritchie and company have backed off a bit from their original grandiose plans, but this still feels like a totally misplaced IP. Sure, it's got to be a very lucrative prospect. No one actually owns the rights to King Arthur, so you've got a nice built in recognition base without any of the mucky muck of paying anyone for it. Like Tarzan. That worked out great.

Like with that film, I think first impressions are important. What's your first reaction when someone tells you they're making a big budget blockbuster King Arthur movie? For me it's a resounding meh. I'm not sure why we keep going back to this well. The latest really big installment of the mythos was King Arthur (2004) with Clive Owen playing the eponymous king, which is most remembered to this day for featuring its weird green Keira Knightly. That was also supposed to be the "true story" of the legend, which is of course total horseshit. Beyond that, there are a ton of adaptations out there, none of which are particularly fondly remembered.

So what makes this one stand out? Besides the ever bland Charlie Hunnam, who has Sons of Anarchy and not much else under his belt? To be fair, he proved capable in Pacific Rim (2013), which is astounding considering that film mostly featured Giant Robots fighting Monsters. He does have a certain appeal, and although I have yet to see it, apparently brings it in the already underrated Lost City of Z (2017) which just came out a few weeks ago. This is all to say that even though Charlie Hunnam sucks, maybe he doesn't.

Now, against all odds, this thing might actually be good. In its own way. I'm game for this. Blockbusters these days seem to wash into each other so much. Marvel and Star Wars tend to stand out because they've somehow earned a place outside the rabble, where people still care about the characters, story, and universe, despite the fact that if they were any other property they'd likely be ignored. It also works that they have exceptional casting and filmmaking talent attracted to them, which makes them memorable and competent, if not exceptional. Outside the big IPs, though, modern blockbuster filmmaking is in an awfully weird zone.

This really dates back to 2014, where it seemed like every big film earned about $200 million domestically, was decent quality-wise, and not really worth a cultural impact in anything else. 2015 was mostly blinded to Universal's impeccable work on Furious 7 (2015) and Jurassic World (2015), while 2016 was all-Disney all the time with a huge windfall for anything else, even equally established properties like Star Trek Beyond (2016) and Jason Bourne (2016). To some extent it doesn't make sense - why should The Jungle Book (2016) work while Star Trek Beyond fails? Or King Arthur, for that matter? I mean, Richard Kipling has to be as well known as King Arthur, right? It's not like everyone reads the book every night or just watched the 1967 animated version the other week.

It's a tough call culturally. It's weird that Guy Ritchie's last three films feel this way. Sherlock Holmes (2009) was infamously overshadowed by AVABAR (2009), although I'd argue still struck out well on its own. I enjoyed that movie but it led me to have no desire to watch Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) until just a few weeks ago, which is a film that flirts with greatness and cleverness without ever really getting there. It was overshadowed by Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) and culturally, even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) in the years after its release. Flash forward four years and we get The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) which is by all means a great, funny, sexy film that was totally drowned by Straight Outta Compton (2015) that summer. Ritchie films for whatever reason, just never seem to be the most important film currently at the Box Office. Maybe that's also because they all tend to be British re-treads and period pieces, which don't resonate as well as their competitors.

I suspect King Arthur to face much of the same. Not only is there pretty strong holdover from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (it's got to clear at least $60 million in its first week to beat it for the #1 spot, and that's being generous), but it's got Alien: Covenant (2017), Baywatch (2017), and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) coming up, ALL of which have had better marketing campaigns and really notable identities. King Arthur gets buried. Maybe I'll really like it one day, like I am with The Lone Ranger (2013). Are there King Arthur LEGOs?

All told though, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn
are going to have a great weekend

Next we have the Amy Schumer / Goldie Hawn vehicle Snatched, which is actually my sneaky pick to win the weekend (if it can clear Guardians' aforementioned $60-70 million mark, which is within its range). Unbelievably, I have no real interest in the Schumer / Hawn lost in South America adventure, but for damn sure my mom is - I might take her for Mother's Day and that's really all you need. This is too good an opportunity to have a great female-driven comedy for a perfect weekend. It's like when I took my dad to watch That's My Boy (2012) with me for Father's Day! Same thing.

For some reason Amy Schumer tends to get a lot of flack - whether it be joke-stealing accusations or whatever. It's really just because she's a successful woman traditionally male-dominated profession. After a pretty good television show she had some success with Trainwreck (2015), which I always chastise as not really leaning into woman empowerment enough. I mean, it's as if they jammed a bunch of sports icons in there to appeal to a male demographic that would otherwise be turned off. I don't understand why they didn't just try to appeal to a female demographic, who cares. That's actually exactly what Snatched is doing, which is great.

As an actress, Schumer can carry a film and Trainwreck is funny enough, even if John Cena and LeBron James got all the meaty lines and roles somehow. My main reason for being excited at all for Snatched is the opportunity to put the ball back in the mother / daughter relationship court, which is pretty rarely examined, much less in a mainstream comedy. I think commercially this will do just fine, and critically it seems to be suffering, but in the sense of "Trainwreck was better!" If you take out the idea that Trainwreck was good then maybe we got a shot here.

The last trick is cultural relevance, and we've had a few comedies hit it pretty big over the past few years, but I don't think anyone really fondly remembers Trainwreck (outside of the aforementioned John Cena and LeBron scenes), although Inside Amy Schumer dominated cultural conversation for a while. There's a lot competing right now, and TV comedy is pretty good. Her Netflix specials that dropped a few weeks ago mostly landed with a thud, so ultimately who knows. There is a niche here if it can win the weekend, but with an onslaught of big movies in subsequent weeks I see this as one that's lost in the haze.

What say you? Will you opt for swords with bros or South America with your mother this weekend?

First Impressions: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Are you ready for the awakening? Take a deep breath - you are about to read the most comprehensive impressions of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) ever put to electrons and sent across the world. To begin, let's take a trip down the road of cultural context. And there will be SPOILERS everywhere for this movie discussion, so if you'd rather not find out that Chewbacca is Luke's biological father, stop reading now.

If only they'd bring him back as Indiana Jones

Here at Norwegian Morning Wood I'm always talking about cultural value. Every film has a commercial value, which is very obvious, and a critical value, which is subjective, but also apparent. How much money does a film make the people who create and distribute it, and does anyone actually like it? Culturally, though, is where films are most important. Film is an art form that can steer the way we think about things, or at least take control of future artistic conversations. This becomes most interesting when we take long-term looks at things. Why is Ghostbusters (1984) a revered cultural institution but no one gives a shit about The Last Starfighter (1984)? Does it come down to the merit of the film itself? Or just certain things that we've tended to latch on to and propagated over the years? What makes Alien (1979) so much more groundbreaking than Dark Star (1974)?

These questions plague me all the time. It's amazing that out of any film series, none is really the equal to Star Wars. Sure, only two of its films crack the Top 50 Worldwide All-Time and only three crack the Top 25 Domestic, but how many people would pick it over AVABAR (2009) or Shrek 2 (2004)? All of them. They all would. Star Wars means more to more people than any other American cultural artifact, and that is more valuable than any box office return.

It was only a matter of time, therefore that in this age of continuous franchise regurgitation, that the great-grandaddy of all blockbusters would take its turn at the podium to flex its muscles. I have spoken at length at my inherent problem with the presence of more of the same rather than creating anything new. I'm not totally into another Star Wars film as much as I'd be into an entirely new nerdy property to gush over. That's part of the reason why I've loved Pacific Rim (2013) and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) so much (face it - even though it was based on a comic, no one was totally looking at that as a faithful adaptation or whatever), but it also comes at a steep Jupiter Ascending (2015)-level risk. What's the balance? Well, don't make your world-building mythos retarded is a good bet, but there has still been a financial discrepancy between original and re-hashed properties, which is totes unfortunate.

If you take a look at the other high-profile long-term revivals this year, it becomes more obvious why certain things work and others don't. Creed (2015) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) both pushed their former primary protagonists to the side in favor of new, more interesting people, and although they act as straight remakes of Rocky (1976) and The Road Warrior (1981) respectively, they're imbued with different viewpoints, updated engrossing camera work and scene construction, as well as the feeling of fresh characters, new themes, and a carefree confidence towards casting off a reliance on the past. This creates the illusion of new cultural material despite the fact that it's more typically just re-branded or re-arranged.

The Force Awakens is sort of like this, but doesn't exactly pull it off, in part due to J.J. Abrams' nature as more of a fan than a man of any original ideas. There were minimal lens flares this time around, but by the time of that first circle wipe it was clear that he was trying to emulate Lucas' directing style. With more care for his actors, of course, because for once, they're great in a Star Wars film. Lucas trips over his need for homage far too often. Sticking with the concept of cultural value, despite his aping of Amblin and Spielberg, how much do any of us think about Super 8 (2011)...ever? His shining film remains Star Trek (2009), but even that film was stuffed with a little too much reverence and suffered from a weak villain and ending. I'd consider TFA to be cured of those ills, but the film gets bogged down by the unenvious position of balancing perceived fan needs with actual storytelling.

Now, there are of course moments where TFA elevates from this. The introduction of the Millennium Falcon is nearly perfect, precisely because it's as disregarded by the new crop of characters as the old generation did. It works really well because there's a tacit acknowledgement in the Star Wars universe that the Falcon is a piece of shit. The actual character introductions largely work because of this. Han Solo, Leia Organa, and Luke Skywalker all fit in pretty naturally, without too much issue.

My major problem with the film is that it follows a lot of similar beats to the first film and the OT in general. Lucas called these little homages, which lead to the Star Wars Ring Theory, which is a pleasant read, but totally not his original intention. Now, as I recollect here, there are plenty of scenes that are innovative and great, and I have a pretty positive appreciation of the film over all, but we need to slog through this first.

The film starts off incredibly strong, in media res similar to the original Star Wars (1977), where critical information is stowed in a small, cute Droid unit who then gets lost on a desert planet and is found by an orphan (okay, in Luke's case it was a soon-to-be orphan). TFA tends to amp everything up though, so it's not just any orphan, but a SUPER-ORPHAN named Rey. I don't understand why they used Jakku when they so clearly just meant to have a redux of Tatooine. Sure, I'm grateful that we didn't AGAIN head to Tatooine, but Jakku operates exactly like Tatooine, so who cares? It's actually more like SUPER-TATOOINE with even less civilization and an even harsher way of life. But for the purpose of the narrative it's all the same shit.

There's an old dude living there, Max von Sydow, who is the first of many characters introduced who seemed important and then whose stories are quickly dropped, in this case, due to him being killed immediately. Actually, if you look at this scene, which features him, Po Dameron, BB-8, Captain Phasma, Kylo Ren, and Finn, you'd think they'd all be important, but Po and Phasma are largely tossed aside soon after this scene. I'll get to more on that later.

You did NOT survive this.

Don't take this bitching too much, because structurally and cinematically, the first third of the film is fantastic. You know everything you need to know of all the above mentioned characters and there's a palpable danger to all the heroes, Kylo Ren has a fearsome display of power (I can't recall any Sith ever stopping a laser bolt and freezing it in mid-air so effortlessly), and you can instantly tell which Stormtrooper Finn is because of how particularly he acts. The central MacGuffin, a map to Luke Skywalker is at once something instantly significant both in-universe and to the audience and serves as a simultaneous metaphor to how lost the franchise has been without the steady hand of the old guard of characters.

The film gets better as it introduces Rey, its best character, played by Daisy Ridley, whose eyes can at once display enough strength, confidence, pain, fear, caring, and badassery to carry the entire film. She's truly the Luke Skywalker of the film, a sentiment even echoed in her dress, which recalls Luke's weird bandage leggings from Star Wars. She eventually morphs into an amalgam of Luke and Han as she demonstrates her technical knowledge, becoming the Falcon's new pilot, and learning under his guidance.

Finn, on the other hand starts off very Han-like with his urge to run away all the time, which is also reflected in his wardrobe, although the tan jacket and black undershirt is reverse of Han's typical attire. He eventually becomes more Luke-like as he ends up the unlikely inheritor of Luke's lightsaber and finds his courage. His and Rey's duties in the final battle are split with the same lightsaber, which also echoes the fact that they are both combinations to differing degrees of the same original characters. This is of course all bizarre because the film starts with Po Dameron being Luke-like in the desert with his X-wing and trusty astromech droid, and then revealing a very Han-like cocky attitude, but he's totally forgotten about around the twenty-minute mark so who cares.

Let's keep moving on with how TFA echoes the original trilogy. They soon move on to an intergalactic bar of sorts, which is totally just the Mos Eisley Cantina. Finn even tries to barter for passage off-world, which was Luke and Obi-Wan's original goal. It feels like it's striving for a classic moment full of weird goofy monsters that Jabba's Palace already ripped off from Mos Eisley, and then the prequels just did non-stop. The lush forest world was rad, though, and seemed like an actually unique planet, which was amazing, even if going to see a weird little ancient master on a swamp world is totally Empire Strikes Back (1980).

After this we totally have another Death Star. Again. To align with our theme, though, this is a SUPER DEATH STAR. That idea in itself is pretty cool, actually, and the Empire's obsession with super-weapons is well-documented. What helped Star Wars, though, was the discussion earlier in the movie proving their rationale in the form of the Tarkin Doctrine. This tended to give some political weight to their insane actions. The First Order is largely just a bag of dicks. More on that later.

Harrison Ford, by way of Han Solo seems to sum it up well, as if he's speaking for an audience, when he says, regarding the Stakiller "Why don't we just blow it up?" and then yes, there is indeed a way to just blow up the planet. I really liked the idea of having that planet-embedded superweapon and the sun-drawing power / hyperspace power as all really cool, even if it's just totally SUPER DEATH STAR. I mean, there's even a trench run! I wish they had found some other way to take it down besides just blowing it up like they way they blow up every Death Star. That's like three times the Rebels / Resistance just blow shit up! Why does the Empire / First Order keeping building this shit! And there's no way the First Order has the financial resources to do this anymore, right? These are the inane nerdy questions that shouldn't bog the movie down, but you have to ask, but this is STAR WARS. Discussions like this have so permeated culture, they're in other movies.

This is all to say that the plot beats and locales are fairly derivative. The final planet, which I'm not sure is ever named, but Internet tells me is just called "Starkiller Base," is pretty Hoth-like, but I actually appreciated the wintery forests, which offered a new and cool Star Wars locale. Of course, the inside was straight-up Death Star, with all the classic elements - those doors that open in a square, trash compactors, and a total lack of guards that allow anyone to walk around as much as they want.

The Empire was always like that, actually. Like when the gang is escaping the Death Star after disabling the tractor beam, they send like two TIE Fighters out to catch them. Don't they have a huge, disposable fleet? TFA brings this idea back - completely incompetent Stormtroopers and a total reluctance crush the Resistance with numbers like this instead of just one superweapon that's totes ineffective against small fighters.

The idea of the depletion of sunlight working as a timer for charging the superweapon was a great visual guide for both the characters and the audience, and actually provided a logical reason for why the planet was an ice world - because they keep killing whatever hear they should get from their sun. Of course, being in the middle of space would be a little bit colder than just a few snow flurries, and that's not even counting the gravitational destabilization that would occur with draining a sun, but Star Wars has always been pretty soft science, so who cares.

Once we get past the derivative plot, though, we find that we have a pretty good film on our hands. Finn offers us an unparalleled look at what it means to be a Stormtrooper, and it's surprising that more don't have serious problems with killing random civilians all the time, but then again, real armies do that all the time, and these guys were specifically trained to lack individuality. There is some awkwardness with Finn's hitting on Rey, but I'm more impressed that he isn't completely developmentally challenged since he was only a number until a few days ago.

See? Even his lightsabre is like, built shittily. Also this
shot is not in the movie.

Kylo Ren, though, is instantly the most interesting character in the film. He appears first as a total badass, but as his layers are unpeeled we find instead that he's actually mostly just an overcompensating poser pussy. It's an important scene when he unmasks himself and we see the neatly coiffed Adam Driver and not some monster or burn victim. It's as if everything he's trying to do is to prove that he has some angsty personal reason for his internal conflict, but he's really just a brat who can't handle the balance of the force inside him. You've got to believe that when he tells his father, Han Solo, that he faces a tremendous amount of pain that he really doesn't know how to deal with it at all. Just like this film is trying to live up to its predecessor, Ren tries to live up to Vader and is constantly insecure about the fact that he's failing. To deal with this he lashes out abruptly and arrogantly. When Vader was pissed he's just choke an Admiral and move on with his life. Gone is the propriety and formality of even young pussy Anakin from Attack of the Clones (2002). Ren is trying to hard to live up to something he can't obtain. By the end of the film after he's dealt a blow to Star Wars lovers everywhere and finally had some actually good ol' face mutilation courtesy of Rey he actually has hatred to claim.

This is a generational indictment. The whole First Order are just dicks for no reason. They're not trying to put down a rebellion or maintain order, they're just evil for the sake of being evil. They're attempting to emulate an ideology without anything substantial to back it up. At one point General Hux says something or other about "order" but he's not coming from a place of cool and collected strategy like Tarkin. He's instead coming from a place of irrationality, anger, and mistaken purpose. I don't think it's a coincidence casting Domhnall Gleeson instead of someone older who would have been alive during the Galactic Civil War. He and Ren battle for who the biggest pussy is in the First Order but they're ultimately both just kids trying to prove themselves. And did they escape Starkiller Base, btw? Who knows. At least Star Wars showed Vader's TIE Advanced stabilizing after hurtling through space.

Do we have to talk about Supreme Leader Snoke? I'm putting this out there - he's the worst part of this film. A total Emperor Rip-off that was startlingly weak CGI who looked like a weird giant at first (later revealed to be a hologram), who seems like the laziest a-hole ever. I actually thought there was a disconnect between the CGI characters and the real environments, which was weird. It's insane to believe that there were practically no sets in the Prequel Trilogy, and things like every single Clonetrooper were made in a computer. That gives it all a nice plastic feel looking back on it now, and the scope and sets of TFA are refreshing and awesome. The problem with that is actually populating them with lame CGI peeps who are suddenly juxtaposed and take you out of the story. That's so terrible to complain about. I really do love the weight and naturalism of the practical sets.

I also generally didn't understand the relationship between the Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance. The Republic is in charge now, but is the First Order still ruling over a few planets or something? And is the Resistance resting them on those planets? If the Rebel Alliance is totally just the New Republic, then why is it like, a secret, shady deal? Does the Republic not want to outwardly look like they are resisting the First Order? They blew up like five planets on a whim! This doesn't make any sense.

Despite the film's 2 hr 16 min runtime it feels oddly rushed, but that may just be because certain characters like Captain Phasma are totally thrown away after sweet introductions. I can't for the life of me figure out why I feel this way. Boba Fett is on screen for like six minutes in Empire and didn't really do much, but you felt like he had such an impact. Same with all the other random idiots in the universe. Like, I got more of a feel for Bossk than I did for Captain Phasma. Even someone like Finn who goes down like a bitch in the final fight, AND NEVER WAKES UP feels like he got the short end of the stick. I honestly don't know what took up so much time, because the scenes felt like they were paced really well, especially towards the beginning, but somehow some beats were skipped that would have fleshed out the world a bit more.

Some of this is probably due to the fact that this is more like being the first in a trilogy than working as a standalone movie, which each film in the first trilogy, and even in the prequel trilogy did really well. What's critical is that even though in the OT, Star Wars is definitely the call to action, Empire is rising action, and Return of the Jedi (1983) is climax and denouement, within each film lies similar beats. The prequels function the same way structurally, but we just hate the world, characters, and tone they built. TFA, especially with its ending scenes, feels far more like it was cut off rather than allowed to have a proper, cathartic ending.

On that note, we ought to talk about how Luke Skywalker is totally not in this movie, but I was pretty okay with that. It actually mythologizes him more. It was great to see Harrison Ford acting like he did in the 80s and less grumpy, though. Carrie Fisher didn't seem to have her Leia spark, but she's been through some shit. It's all good. I also enjoyed the direction of Chewie, having a lot more humour, along with the Stormtroopers even getting some good bits. Of course, C-3PO is still unbearable, tho R2-D2 had almost no time to shine. That's alright. BB-8 as Finn's wingman is just as good, if not cuter and therefore better.

The whole film actually felt very small despite the SUPER-ness of all the elements, likely due to its concentration on what's happening on the ground to a handful of characters in a handful of locations, which is again, much more similar to the OT than the Prequels, which is good. This is also a fine set-up for bigger, crazier movies to come.

We should talk predictions. Rey has got to be someone's daughter, right? Someone who was maybe left behind on Jakku because she was going to be a sweet force user? My guess is she's Chewie's. Has to be. I am curious, though, how this series is suddenly beholden to its bloodline twists instead of it being a sweet bonus. Star Wars and Empire both work without Vader being Luke's father, but that revelation pushes the stakes so much higher. Rey being related to someone at this point is an expectation rather than a surprise, as was the fact that Kylo Ren is Han and Leia's daughter, which didn't really come as a shock, tho I'm not sure it was meant to. It's like the franchise's bread and butter is suddenly big family reveals, but they've already blown their wad on that in the biggest cultural way possible.

We should talk about how her core conflict,
returning home, is actually the opposite of Luke's.

There's also the vague possibility that Ren and Rey are brother and sister, which would be sweet because she totally pwns him with superior force power in both their combative scenes together. I haven't even talked about how sweet and revelatory it is to see both a black Jedi and a woman Jedi and how casual it all feels, although of course we had Mace Windu and uh...shit...can you name one human female Jedi that's appeared in person in a Star Wars movie? My mind goes to Asajj Ventress, Mara Jade, Adi Gallia, or Aayla Secura. Looking it up now. Ah yes, totally - the Librarian from Attack of the Clones. Let's try again. Okay, found one - Bultar Swan. You know, I don't know what women complain about, they got Bultar Swan!

There's a shot of Rey out-forcing Anakin Skywalker's lightsabre from Kylo Ren and then lighting it up and my entire theater cheered. It's a spectacular shot that unbelievably took until 2015 to achieve.

And the cast from The Raid movies shows up! It'd be cool if they fought some of those monsters using their Indonesian pencak silat on some very Abrams-esque monsters in that weird First Order freighter that Han and Chewie were apparently running. There's a lot to go off on in that last sentence. I'll let you figure it out.

Where does TFA land in terms of greatest Star Wars ever? Well, it's at least the third or fourth greatest one, which is good enough for me. Time for pizza, which like Star Wars, is still good either hot or cold.

Hello Jupiter Ascending, or Why Do Blockbusters Fail?

I am always impressed by a few directors who get to keep on making movies. Tim Burton tends to churn out more crap than gold these days, but they're at least fairly successful and moderately well-liked by their intended mass audience. M. Night Shyamalan is one who had one to many absolute failures (critically, financially, and culturally) to keep his auteur vision going, but he even seems to be failing enough as a journeyman blockbuster director for people to stop giving him work. Then there's the Wachowskis.

The Wachowski Siblings, Andy and Lana, seem to have this mysterious carte blanche in Hollywood after The Matrix Trilogy. Sure it was a pretty significant movie event with each one of those three big aspects pumping hard (critical/commercial/cultural), but when do we stop believing in a director's ability to give us a good movie again? I actually don't have much of a problem with Speed Racer (2008), although it seems to be universally derided. The plot is incomprehensible, but the production design is amazing and it's also fabulously well-cast. Needless to say, though, I'm in the minority.

They followed that bomb up with Cloud Atlas (2012), which is also fine in its own right. It just cost $102 million to make, which is absurd for a big dense film with multiple timelines and plots. It always felt more like a passionate personal thinking project than anything that anyone would actually enjoy. This combined with Speed Racer and the latter disappointing Matrix sequels, which exchanged indecipherable philosophical quandaries for earned resolutions (then discarded all that while Neo fought Smith like Dragon Ball Z), and you've got a pretty lackluster string of what was once a pretty awesome post-Bound (1996) career going.

He's a space wolf!

That brings us to Jupiter Ascending (2015). I'd like to point out that even though the marketing effort for this thing has been pretty strong, in my head I called it Jupiter Rising so often I had to double-check the title to make sure I was right when titling this post. Jupiter Ascending is just really clunky, and apparently really on-the-nose, given that Mila Kunis' character has the awkward and not-prophetic-at-all name of Jupiter. Whatever. The movie looks kind of cool, even if it also seems really dumb and silly, and I like enough of what a lot of the Wachowskis have done (even if no one else really does) to give it a shot. But we're not here to discuss whether or not I'm going to see this film.

We're here to discuss if everyone else and their neighbor is. They're not. Why?

On the surface this seems like a total win. You've possibly got an Academy Award-winning actor playing the villain (Eddie Redmayne - who is no where near any of the marketing [probably to not hurt his Oscar chances...]), two likable leads who are peaking right now in Kunis and C-Tates, directors who have competently handled complex big screen genre material before (regardless of their inability to communicate mainstream ideas, they can handle the hell out of action sequences), and a plot that beckons towards a classic hero's journey in an original sci-fi opus. This should be the next AVABAR (2009), right? I am compelled by the question of why it's not. Why does this look stupid when AVABAR didn't? And AVABAR was an extremely stupid movie after the fact, but how come it looked so cool going into it (and parlayed that into $700 million)?

Last year I was writing this article about how ridiculous and pathetic March 2014 was, and I got talking about how Noah (2014), despite containing some interesting subject material and a possibly experimentally dark direction for a blockbuster to take, will get no audience at all almost solely on the basis of its inaccessible source material. There was another recent film that I am always fuddled by, that found itself in a similar position, which was Gore Verblinksi's The Lone Ranger (2013). To add to this discussion, I also want to talk about The Rock's Hercules (2014), which was by all means a pretty fun and thrilling film that just bombed to hell. Why?

I think it's interesting how critics tend to groupthink and then pile on films like these early, which tends to set the tone for how a film is talked about. None of these are exceptionally poorly constructed, at least not to the extent that the three-piece slaughterhouse of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) were, and those were all pretty successful films financially. I would solidly argue that Hercules is a better film in every possible way than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which came out around the same time. It has a more artfully constructed tone, a better understanding of its own themes, a cognizant plot, more compelling characters, and more charismatic performances by its leads. If critics are picking movies to jump on, how come they jump on The Lone Ranger but not The Amazing Spider-Man 2?

Also you can't have a Hercules movie that debunks the
Hercules myth. No one thinks that Hercules actually existed.
I hope.

Perhaps it's just because the big difference between the films I've listed as successful Summer 2014 films (and thank goodness, most of the actually successful films last year were pretty damn good as well) is that franchise tag. There's something to be expected for dumb loud flashy action films that are intended for the 13-year old boy in all of us that just wants to see shit smashed together. Noah was insistently more darker and thought-provoking, although it was still filled with scenes that made no sense. Perhaps there's a key there, that when a movie takes itself as serious as Noah, it shouldn't have scenes of Ham saving a chick in the city and bringing her back only to have her trampled and killed because of Noah with no repercussion to any character moments later. Sorry, SPOILER, but seriously, if you see it coming and have hope that a likable character will do something that makes sense, you're mistaken. When movies that purport to take themselves as serious art pieces trip up, it's amplified much more than when Transformers makes piss and fart jokes with robots.

Critics aren't that useful, though, right? Something like only 50% of moviegoers go frequently, and presumably some percentage of those people would be the real cinephiles who are hunting down online news and critical opinions. Again, this critical consensus isn't that influential directly, but it helps set the narrative. When enough influential critics get on board against a movie, and this is sometimes years before a film comes out - so it's more the entertainment news reporters, but when enough of them lambaste a film's early, troubled production it becomes difficult for any smaller critic or reporter following up or transmitting the news to form a divergent opinion, lest they be ostracised by the critical community. Infrequent moviegoers, while they may not be researching a film themselves, probably have a friend who is, and they can see that off comment on Facebook that embeds itself as a negative opinion. Therefore this narrative is formed before something even comes out. Battleship (2012) is a solid example of this. Its subject matter was deemed far too stupid and unwatchable before it came out, even though it's no worse than any Transformers movie.

And I should clarify at some point, that I don't think these are necessarily good movies, but I just don't see them as any worse than other blockbusters who gain much more money. Actually I do think some of them are much better. But why are these narratives chosen? If you look at my list of "Competently-made-yet-universally-hated" Blockbusters (Jupiter Rising Ascending, Noah, The Lone Ranger, Hercules, and Battleship), I think the inherent problem in each is the source material. There's just no one out there who gave a shit about the story of Noah's Flood, or The Lone Ranger and Tonto, the "untold true story" of Hercules, or a two-hour advertisement for the U.S. Navy. It's that groan factor. You hear "Hey, they're making a big-budget epic about Noah's Ark!" "Awww maannnn. That sounds dumb." That's my gut reaction, to be honest. And I keep using Transformers, just because it's easiest - but why, when we hear "Hey, they're making a big-budget epic about Robots that are also Trucks!" is our reaction "Oooohh maaann!!"

Maybe it's just intrinsic. Enough people either saw the cartoon show to get a vague idea of the personalities and mythology involved while it was cheesy enough that we could easily picture a live-action treatment being exciting and awesome. This blinds our thought process to the fact that the film itself is still wretched, but that's not even important anymore. It's flashy enough to get a long life on television and home streaming and has just the right level of plot skimming that it's not even important to clue into. It's also generally a lot more cheery and digestible.

That's also a factor in each of these films. Noah, The Lone Ranger, and Hercules in particular had a maudlin air about them, even if the latter two were able to splice in some decent character humour that's virtually lost in a sea of self-seriousness. The same can almost be said for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but most Transformers tend to be decidedly cheery, or at least mask their pain in sex and chrome.

Also Johnny Depp fatigue doomed this movie.

I have actually thought about The Lone Ranger a lot, because on the surface that movie had everything going for it, but you never felt like you bought in. It had an extreme level of commercialisation with every plug and tie-in possible (who out there bought The Lone Ranger LEGOs expecting it to be like Harry Potter or Star Wars?). It was trying so hard to position itself as THE film of Summer 2013 but it just never had a shot.

Again, maybe this was intrinsic. It had early accusations of racism, fairly true accusations of anti-Americanism, bland what's his face...Armie Hammer, variances in tone, and a complex subtext that frankly, refuted all of this, but was tough for an average filmgoer to comprehend. It also simply came out smack in the middle of a very long summer where every single weekend there was a film trying to loudly proclaim it was the end-all finale of ALL EPIC BLOCKBUSTERS EVER. Things became more noise than diversified voices, and all the commercialisation wasn't clever or a fun reminder like Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) bobble-heads. It was an irritant.

If we're contrasting with Guardians, it's also because that seemed to be a movie that "got it" while The Lone Ranger appeared like another line in a long, reviled copycat Hollywood system, even though to be honest, structurally The Lone Ranger is far more innovative and its subtext is far more subversive. But that's another good question - what does it take to take charge of a nation's culture for a few weeks?

Hey 2013, what film was your Summer film anyway? Man of Steel? How do you judge what the fan community wants? Was it Pacific Rim? But the critics and even the regular public rejected that one. Was The Lone Ranger not geeky enough? It was certainly no lesser of a film than Man of Steel, in many ways it was far superior. For some reason the appeal of seeing Superman on screen in a serious adult treatment or seeing giant robots clobber giant monsters has a far better initial sound than the idea of seeing The Lone Ranger. Even with the William Tell Overture! It's bullshit. Sorry this got so sidetracked about me liking The Lone Ranger. No one talks about this film anymore, or Noah or Battleship. They're without conversation. They won't appear on T-shirts thirty years from now.

Let's get back to that question - are they not nerdy enough? Is there something intrinsic to these films that fails to inspire a devoted fanbase that will keep it alive through conversation and references for years to come? Maybe it is that seriousness. Then again, our benchmark, Transformers: Age of Extinction isn't influencing any nerds. Quick, name Stanley Tucci's company. Or character. Or any line he says that isn't this. Any reader of this blog understands that I'm constantly concerned about our lack of culturally significant original films.

I wish this movie was as good as "Four Five Seconds."

Which brings me all the way back to Jupiter Ascending. Why did you title your movie so stupidly, Wachowskis. All you needed to hear is "Wachowski" and "Jupiter Ascending" and you could predict this film's fate. It's so sad. By all regards, this film is bonkers insane, and as one of those entertainment journalists (is that what I am? I'm only comfortable with that in really REALLY loose terms), maybe I'm to blame in part for its incoming failure by automatically looping it in with Noah and Battleship as total failures. It just looks so damn stupid. If you break down what I said up there a bit more, Mila and Chan are only successful in comedies, the directors have abused their fans' trust for far too long, and the one good thing about franchise filmmaking is that you already have some understanding of character going in, so when Robert Downey, Jr. smirks, you know why. It's engrossing. Who the hell knows what any of these people in Jupiter Going Up are doing or why we should care. It's all sound and fury signifying nothing.

So maybe I'll be totally wrong. Jupiter Ascending becomes the highest grossing movie of the year and wins seventeen Oscars next year. No. That won't happen.

But will you see it this weekend? If not, stream The Lone Ranger.

The Road to a Blockbuster: That's Right. Robot Dinosaurs.

Another Summer Friday is upon us, and so it comes time once again to assess the latest big, crass, loud marketing giant that has struck our screens trying to become the next big blockbuster. As always, we are curious of not only a film's commercial potential, but its critical and most importantly, cultural potential as well. This late June weekend is particularly of note, because it usually features crazy big openers like a Pixar film or the last three Transformers films. And we've got one more of the latter this weekend, Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014).

To be fair, this is the greatest trailer money shot of all time.

There are a few things on my mind when noting the release of this beast. Okay, there are many, many things. Let's start at what's most pertinent - the fact that the Transformers movie series have become this sort of poster child for everything that's wrong with the modern blockbuster. They're an "updated" re-hash of a mildly popular but culturally significant 80s property (that was originally created mostly to sell toys), they're generally big, loud, stupid, and incomprehensible in nearly every way, from plot to the actual visuals on screen, and finally, they're so massively damn popular that Hollywood can's top cranking them out. When watching a Transformers movie it's hard to even believe that it's real sometimes. This mostly falls on Revenge of the Fallen (2009). Why would Rainn Wilson or Ramon Rodriguez's characters ever act the way they do? They're cartoons. How can the Twins can exist in a movie that came out in 2009 without anyone along the process saying "wait, stop, this is pretty racist"? Megan Fox motorcycle ass. It's astonishing that this was a $400 million meal ticket.

A lot of this typifying criticism is pretty fair - but it's also important to note how much these films get right - by being exactly what they need to be. That happens to be mass marketed 14-year old boy "TOTALLY AWESOME!!!1!!1@!!" material - but they do a spectacular job at that, which isn't necessarily an easy feat. Let's take the sorts of films that were trying to hit that demographic last year - the big loud, stupid films. Pacific Rim (2013) was a bit loud, smart film that domestically earned about a third that Transformers (2007) did. Man of Steel (2013) and Elysium (2013) were plagued by the kind of self-seriousness that Transformers movies shrug off in favor of unadulterated awesomeness, and they also didn't make the kind of money Transformers does. Man of Steel came close - but it could really be considered a cultural failure based on how poorly it was received by serious moviegoers. Now, no serious film lover loves a Transformers movie, but at least they're not really trying to be loved. After that we get into pretty rough R.I.P.D. (2013) territory and stuff, that neither took itself seriously, nor made any attempt at intelligence but failed in every sense of the word. It's not easy to make a good loud dumb movie. Mike Bay can do it.

Age of Extinction has sort of snuck under the radar, though, surprising as that may seem. It's not like it has a ton of competition - last summer in particular was grotesquely overloaded with some big movie every weekend clamouring for people to see it - as a result, things like The Lone Ranger (2013) didn't feel all that urgent and got lost in the shuffle. This year Age of Extinction has nothing in its way. What's on its heels, Think Like a Man Too (2014)? And next week is Tammy (2014)? These aren't necessarily in direct competition with a giant Robots Smash flick. But yet, the marketing has been really subdued for this one. I'm not sure I even cared that much or realized what we had on our hands until Optimus rode a fucking Dinosaur during the Super Bowl then suddenly it was "What the hell is this? THAT'S FOUR MONTHS FROM NOW?"

So, why is there this nonchalant air? Perhaps it's the nature of the "soft reboot," which is a term that I love. It's kind of insane. It's like supposing that anyone actually cared about Shia LaBeouf's story from the first trilogy. Or cared about the story at all from the first trilogy. I mean, I do. Repeatedly. But I'm an insane person. Transormers 2 was the first damn movie I ever reviewed for this site. But Age of Extinction has thrown out (presumably) a lot of the crap that came before it in favor of a slight redesign of the incoherent robots and a whole new cast.

And actually, this all looks fantastic. I mean, you upgrade Shia to Mark Wahlberg? I'm sold. Whether he does this on purpose or not, Mark actually has the perfect blend of a serious character just struggling to hide the ridiculousness of his situation through an over-the-top sincerity to the stupid. Just listen to his delivery of one of the dumber lines from the trailer. It's incredible. Michael Bay already used this talent to aplomb in Pain & Gain (2013), although I still struggle with whether or not that movie was supposed to be genuine or ironic. I just can't tell with these idiots, which makes it fun. Humans = improvement.

Now let's talk robots. Not only will this film feature the Dinobots, which look stunning and ridiculous and fantastically shooting dead-eye towards that 14-year old boy love, but the redesign of all the robots themselves actually seems a bit cleaner and more coherent. That's a huge positive for this series. It's maybe a bit cartoonier, but if it makes the action easier to follow, it's an incredible achievement. It makes me wonder why they don't just ditch elements like this that weren't working for the first three movies. So robots = improvement.

So, again - why so mild a buzz? I think it has something to do with Dark of the Moon (2011). That film could really be considered the most complete Transformers film in terms of the themes it developed, the tone being mastered, and the characters being realized. Before that appears like a trolling statement, it's not to say that it really excels in any of this stuff, but for a Transformers film, it's the most complete. Bay almost seems to have crafted it as a darker and more serious reaction to the zany hijinks of Revenge of the Fallen, even if it's still not like, Chris Nolan serious. But not only is it a pretty fun summer film, but it's got some real stakes, real drama, and some attitude. It also has this air of finality to it, which makes another victory lap, as cool as Mark Wahlberg and Dinobots are, seem unnecessary.

It's kind of the same deal as The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011). It really has no cultural cache because no one gave a shit about it when it came out. It's like trying to jerk off more after you've already shot your load. It just chafes, man. At World's End (2007) had that same kind of finality that Dark of the Moon had - that these characters' stories were complete and our time in this world had been really satisfying. On Stranger Tides added exciting but ultimately unnecessary characters and a plot that was more a re-hash without any real significance. Pop quiz hotshot - what's the general story outlook for Age of Extinction? Who's the villain? What's at stake? Fucking aliens, I guess, that's my only answer. Despite Mark and Dinosaurs, nothing has really been communicated as a thoughtful and meaningful reason to see this film. I think it may end up like On Stranger Tides - maybe a strong international success, but even three years out, everyone's forgotten about it.

And who the fuck is this guy?

I don't really think that any of my normal predictions are difficult. How much money will this make? Probably not the crazy $400 million mark, although the road is pretty much paved in their favor for a while. Even when we get into the neck of July, if you're looking at the kind of big, loud blockbusters that Transformers complete with, you've basically got Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and uhh...that's it. The key question is whether or not people will actually care, which I think will come from more a novelty standpoint than anything substantial. Critically, this is almost guaranteed a drubbing, or the best it can hope for: "Good...for a Michael Bay movie." Finally, what will the cultural appreciation be for this film?

This is an interesting question, especially this summer where we've suddenly gotten all these retrospectives from other legendary summers. I mean, just look at '84. The cultural density of these flicks, especially the trio of Temple of Doom, Gremlins, and Ghostbusters is palpable. Will we care about Age of Extinction in 2044? Really, think about that - it sounds so far away, 2044. Will we give a shit about Dinobots? I'm not sure why no one ever thinks about these things, or maybe you do - leave a comment! I'm going to say, though, that in 2044 we'll be more excited for the latest blockbuster, Moon Knight 3: The Moonening of Khonshu (2044) than anything produced way back in these "Obamanite Years."

Actually the third Moon Knight movie will probably come out waaay before 2044. Age of Extinction lands today. What do you think?

First Impressions: Godzilla 2014

Godzilla, the King of the Monsters, the Terror of Japan, that giant green dancing fiend, returned to theaters this weekend with another Americanized blockbuster treatment that took itself far more serious than its 1998 Roland Emmerich counterpart. Actually after watching it, this Gareth Edwards version is forcing far less cliches than that torrid Emmerich film, and probably takes itself less seriously than that epitome of 90s tentpoles. Anyway, after watching Godzilla (2014), I began to consider it under three distinct lenses, and sure, SPOILERS from here on out:

Sociological Themes:

Godzilla was primarily conceived as a Japanese reaction to the horrors of the Atomic Age and existed as a symbolic instrument of mankind's folly come back to destroy him. This premise, of course, was dropped within a decade of the first run of Showa Godzilla flicks, so it's hard to fault 2014's Godzilla for abandoning this origin. The end result, though, is a little short on political commentary like this.

Anyone else notice that really cute Lady and the Tramp
moment between the two MUTOs sharing the
nuclear missile in the third act?

Even though Godzilla's revamped origin as an eternal prehistoric "alpha predator" seems to completely side-step his symbolic nature as representative of the dangers of nuclear arms, that's not to say the film itself is devoid of these ideas. Ken Watanabe mentions the ghost of Hiroshima and there is this constant fear and regret over detonating a nuclear device to lure the MUTOs (two new kaiju, Monstrous Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms. Even if it feels a little NBE 1-y, at least they didn't force an acronym like S.H.I.E.L.D. or something...) away from the city. It's not a necessarily overplayed theme, which simultaneously feels relieving that this film isn't concerned with those kinds of messages that have been well-recorded in Godzilla's past, but also feels like they should be addressed. Then again, the political climate towards nuclear arms is drastically different than it was in 1954 and perhaps the ghost of nuclear use, as it currently exists in the movie with the solemn Japanese reminder of Hiroshima is enough.

Instead the film is more concerned with Godzilla as this literal God of the Earth that seeks to restore balance by beating the shit out of the MUTOs that are wrecking up the joint. It's not unlike Godilla vs Mothra (1992) to be honest, but with Battra and Mothra representing Godzilla and Godzilla representing the MUTOs. Got that? This ends up being the most interesting concept in the film that has farther reaching consequences within the greater cinematic narrative than the internal story, so more on that later.

In my preview of this flick, I commented that the marketing material seemed to indicate that this film would have the most interesting humans of any Godzilla film, and that's largely true, even if the main show is still the Big Green Guy. Edwards largely spends his time, though, telling a story about fathers' inability to protect their families with more than a few nods to JAWS (1975). There is a range of success to this, and it isn't this film's last reference to that original American blockbuster monster epic.

The clearest parallel is the surname Brody, taken by Roy Scheider in JAWS and here by Bryan "Breaking" Cranston and Aaron "Kick-Ass" Taylor-Johnson as Joe and Ford Brody, respectively. There was this weird on-going theme in the sequels to JAWS that the first shark's descendents or whatever continuously stalked the Brody family for revenge. Like in JAWS IV: The Revenge (1987). There's almost something similar at work here how disaster in general and the MUTOs in particular seem to stalk the Brody family, and you had better believe that at the end Mama MUTO recognizes poor Ford's face. But let's talk parenting issues.

A huge theme of JAWS is Martin Brody's complete inability to deal with the on-going shark attack crisis on a meaningful level and a continuous failure to protect his own family. He sends his son to play in the lagoon to be safe, but sure enough that's right where the shark goes. He doesn't have any control or authority to enforce any of his actions, despite being the Sheriff. Ultimately on the boat he's reduced to an ignorant child, getting in the way between the more adult and experienced Quint and Hooper before he's forced to combine the science of Hooper (the oxygen tank) and the artful brutality of Quint (the rifle) to blow the shark's head up.

In Godzilla, the Brody's are similarly hapless. Joe Brody fails to save his own wife which exacerbates his already severe emotional abandonment of his son. Despite being arguably the smartest person in the film, his obsession is considered more a sign of mental illness than given credence, and for all of Cranston's brilliant sobbing, vulnerability, and angry, trailer-worthy speeches, he's treated like a stubborn child until his death. His son is forced to bail him out of jail, and he lives in a crummy one-room apartment. The role of adult and child have been reversed, a regression similar to the last third of JAWS.

I think critics have overly mourned Cranston's death, really he dies at a perfect point where he ceases to add anything more to the story. Ford Brody's arc parallels Cranston's fairly closely - he sends his wife away while his son is forced to watch from afar while he deals with affairs at Ground Zero. I found myself perplexed analyzing why he succeeds from a thematic standpoint where his father failed. By their natures he's a far more physical figure, his combat expertise tends to trump the intellectualism of his nuclear engineer father. Or perhaps while he initially lets go too much while Joe holds on too much, when he finally finds a balance he's able to surpass both Martin and Joe Brody's childish faults and ironically, as by far the youngest Brody, become more of a man than any of them.

Intertextuality with Contemporary Films

In addition to this heady Spielbergian fathers-protecting families vibe that runs through this whole thing, there's also the blueballs-generating effect of abstaining the display of the eponymous creature for an exceptionally long time. There's even a shot equivalent to Jaws swimming under the Orca, except naturally, for scale it's Godzilla swimming under the USS Saratoga. I don't necessarily have the problem with this that some other critics do, because it keeps inflating our imaginations. Although I agree with this reviewer, who comments that Quint, Hooper, and Brody would be entertaining enough in a film without a giant shark. There's no Indianapolis scene to really show off the talent that was brought on board.

Dave Chappelle could still take him.

While the humans are plenty interesting for being humans in a Godzilla movie, the film really becomes interesting when it begins commentating on other recent kaiju films in its own way. It's tough to even conceive of the scale of these monsters and Godzilla does a spectacular job of showing bits and pieces of its star, mostly through its influence on the world around it, wrecked buildings and tidal waves that it creates by merely emerging from the water. It's fitting to save the big brawl till the end, which gives it all the more pay-off. The film is trying to be a counter to Pacific Rim (2013), which also treated its Kaiju more as natural disasters you can punch in the face. That's still an exceptional movie that delivered all the smash 'em ups we could have asked for, and I actually may have been more frustrated with the slow burning tension of Godzilla much more if I hadn't gotten all my kaiju destruction love out with Pacific Rim. And Aaron Taylor-Johnson does out-act Charlie Hunnam at least.

It's important to remember, though, that more fights don't make a movie better. Look at Man of Steel (2013), whose fights largely become meaningless immortals battering each other until its controversial ending. Godzilla could have fallen into the same predicament, but instead saved the stakes (and the budget) until the one big super-brawl in the third act. Also considering Man of Steel's city destruction porn criticism (same goes for Star Trek Into Darkness [2013]), Godzilla fittingly seems to withhold this at all costs, showing more of the horrifying aftermath than taking puerile pleasure in watching the act. Of course, you can't have a Godzilla movie without destroying at least one city, which it does in a kind of hellish vision preserved from that first teaser, which is just as bone-chilling as it was in December.

On that note, the film also seems to counter this whole Batman Begins (2005) / Casino Royale (2006) / Star Trek (2009) / Man of Steel obsession we have with "gritty remakes" that go through these really contrived notions just to over-explain classic iconography rather than truly letting things organically develop. Godzilla himself arguably has less of a rational reason for existing than traditionally (I don't know what makes more sense - an iguana mutated by the Bikini Atoll tests; a mutated, time travelling Godzillasaurus; or the ancient million-year old radiation-eating super predator theory here). There aren't fanboy moments here disguised as self-important rhetoric. Godzilla's only purpose is to tell everyone to shut the fuck up and bow down to their god.

That's how you get this commentary on Cloverfield (2008), and even Godzilla (1998) and that film's own relationship with Jurassic Park (1993). The MUTOs are pretty damn Clover-like, and it's fitting that Godzilla gives one of them a kiss of radioactive fire breath and rips its head off (in one of the most satisfying Godzilla-villain dispatcher moves of all time). It's also fitting that his other classic move, the tail swipe, is used to kill the other one. This is the only reason Godzilla exists in this film - to blow apart these monsters that can't be represented by guys in suits, while G-Man himself is stockier than ever.

Seriously - everyone else has a rational for the MUTOs stalking around - eating radiation to gain enough energy to reproduce, but by all accounts Godzilla is pretty content to sleep forever until these jerks come along and try to upstage him. "Fuck that shit, I'm going to nuke your head," says Godzilla. Or, after his eye-to-eye bro moment with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, perhaps we should call him Brozilla. Their tag-teaming of distracting the MUTOs away from each other was a brilliant way for a puny human to team up with the King of the Monsters.


As for Godzilla '98, anyone notice that scene with the MUTO eggs that came awfully close to that film's third act which in itself aped the third Raptor act of Jurassic Park? See, all Godzilla '98 was trying to do was be a bigger, badder version of that Spielberg movie, but it failed miserably for a ridiculous amount of reasons, even if it had one of the more interesting soundtracks of all time. Godzilla '14 wades dangerously close, then literally burns this idea and shuts the door. As if Toho didn't already blow Zilla out of the water. Literally.

I also want to comment on how good this thing looks. Not to harp on Man of Steel some more (fuck it, I hated that movie), but the action was incomprehensible. Ditto for most of Mike Bay's Transformers films (tho the most recent trailer actually seems like he has a handle on things). It's a weird thing to even positively criticize, but you can tell what's going on at all moments in Godzilla, and you have a keen awareness for where monsters are and who's fighting whom. Action hasn't had that much clarity in a loud, bloated blockbuster since Gore Verblinski's At World's End (2007).

Commentary on Godzilla Films

The film constantly weighs expectation and anticipation with what is happening on screen. From the initial bait n switch in the Philippines and at the Japanese power plant there are these constant "oh shit" moments where the audience thinks they're ahead of the film but they're really not. Balancing this expectation with a film series that has such a crazy history as Godzilla is insane.

There are all these forces at work here, mostly to introduce the Monster to American shores, literally within the metanarrative, and therefore, to Western audiences. See, the Americans in this film just don't understand Godzilla, or what kind of movie they're in. They keep thinking up these ridiculous nuclear bomb plots because that's really all they have to go on. Nukes are always the only option, from Independence Day (1996) to The Avengers (2012). Going back to the Japanese understanding o the Atomic Age, the film may have something significant to say about this, after all:

See, nukes are the only way that Americans can think. If there is a world problem, we feel like we have to throw the military at it, even if everyone (including the people in the movie) think it's a pretty bad idea. Watanabe is the only one who suggests just letting the monsters duke it out, because a nuclear alternative isn't even a conceivable option. It should never be considered. Instead, he knows what kind of movie he's in - you gotta let the monsters sort this out on their own. We're at their mercy. The Americans in the movie need to get used to their military being completely outclassed, and thus the audience needs to also re-learn (especially after Godzilla '98 reversed this), that we have less control over this planet than we'd like to - and can't just nuke our problems away.

There's also this delicate balance of camp vs seriousness. Again, the Americans in the movie keep trying to make it a more serious, Battle: Los Angeles (2011)-style military adventure, but the Japanese are trying to just let it be a goofy monster mash. It ends up being a bit of both, but that works. At the end, Godzilla roars, having been anointed and earned the honorific, King of the Monsters - and he's hear to stay. Now, how do we get a King Ghidorah appearance?

2014 Oscar Nominations and Predictions - Let the Crapshoot Begin!

After sitting on the Academy Award Nominations for a week I think I'm really on to something here. No, it will be a crapshoot as always. My best year predicting winners was 2012, where I scored 16/24. Last year I got 14 correct. But this year! This year, my friends, I am going to bat 1.000. I swear.

The Oscars are kind of pointless, though, you know? The best film of the year doesn't win - the film that best positions itself in the hearts and minds of voters wins. And honestly, how many of you are out there re-watching, quoting or even still thinking about The King's Speech (2010), The Artist (2011), or even Argo (2012)? Oscars don't prove quality, longevity, or cultural significance. Then why bother with this at all? Because of huge heapings of arbitrary self-importance, that's why - and for the slim chance that future DVD releases Bad Grandpa can label it as an Oscar-winning film. Let's begin.

Best picture
12 Years a Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street
Captain Phillips
Her
American Hustle
Gravity
Dallas Buyers Club
Nebraska
Philomena

Predicted Winner: 12 Years a Slave

This is ending up being a pretty heated race between Slave, Hustle, and Gravity. I may be more inclined to suggest Hustle as the forerunner right now based on its impressive runs at he SAG. Then again, you've got Slave tying Gravity at the PGAs. It's a mess. I'm inclined that the large acting section of the Academy leans towards 12 Years a Slave more than Cuaron's film. It's also had the most buzz since September. Still, this is wide open.

Best director
Steve McQueen: 12 Years a Slave
David O. Russell: American Hustle
Alfonso Cuaron: Gravity
Alexander Payne: Nebraska
Martin Scorsese: The Wolf of Wall Street

Predicted Winner: Alfonso Cuaron

We'll have a better idea of this after the DGAs this weekend. I am predicting a split between Best Picture and Director, with Cuaron nailing this for the complex filmmaking experience of Gravity, as well as a bit of a consolation prize for losing Best Picture. This could easily be completely reversed.

Best actor
Bruce Dern: Nebraska
Chiwetel Ejiofor: 12 Years a Slave
Matthew McConaughey: Dallas Buyers Club
Leonardo DiCaprio: The Wolf of Wall Street
Christian Bale: American Hustle

Predicted Winner: Matthew McConaughey

We're truly in an age of McConaughey. Not only is the dude playing exactly the kind of role the Academy digs (historical biopic tangling a tough issue that also involved a ton of weight loss), he pulled it out of his own recently resurgent persona. Despite some damn good competition, he's also been rolling in the awards like the good ol' boy he is. Let the McConaissance reign.

Best actress
Amy Adams: American Hustle
Cate Blanchett: Blue Jasmine
Judi Dench: Philomena
Sandra Bullock: Gravity
Meryl Streep: August: Osage County

Predicted Winner: Cate Blanchette

This may be the oldest batch of Best Actress nominees in years, and so it comes with some tremendous pedigree. Everyone here except for Amy already owns a gold statue, although Cate and Judi don't have a Best Actress one. This is looking more and more like Cate's race to lose, though it's really one of the movies with a lower profile on this list.

Best supporting actor
Barkhad Abdi: Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper: American Hustle
Jonah Hill: The Wolf of Wall Street
Jared Leto: Dallas Buyers Club
Michael Fassbender: 12 Years a Slave

Predicted Winner: Jared Leto

After an awkward Golden Globes acceptance speech, Leto has righted his ship a bit after the SAGs. There isn't a ton of suspense here, although Fassbender deserves to sneak in for the upset. I still think Jonah Hill deserves this one for going absolutely crazy, and his analogous character in Goodfellas (1990) did earn Joe Pesci a statue. I think this still has a bit of wiggle room, but for now Leto is the safe bet.

Best supporting actress
Jennifer Lawrence: American Hustle
Lupita Nyong'o: 12 Years a Slave
June Squibb: Nebraska
Julia Roberts: August: Osage County
Sally Hawkins: Blue Jasmine

Predicted Winner: Lupita Nyong'o

This is really coming down to Nyong'o vs. J-Law, and they couldn't be happier. Seriously. Nyong'o gave the sort of breathless performance that is really deserving of this, and it's tough to argue that Lawrence did a better job here than in Silver Linings Playbook (2012), which you have to compare her to. Then again, Christoph Waltz basically turned in two identical characters (albeit on different sides of good and evil) that earned him two statues, so you know the Academy likes cozying up to people it likes. This goes back and forth a bit, but right now it's Nyong'o's to lose.

Best original screenplay
American Hustle: David O. Russell and Eric Warren Singer
Blue Jasmine: Woody Allen
Her: Spike Jonze
Nebraska: Bob Nelson
Dallas Buyers Club: Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack

Predicted Winner: American Hustle

I think that this will serve as a nice consolation for Hustle after it loses Best Picture and Best Director, although despite its recent gains, it's headed in the opposite direction of positive attention online lately as it something like Her, which both nabbed this award at the Golden Globes and just had this nifty documentary put out by Lance Bangs. I think that Her is a much more interesting film, one that will stand the test of time better, and even one that is better written, but like I said, none of that matters.

Best adapted screenplay
12 Years a Slave: John Ridley
Before Midnight: Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater
The Wolf of Wall Street: Terence Winter
Captain Phillips: Billy Ray
Philomena: Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope

Predicted Winner: 12 Years a Slave

This isn't that difficult to figure out. Although Wolf is probably the steepest competition, the praise (or hate) of this film hasn't really been in the writing. Slave is slow and meditating, but the dialogue is punctured and real, which is impressive considering it takes place 170 years ago.

Best animated feature
The Wind Rises
Frozen
Despicable Me 2
Ernest & Celestine
The Croods

Predicted Winner: Frozen

If the Academy leans towards Miyazaki, who has never really been acknowledged by the organization, I can see The Wind Rises grabbing this. Frozen, however, is just far to easy to nominate and adore for it to go home in this category empty-handed. Notably absent is Pixar's effort for 2013, Monsters University, which perhaps signifies that their dominance in this category is truly over.

Best foreign feature
The Hunt (Denmark)
The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium)
The Great Beauty (Italy)
Omar (Palestinian territories)
The Missing Picture (Cambodia)

Predicted Winner: The Great Beauty

The Great Beauty is getting more praise and buzz than anyone else in this group, and after it won over Blue is the Warmest Color (2013) at the Golden Globes it's almost a sure thing here. Of course, I know nothing about the rest of these nominees to even guess a possible upset, but shouldn't that suggest that The Great Beauty is destined for more greatness?

Best documentary feature
The Act of Killing
20 Feet From Stardom
The Square
Cutie and the Boxer
Dirty Wars

Predicted Winner: An Act of Killing

I was also surprised that Blackfish (2013) was snubbed here after it actually made some waves (oh ho!) in people's actual lives and attitudes like few movies, let alone documentaries actually do on a wide level. Maybe after The Cove (2009) the Academy thought it had already honoured enough documentary subjects concerning people endangering aquatic mammals. I say, it's never enough. An Act of Killing has the second most buzz of any doc this year. Let's go with that.

Best production design
12 Years a Slave: Adam Stockhausen and Alice Baker
The Great Gatsby: Catherine Martin and Beverley Dunn
American Hustle: Judy Becker and Heather Loeffler
Gravity: Andy Nicholson, Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard
Her: K.K. Barrett and Gene Serdena

Predicted Winner: The Great Gatsby

Many are predicting Gatsby here, which is shaping up to be that weird kind of shitty movie that racks up bizarre quasi-technical awards like this and costuming. If Gravity or Slave start rolling, though, this is an easy pick-up on the way to a sweep.

Best cinematography
Gravity: Emmanuel Lubezki
Inside Llewyn Davis: Bruno Delbonnel
Nebraska: Phedon Papamichael
Prisoners: Roger Deakins
The Grandmaster: Phillippe Le Sourd

Predicted Winner: Emmanuel Lubezki

I would have immediately thought this one would go to Sean Bobbit for 12 Years a Slave for the gorgeous way that picture looked, but he's no where to be found. There's a nice nod to Roger Deakins here, who hasn't won an Academy Award in 11 nominations, including his favored work last year for Skyfall (2012). Lubezki, though, isn't really a slouch either, with five nominations and no wins. If the Academy really feels like they slighted Deakins last year he may walk away with this, but if you play the odds, he's got to lose, right?

Best costume design
The Great Gatsby: Catherine Martin
12 Years a Slave: Patricia Norris
The Grandmaster: William Chang Suk Ping
American Hustle: Michael Wilkinson
The Invisible Woman: Michael O'Connor

Predicted Winner: American Hustle

This is another one of those categories that Gatsby may walk away with, especially because it's looking to turn into one of those doofy Anna Karenina (2012) - kind of flicks that dominates these categories. It's just good enough to be popular and respected, but not really of the cut for Best Picture. Even with all that, though I'm going out and suggesting that Hustle pulls a mild upset here and gets some recognition for the all-around insanity that was their hair, make-up, and outfits. No hair and makeup nods, so here you go.

Best film editing
Gravity: Alfonso Cuaron, Mark Sanger
12 Years a Slave: Joe Walker
Captain Phillips: Christopher Rouse
American Hustle: Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten
Dallas Buyers Club: John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa

Predicted Winner: Gravity

I don;t think there is much competition here - Gravity could win really from its lack of editing, as Cuaron likes to do. He could be one of those rare individuals to go home with two separate statues on the same night, which seems likely. Really, Cuaron has been making crazy good films for years, mostly thanks to his editing style, and this should serve as a nice acknowledgement for that.

Best makeup and hairstyling
The Lone Ranger: Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa: Stephen Prouty
Dallas Buyers Club: Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews

Predicted Winner: Dallas Buyers Club

So, yeah, Bad Grandpa needs to win this and Johnny Knoxville needs to collect the award as Irving Zissman. The much safer bet is the more prestigious Dallas Buyers Club, though, with the other films being a bit lowly for the Academy to acknowledge in its stead. Still, I have said for years how surprisingly good the Jackass old people make-up is and how much studios can learn from them. Will that be credited? This is the biggest award of the night.

Best music (original score)
Gravity: Steven Price
Philomena: Alexandre Desplat
The Book Thief: John Williams
Saving Mr. Banks: Thomas Newman
Her: William Butler and Owen Pallett

Predicted Winner: Gravity

There's no obvious great score from this list, but Gravity is certainly the film with the highest profile. It's tough to picture Her leaving with nothing, though, and if Hustle succeeds in snatching its Original Screenplay award, I can see it pulling a little upset here. How many points do I get for conditional picks?

Best music (original song)
Frozen: "Let it Go" by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom: "Ordinary Love" by U2, Paul Hewson
Her: "The Moon Song" by Karen O, Spike Jonze
Despicable Me 2: "Happy" by Pharrell Williams
Alone Yet Not Alone: "Alone Yet Not Alone" by Bruce Broughton, Dennis Spiegel

Predicted Winner: "Let it Go"

C'mon "Let it Go"....Bono doesn't need another award. "Let it Go" is actually the perfect Oscar song - it's important in the context of the film, stands as an integral character and plot moment, and is actually fun to listen on its own weeks after the film hit theaters. It was also on the number one album in the country for a bit there - upstaging Beyonce deserves an Oscar, folks. I am scared to death that this goes to Bono, basically because he's the New York Yankees of Awards Winning. And such a piece of shit.

Best sound editing
Gravity
All Is Lost
Captain Phillips
Lone Survivor
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Predicted Winner: Gravity

So we're approaching "default to Gravity" mode with these technical categories. The arrangment of sound is pretty spectacular in the space epic and this is definitely in the vein of other winners that were pretty epic in scope like Skyfall, Inception (2010), and The Dark Knight (2008). Thank goodness the Academy finally got a big accessible sort of sci-fi movie that wasn't really trying to be a blockbuster to through all these kinds of awards at this year.

Best sound mixing
Gravity
Captain Phillips
Lone Survivor
Inside Llewyn Davis
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Predicted Winner: Gravity

There is some possibility that Inside Llewyn Davis saves face here after not getting any other nomination(Not even for "Please Mr, Kennedy"), but if no one liked it enough to be nominated, no one's going to like it enough for it to win anything. Winners for Mixing don't always match up with winners for Editing, but they usually do for the big blockbuster-y type films and Gravity ought to clean this out, too. And to think, The Desolation of Smaug may have actually stood a chance.

Best visual effects
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Star Trek Into Darkness
Iron Man 3
The Lone Ranger

Predicted Winner: Gravity

Speaking of Smaug, that's about Gravity's only competition here. The effects for everything else aren't even that good - at least Pacific Rim really wowed us. But if Gravity deserves any statue this night, it's for the absolutely mind-blowing special effects that made this a worthwhile film to see in theaters and only in theaters. Let's do it, Hollywood.

Best short film, live action
"Aquel No Era Yo" (That Wasn't Me)
"Avant Que De Tout Perdre" (Just Before Losing Everything)
"Helium"
"Pitaako Mun Kaikki Hoitaa?" (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)
"The Voorman Problem"

Predicted Winner: "The Voorman Problem"

Time for the super-crapshoots. I like that name, Voorman. Sounds good. Why is there so many foreign entries this year? Go Voorman.

Best short film, animated
"Feral"
"Get a Horse!"
"Mr. Hublot"
"Possessions"
"Room on the Broom"

Predicted Winner: "Get a Horse!"

"Get a Horse!" played before Frozen and was actually a really engaging piece of meta-film that played with and contrasted black and white filmmaking with computer animated 3D work effortlessly, uniquely, and quickly. It was also pretty funny. It's almost too clever for its own good with the amount of creativity the characters display while using the strengths and limitations of their own medium to thwart or help each other. It rules and will win.

Best documentary short
"CaveDigger"
"Facing Fear"
"Karama Has No Walls"
"The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life"
"Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall"

Predicted Winner: "The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life"

Hy-ohhhhh!!!

So there you have it folks. I guarantee this list to be 100% accurate come March 2nd. Actually just about everything can change. If I bat .500 I'm pretty excited. Now let's all drink to our own self-congratulation.