Traditionally I'd end the year with a summary post featuring my favorite Miss Media Junkie highlights of the year, or a post on my favorite classic films that I watched during the year. However, with my posting count cut in half over the past two years, and my rate of watching classic films currently embarrassingly low, I don't feel that it's appropriate for me to be watching either of those posts. Over the past few weeks I've been obsessively working on the list of all the 2015 films that I still want to see - and with the critics' lists coming out there have been plenty of new additions. However, I thought it might be interesting to talk about some of the films that I've made a conscious decision to leave off for one reason or another.
So below are ten movies that didn't make the cut this year, where I actually did have to think about whether or not I wanted to see them. I reserve the right to revisit and reverse these decisions in the future, particularly if they involve a long flight or an intractable online argument. I've also left off "Fifty Shades of Grey," because I think I've written enough about not seeing that movie already.
"Goodnight, Mommy" - Austria's submission for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar this year is the highly acclaimed horror/thriller about a pair of twin boys trapped in a house with a convalescing woman they suspect is not really their mother. I've already had this one thoroughly spoiled for me, and frankly there are way too many plot details that I cringed at. In another year I might have forced myself to sit through this, but I just can't see the point today.
"Terminator: Genisys" - Oh, Arnold. I'm happy that you're back with this franchise. I really am. However, after a couple of lackluster, spoiler-heavy trailers, middling reviews, and apathetic audience reactions, I couldn't muster up any excitement for this. Maybe if they'd gotten a few of the other actors from previous installments back, or maybe if they'd gone for a more straightforward sequel instead of this screwy timeline rewrite, I could have latched on to something.
"Home" - A DreamWorks original from back in March. I like that this one features a minority kid as a main character and contained some interesting concepts, but I couldn't get over how generic it looked. Do the aliens look liked poor knockoffs of the three-eyed "Toy Story" aliens to anybody else? The preview short released last year, "Almost Home" sealed it for me that the humor wasn't working for me. I'm glad it made money for the studio, but I'm leaving this to the kids.
"Child 44" and "Dark Places" - Two darker crime melodramas that I would have watched in the past simply based on the talent involved, and because I like the genre. "Child 44" has Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace starring, while "Dark Places" has Charlize Theron and was based on a novel by "Gone Girl" author Gillian Flynn. However, from the way their releases were treated and the sad critical reception they received, clearly nobody had faith in either of these movies.
"Maggie" - Arnold again. More importantly, zombies again. I'm so sick of zombies. Sure, this one had a new twist on the concept and offered some character drama, but the thought of sitting through another bleak movie about a zombie apocalypse really put me off. Also, I love Arnold, but serious, dramatic Arnold only works for me in certain projects. If this had been our usual ass-kicking, gun-toting Arnold, I would have been onboard for "Maggie" in a second.
"Hot Pursuit" - I keep rooting for Reese Witherspoon to hang on to her A-lister status, but I don't know if Hollywood is making the kinds of movies that really suit her talents anymore. The trailers with her and Sofia Vergara flailing around were pretty painful. Vergara's very talented, but not great in large doses. Witherspoon looked out of her depth. As much as I'm all for girl power and female solidarity, I had to draw the line. Better luck next time ladies.
"Southpaw" - A boxing melodrama with Jake Gyllenhaal was s a tough sell from the start. Not because I don't like Gyllenhaal, but because this kind of material does nothing for me. During the schmaltzy trailer I kept flashing back to the MMA drama "Warrior," which bored me to death, and "Cinderella Man," which I don't think I watched all the way through. This stayed on the list for a while just because it was so high profile, but after the middling reviews I cut it loose.
"Secret in Their Eyes" - I respected but wasn't all that fond of the original "The Secret in Their Eyes," which won an Oscar back in 2009. The prospect of an English language remake initially didn't sound so bad. Billy Ray's a solid director and the cast is full of strong talents, including Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Yet again, it was the trailer that decided things for me. It just felt like a watered down, colorless imitation of the original film.
"Mustang" - I'm still wrestling with this one. "Mustang" is the Turkish drama that has been chosen to be France's Best Foreign Language submission for this year's Oscars. It's about five orphaned Muslim sisters who struggle against the restrictions forced on them by their insular community as they grow up. Rape, forced marriage, and suicide are plot points. This sounds soul-crushingly sad, and I'm not sure if I have the guts for this one. Maybe next year.
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Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Christmas With "Tangerine"
We've seen Hollywood in the movies many times over the years, but we've never seen the Hollywood of Sean S. Baker and Chris Bergoch's new film "Tangerine," which was shot with three iPhones, in real clubs, apartments, and businesses located in the area. Production even began on Christmas Eve of 2013, exactly when the story takes place. This is the Hollywood that nobody talks about, the Hollywood of sun-baked sidewalks in December, of late night talks in donut shops and laundromats, and of a pair of no-nonsense transgender prostitutes who spend their Christmas Eve tracking down a cheating pimp and getting their due.
Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), fresh out of prison, reunites with her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor), and learns that her boyfriend and pimp Chester (James Ransone) has taken up with a new "fish," Dinah (Mickey O'Hagan) in her absence. Sin-Dee is outraged at this betrayal and decides to find both of them and confront them. Alexandra agrees to help her, but is more concerned about her singing gig later that night. At the same time, an Armenian cab driver, Razmik (Karren Karagulian), tries to track down Sin-Dee when he learns she's back in town, while avoiding the scrutiny of his concerned mother-in-law Ashken (Alla Tumanian) and the rest of his family.
Rodriguez and Taylor are both transgender women, have history with the Los Angeles LGBT subculture, and radiate authenticity in these roles in a way that I doubt anyone else could. Their lack of acting experience doesn't stop them from commanding the screen every moment they appear on it. Both women are bursting with personality, particularly Rodriguez as she prowls her way around the city in her hunt for justice, demanding redress in a torrent of perfectly pitched dialogue when her targets are in sight. The whole film is designed to reflect their endlessly diverse, eclectic urban universe, full of saturated colors, larger-than-life characters, and manic energy. The style is rough at times, but also infectious and invigorating. The soundtrack includes club music, mariachi music, Christmas carols, and a selection from Victor Herbert's "Babes in Toyland." Significant chunks of the film with Razmik and Ashken feature Armenian dialogue.
All the characters that appear are on the low end of the economic ladder, if not underneath it, but they certainly don't act that way. Love transcends class, race, gender, and sexuality, and a woman scorned is a woman scorned, no matter her chromosomes or her profession. The glimpses of prostitution are often humorous, including a sequence in a makeshift brothel operating out of a seedy motel room. Lonely Razmik, who is at one point frustrated in his furtive search for love by a prostitute with the wrong equipment, often comes across as less empowered than Sin-Dee and Alexandra, who are loud and proud about who they are. The women don't see themselves as unfortunate souls or victims, ignoring those who would try to treat them as such.
If "Tangerine" sounds too unapproachable, I should also mention that this is a classic love farce at its core, the opposite of the kind of heart-rending sob story of oppression and surviving hard times that we usually get with characters like this. It's frequently very funny, as Sin-Dee's misadventures snowball throughout the day, and finally end with the whole cast crammed into a donut shop, hashing out their grievances in front of an exasperated counter girl. And yes, it's also a Christmas movie, in the best way. At the end of the night, after all the love games are finished, the movie takes a lovely, poignant moment to recognize that the friendship between Sin-Dee and Alexandra is the one relationship in their lives that really counts.
A film like "Tangerine" would have never come out of a major studio, at least not in the form we see here, so raw and unapologetic about its characters and their lives. Some may scoff at the rise of the microbudget filmmakers, but they made the Hollywood Christmas of "Tangerine" possible, and its unlikely leading ladies into bona fide stars. And they've opened up new avenues in filmmaking to a whole lot of aspiring directors who will hopefully keep making wonderfully offbeat, unique films like this one.
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Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), fresh out of prison, reunites with her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor), and learns that her boyfriend and pimp Chester (James Ransone) has taken up with a new "fish," Dinah (Mickey O'Hagan) in her absence. Sin-Dee is outraged at this betrayal and decides to find both of them and confront them. Alexandra agrees to help her, but is more concerned about her singing gig later that night. At the same time, an Armenian cab driver, Razmik (Karren Karagulian), tries to track down Sin-Dee when he learns she's back in town, while avoiding the scrutiny of his concerned mother-in-law Ashken (Alla Tumanian) and the rest of his family.
Rodriguez and Taylor are both transgender women, have history with the Los Angeles LGBT subculture, and radiate authenticity in these roles in a way that I doubt anyone else could. Their lack of acting experience doesn't stop them from commanding the screen every moment they appear on it. Both women are bursting with personality, particularly Rodriguez as she prowls her way around the city in her hunt for justice, demanding redress in a torrent of perfectly pitched dialogue when her targets are in sight. The whole film is designed to reflect their endlessly diverse, eclectic urban universe, full of saturated colors, larger-than-life characters, and manic energy. The style is rough at times, but also infectious and invigorating. The soundtrack includes club music, mariachi music, Christmas carols, and a selection from Victor Herbert's "Babes in Toyland." Significant chunks of the film with Razmik and Ashken feature Armenian dialogue.
All the characters that appear are on the low end of the economic ladder, if not underneath it, but they certainly don't act that way. Love transcends class, race, gender, and sexuality, and a woman scorned is a woman scorned, no matter her chromosomes or her profession. The glimpses of prostitution are often humorous, including a sequence in a makeshift brothel operating out of a seedy motel room. Lonely Razmik, who is at one point frustrated in his furtive search for love by a prostitute with the wrong equipment, often comes across as less empowered than Sin-Dee and Alexandra, who are loud and proud about who they are. The women don't see themselves as unfortunate souls or victims, ignoring those who would try to treat them as such.
If "Tangerine" sounds too unapproachable, I should also mention that this is a classic love farce at its core, the opposite of the kind of heart-rending sob story of oppression and surviving hard times that we usually get with characters like this. It's frequently very funny, as Sin-Dee's misadventures snowball throughout the day, and finally end with the whole cast crammed into a donut shop, hashing out their grievances in front of an exasperated counter girl. And yes, it's also a Christmas movie, in the best way. At the end of the night, after all the love games are finished, the movie takes a lovely, poignant moment to recognize that the friendship between Sin-Dee and Alexandra is the one relationship in their lives that really counts.
A film like "Tangerine" would have never come out of a major studio, at least not in the form we see here, so raw and unapologetic about its characters and their lives. Some may scoff at the rise of the microbudget filmmakers, but they made the Hollywood Christmas of "Tangerine" possible, and its unlikely leading ladies into bona fide stars. And they've opened up new avenues in filmmaking to a whole lot of aspiring directors who will hopefully keep making wonderfully offbeat, unique films like this one.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2015
More Ups and Downs With "Doctor Who"
Spoilers ahead for the recently concluded season.
We come to the end of another year of "Doctor Who," the second with Peter Capaldi that also said goodbye to Jenna Coleman as his companion, Clara Oswald. And thank goodness. While I've grown attached to Capaldi over the past year, as I usually do with each successive Doctor at about this point in their tenures, I've come to the conclusion that I don't care much for Clara at all. She was always too flat and entirely too clever, difficult to sympathize with because she was so lacking in human foibles and flaws. She was at her best last year, during her tempestuous romance with Danny Pink, and without him she regressed into the too-perfect Impossible Girl who was occasionally more alien than the Doctor.
It's strange because the other two female characters who played big parts this season have strong similarities to Clara, but I enjoyed them far more. First, there's Missy, embodied by the priceless Michelle Gomez, who was only around for the premiere episodes, but will surely be back for more appearances in the seasons to come. She remains my absolute favorite part of the Capaldi era, a hilariously amoral, lunatic force who has completely drop-kicked the angst of the previous incarnations of The Master in favor of having more fun. And she proved that having her for an ally might be worse than having her for an enemy, in a fun two-parter that started the year off with a bang. I was disappointed when she didn't pop back in for the finale, especially considering where it was set.
Then there's the new girl, Ashildr, also called "Me," who becomes an immortal being thanks to the Doctor's intervention in an early episode, and pops up again in several subsequent ones. Maisie Williams plays her as someone with a lot of potential for good or evil, who has to be reminded regularly that she's fallible and that she actually does have a heart. Like Clara she's too clever and almost impossible to faze, but the show treats that as a symptom of her distancing herself from her own humanity, a flaw rather than a strength. That's what makes her character easier to stomach. Ashildr is intriguing, but I don't think that the show has made the best use of her - at least not yet.
I've heard many claims that this is the best season of "Doctor Who" in a while, particularly in the way that it returned to the old two-parter format. Overall, I found it about on par with the last Capaldi season, but with stronger highs. The beautifully bleak "Heaven Sent" episode is one of the series' best without question, featuring a tour de force performance from Peter Capaldi. I like how his Twelfth Doctor has evolved, becoming softer-edged and more eccentric. He's more vulnerable and less in control than he's been in a while, which makes me very excited for his post-Clara adventures.
However, I really disliked "Face the Raven," where Clara's fate is sealed, and had very mixed feelings about "Hell Bent," where she parts ways with the Doctor for the last time. I admit that something about their relationship never sat right with me, and it's honestly a relief that it's over. I feel bad, because Jenna Coleman's clearly very talented and I think she'd be fantastic in other roles - I preferred her as some of the other versions of Clara a few series ago. I think a lot of it came down to Steven Moffat's writing and all the messy inconsistencies of who she was supposed to be.
Finally a couple of odds and ends. I liked seeing Gallifrey again, and I hope that we'll get some more material involving the Time Lords that isn't just limited to saving them from or consigning them to oblivion. The Zygon storyline still doesn't do much for me, but I like the direction that Osgood has taken, and the continued presence of UNIT and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. I'm missing the Paternoster Gang though. At least we're getting more River Song this Christmas, in a special that looks nice and comedic.
So while I'm giving this series of "Doctor Who" a mixed review, I'm more optimistic about where the show is going. Looking forward to next year and the next companion.
---
We come to the end of another year of "Doctor Who," the second with Peter Capaldi that also said goodbye to Jenna Coleman as his companion, Clara Oswald. And thank goodness. While I've grown attached to Capaldi over the past year, as I usually do with each successive Doctor at about this point in their tenures, I've come to the conclusion that I don't care much for Clara at all. She was always too flat and entirely too clever, difficult to sympathize with because she was so lacking in human foibles and flaws. She was at her best last year, during her tempestuous romance with Danny Pink, and without him she regressed into the too-perfect Impossible Girl who was occasionally more alien than the Doctor.
It's strange because the other two female characters who played big parts this season have strong similarities to Clara, but I enjoyed them far more. First, there's Missy, embodied by the priceless Michelle Gomez, who was only around for the premiere episodes, but will surely be back for more appearances in the seasons to come. She remains my absolute favorite part of the Capaldi era, a hilariously amoral, lunatic force who has completely drop-kicked the angst of the previous incarnations of The Master in favor of having more fun. And she proved that having her for an ally might be worse than having her for an enemy, in a fun two-parter that started the year off with a bang. I was disappointed when she didn't pop back in for the finale, especially considering where it was set.
Then there's the new girl, Ashildr, also called "Me," who becomes an immortal being thanks to the Doctor's intervention in an early episode, and pops up again in several subsequent ones. Maisie Williams plays her as someone with a lot of potential for good or evil, who has to be reminded regularly that she's fallible and that she actually does have a heart. Like Clara she's too clever and almost impossible to faze, but the show treats that as a symptom of her distancing herself from her own humanity, a flaw rather than a strength. That's what makes her character easier to stomach. Ashildr is intriguing, but I don't think that the show has made the best use of her - at least not yet.
I've heard many claims that this is the best season of "Doctor Who" in a while, particularly in the way that it returned to the old two-parter format. Overall, I found it about on par with the last Capaldi season, but with stronger highs. The beautifully bleak "Heaven Sent" episode is one of the series' best without question, featuring a tour de force performance from Peter Capaldi. I like how his Twelfth Doctor has evolved, becoming softer-edged and more eccentric. He's more vulnerable and less in control than he's been in a while, which makes me very excited for his post-Clara adventures.
However, I really disliked "Face the Raven," where Clara's fate is sealed, and had very mixed feelings about "Hell Bent," where she parts ways with the Doctor for the last time. I admit that something about their relationship never sat right with me, and it's honestly a relief that it's over. I feel bad, because Jenna Coleman's clearly very talented and I think she'd be fantastic in other roles - I preferred her as some of the other versions of Clara a few series ago. I think a lot of it came down to Steven Moffat's writing and all the messy inconsistencies of who she was supposed to be.
Finally a couple of odds and ends. I liked seeing Gallifrey again, and I hope that we'll get some more material involving the Time Lords that isn't just limited to saving them from or consigning them to oblivion. The Zygon storyline still doesn't do much for me, but I like the direction that Osgood has taken, and the continued presence of UNIT and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. I'm missing the Paternoster Gang though. At least we're getting more River Song this Christmas, in a special that looks nice and comedic.
So while I'm giving this series of "Doctor Who" a mixed review, I'm more optimistic about where the show is going. Looking forward to next year and the next companion.
---
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Rank 'Em: The Phase Two Marvel Movies
I wanted to write up a post about the "Phase Two" Marvel Cinematic Universe films now that we're moving into Phase Three, and I think a "Rank 'Em" post makes the most sense so I can talk about all six films in relation to each other. The last time I ranked the Marvel films was in 2013, after "Iron Man 3" but before "Thor 2," so there's not going to be much crossover. Here we go, from best to worst.
1. Ant-Man (2015) - The more I think about this film, the more I like it because it gives us something different. The hero is an ordinary guy with a different set of concerns than any of the other heroes we've met so far. His shrinking powers open up a whole new visual landscape. We've also got a real mentor-student relationship going on between Scott and Hank, which is an interesting new wrinkle. There are some serious flaws, and I maintain that it's not the film that it could have been in different hands, but "Ant-Man" is more than good enough. They didn't solve the villain problem, but they did offer a fantastic new variation on the third act final battle sequence, which I appreciate so much.
2. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) - Come and get your love. I was pretty harsh on this one last year when I found out it wasn't kid-friendly, but I have to give it due credit for its wildly imaginative sci-fi universe and a strong cast of characters. Chris Pratt's dudebro Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot are especially fun additions to the Marvel pantheon, and the retro soundtrack is priceless. If the rest of the offworld Marvel movies look like this, fans shouldn't have anything to worry about. Again, points get knocked off for poor villains, poor treatment of the female lead, and a couple of jokes in poor taste that I'm not sure how they got away with under Disney's nose. It's a fun movie, but one that left me with my guard up.
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - I came away from this one so impressed with the direction of the Russo brothers, and I can see why they've been chosen to helm the upcoming "Avengers" movies. The nods to political thrillers of the '70s were nice, and it was good to see Robert Redford, but this was still a superhero movie through and through. Having action scenes more reminiscent of the "Bourne" series was a welcome change of pace, but we still ended up with the same, dull world-in-peril finale we've seen so many times before. Also, I came away with no particular attachment to either the Falcon or the Winter Soldier, which is probably going to be a problem for the upcoming "Civil War" storyline.
4. Iron Man 3 (2013) - I'm surprised that I liked this so much more than the majority of viewers. Maybe it's because I actually prefer Tony Stark out of the suit, and I really enjoy Shane Black movies. The Mandarin bait-and-switch worked fine for me. So did the kid sidekick and superpowered Pepper. I actually like "Iron Man 3" about on par with "Winter Soldier," except that I didn't buy Tony's character arc or the ending of "Iron Man 3" at all. Seriously, we all knew he was going to be Iron Man again for "Age of Ulton." No, it doesn't live up to the original and I would have much rather have had a straight adaptation of "Demon in a Bottle," but after "Iron Man 2" I wasn't expecting this to be nearly as good as it is.
5. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - So many things here just didn't work for me: smarmy Ultron, underdeveloped Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, and most of the business with the Vision. Joss Whedon made a valiant effort, but this movie was too long and overstuffed with too many characters and obligations. It felt like an entire series of a television show crammed into a single feature. Individual sequences were great - I loved everything involving Hawkeye's family and many of the action sequences - but I don't think this works as a film. I'm hopeful that a stronger villain and a two-part structure will alleviate some of these problems for "Infinity War."
6 Thor: The Dark World (2013) - The first "Thor" was near the bottom of my previous list. The sequel didn't manage to improve on it in many ways, and in others is quite a bit worse. Some of the Thor and Loki friction is enjoyable, but the main villain is a terrible waste of Christopher Eccleston, the romance is as tepid as ever, and the humor continues to fall flat. This movie exemplifies all the common complaints about filmmakers trying to use copious amounts of CGI destruction to hide the lack of interesting characters and a decent plot. It feels like they weren't even trying this time.
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1. Ant-Man (2015) - The more I think about this film, the more I like it because it gives us something different. The hero is an ordinary guy with a different set of concerns than any of the other heroes we've met so far. His shrinking powers open up a whole new visual landscape. We've also got a real mentor-student relationship going on between Scott and Hank, which is an interesting new wrinkle. There are some serious flaws, and I maintain that it's not the film that it could have been in different hands, but "Ant-Man" is more than good enough. They didn't solve the villain problem, but they did offer a fantastic new variation on the third act final battle sequence, which I appreciate so much.
2. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) - Come and get your love. I was pretty harsh on this one last year when I found out it wasn't kid-friendly, but I have to give it due credit for its wildly imaginative sci-fi universe and a strong cast of characters. Chris Pratt's dudebro Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot are especially fun additions to the Marvel pantheon, and the retro soundtrack is priceless. If the rest of the offworld Marvel movies look like this, fans shouldn't have anything to worry about. Again, points get knocked off for poor villains, poor treatment of the female lead, and a couple of jokes in poor taste that I'm not sure how they got away with under Disney's nose. It's a fun movie, but one that left me with my guard up.
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - I came away from this one so impressed with the direction of the Russo brothers, and I can see why they've been chosen to helm the upcoming "Avengers" movies. The nods to political thrillers of the '70s were nice, and it was good to see Robert Redford, but this was still a superhero movie through and through. Having action scenes more reminiscent of the "Bourne" series was a welcome change of pace, but we still ended up with the same, dull world-in-peril finale we've seen so many times before. Also, I came away with no particular attachment to either the Falcon or the Winter Soldier, which is probably going to be a problem for the upcoming "Civil War" storyline.
4. Iron Man 3 (2013) - I'm surprised that I liked this so much more than the majority of viewers. Maybe it's because I actually prefer Tony Stark out of the suit, and I really enjoy Shane Black movies. The Mandarin bait-and-switch worked fine for me. So did the kid sidekick and superpowered Pepper. I actually like "Iron Man 3" about on par with "Winter Soldier," except that I didn't buy Tony's character arc or the ending of "Iron Man 3" at all. Seriously, we all knew he was going to be Iron Man again for "Age of Ulton." No, it doesn't live up to the original and I would have much rather have had a straight adaptation of "Demon in a Bottle," but after "Iron Man 2" I wasn't expecting this to be nearly as good as it is.
5. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - So many things here just didn't work for me: smarmy Ultron, underdeveloped Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, and most of the business with the Vision. Joss Whedon made a valiant effort, but this movie was too long and overstuffed with too many characters and obligations. It felt like an entire series of a television show crammed into a single feature. Individual sequences were great - I loved everything involving Hawkeye's family and many of the action sequences - but I don't think this works as a film. I'm hopeful that a stronger villain and a two-part structure will alleviate some of these problems for "Infinity War."
6 Thor: The Dark World (2013) - The first "Thor" was near the bottom of my previous list. The sequel didn't manage to improve on it in many ways, and in others is quite a bit worse. Some of the Thor and Loki friction is enjoyable, but the main villain is a terrible waste of Christopher Eccleston, the romance is as tepid as ever, and the humor continues to fall flat. This movie exemplifies all the common complaints about filmmakers trying to use copious amounts of CGI destruction to hide the lack of interesting characters and a decent plot. It feels like they weren't even trying this time.
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Thursday, December 10, 2015
All About "Ant-Man"
"Ant-Man" is the Marvel film that I've enjoyed the most since the
first "Avengers." However, it's a little difficult to parse who is
ultimately responsible for it. "Ant-Man" was Edgar Wright's dream
project for ages, but he parted ways with Marvel over creative
differences, and was eventually replaced by Peyton Reed. However,
Wright's name is still all over the movie - he has executive producer,
screenplay, and story credits. Several of the comedic and action
sequences are clearly his work. Reed's a decent director, but frankly
has never displayed the kind of proficiency with comic-book visuals on
display in "Ant-Man." On the other hand, it's not fair to attribute all
the good bits to Wright. There's a lot of good dialogue and Marvel
worldbuilding that definitely didn't come from him.
Paul
Rudd stars as Scott Lang, who we first meet being released from prison,
determined to go straight, ending his career as a skilled thief and
burglar. However, finding employment is tough for an ex-con, and Scott
needs money quickly to pay child support and be reunited with his young
daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson). He's convinced by his ex-cell
mate Luis (Michael Peña) to break into the house
of scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), to steal the contents of a
mysterious safe. It turns out the contents are a mysterious suit that
allows the wearer to shrink to the size of an insect while retaining the
strength of a full size man, and Pym engineered the whole burglary as a
test for Scott. Pym wants Scott to take on the mantle of the superhero
"Ant-Man," and help him and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lily) to
stop Pym's former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from developing his
own suit and selling it to the highest bidder.
The
familiar origin story formula has been shaken up in some good ways
here. First, it's largely structured as a heist movie, where Scott,
Hank, and Hope spend the majority of the second act training, planning,
and hashing out personal issues in preparation for stealing Cross's
prototype suit from a heavily guarded facility. Second, the shrinking
powers allow for some very entertaining variations on the standard fight
sequence. Instead of a final showdown leveling cities or endangering
planets, the finale of "Ant-Man" takes place in a child's bedroom amidst
a heap of toys. Other action sequences take place in a suitcase, in a
bathtub, and in water pipes. The conceit sounds very silly at first,
but it allows for so much inventiveness playing with scale. Scott also
learns to command an army of loyal CGI ants, adding to the sense of epic
in miniature. He even rides a winged carpenter ant into battle.
I've
never been much of a fan of Paul Rudd, but he fits into the role of
Scott Lang nicely, giving him a sense of innate decency despite an
impressive resume of wrongdoing. However, Michael Douglas really stole
the show as Hank Pym. I love how much history and old, unfinished
business the characters here have with each other, and how it plays into
the story. Pym's another version of the Tony Stark genius
entrepreneur, one several decades further along who is now working to
mend old relationships and address his mistakes. Douglas really sells
his stubborn pride and arrogance, with a mushy heart of gold underneath,
of course. He even gets the messy emotional stuff with his daughter to
mostly work. As for Evangeline Lily, she was was decent
but underused. I can only hope this will be corrected in the upcoming
sequel.
"Ant-Man"
does suffer from some of the same issues that most of the other Marvel
movies do. Chiefly, the villain is a bust. Corey Stoll isn't even
trying to play Cross as anything other than a sober version of his
character from "House of Cards." Also, there are a few too many awkward
tie-ins to the other Marvel movies shoehorned in there, from the
pre-credits scene to the after-credits scene, to a contrived fight with
one of the Avengers that probably should have been cut for time and
pacing issues. The script could have used a few more passes too. There
are plot holes everywhere and the shrinking powers are terribly
inconsistent. Scott is awful at asking obvious questions. And Hope
having to spend the entire movie convincing her father to let her put on
the suit made Marvel's problem with female superheroes all the more
apparent.
Finally,
I have to come back to the lack of Edgar Wright. I enjoyed "Ant-Man"
as it is, but I was also very aware of all the ways in which it probably
would have been better if Wright had directed it. I can't help
thinking it's such a shame that we never got to see the movie he wanted
to make. Then again, we're lucky that the film did get made without
him, and is as solidly entertaining as it is.
---
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
"Victoria" Vexes
Sebastian Schipper's German drama, "Victoria," has rightly won praise for its daring camera work. The entire 138 minute film is shot in a single take, following the title character during an eventful night in Berlin. I found the film extremely difficult to sit through though, not because of the extensive shakeycam, but because the characters and story are an absolutely implausible mess.
Victoria (Laia Costa) is a recent immigrant from Madrid, who works at a café for scant wages, and doesn't speak much German. Thus, most of the dialogue is in heavily accented English. One night, on her way home from a club, she meets a group of young men including Sonne (Frederick Lau), Boxer (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burak Yigit), and Fuss (Max Mauff), who invite her to hang out and party with them. Victoria takes a liking to Sonne, and unwittingly gets caught up in a job that Boxer has agreed to pull for a local crime boss.
About ten minutes into "Victoria," as I watched our heroine agree to go off with a pack of drunken hooligans she had just met, I decided that Victoria was a complete idiot. These guys start the movie off being refused entry to the club, spend a painfully long time talking Victoria into spending longer and longer stretches of time with them, and once they had her isolated they could have very easily assaulted her or worse. Not knowing much about the film except that it was some kind of action thriller, I expected that this was going to turn out to be a human trafficking story instead of one about an entirely different kind of crime. Maybe cultural differences explain away some of this, but I spent much of the first act wondering when Victoria was going to be roofied.
The pacing also drove me to distraction. The first hour of the film is just following the group as they drink beers and meander around Berlin, in search of a good time. Almost all the dialogue is improvised, and quite a bit of it is difficult to understand because of the thick accents. At one point around the midway point of the movie, Victoria and Sonne are able to spend some time alone, and I became hopeful that the movie might turn out to be a low key love story - so little had happened by that point that surely this couldn't be an action film. But, alas, after that one scene of decent interaction between our lovebirds, suddenly there's a small crisis that snowballs into a big one, and there are a barrage of illogical twists and turns. Because of course the young woman you've known for less than two hours who speaks no German should be asked to be your getaway driver. Of course.
it's a shame because when Laila Costa is actually given a few minutes to expound a bit on Victoria's past, she's quite compelling. The rest of the time she comes across as painfully naïve, taking stupid risks and displaying a profoundly poor sense of judgment. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that not only was she careless and unthinking, but really an awful human being. At least she fares better than Sonne and Boxer and the rest, who barely register as distinct personalities. They all seem to boast and lie and panic in the exact same ways. What really kills the film for me is how little it cares about showing you who these people are. There's almost nothing to latch on to with any of them. The guys are a standard collection of petty thieves who give the viewer every reason to think the worst of them, and nothing is ever really offered to refute that. Sonne is maybe humanized a little more than the others, but not much.
The slowly escalating heist and chase sequences that make up the final parts of the firm are technically impressive and do provide some good thrills, but they're not worth sitting through the first half of the film to see. And they're so hamstrung by all the weak contrivances and bad decisions that it took to get all the characters to that point that I couldn't enjoy them fully. I wish the filmmakers had spent a fraction of the time they spent on the cinematography on a solid, cohesive script.
---
Victoria (Laia Costa) is a recent immigrant from Madrid, who works at a café for scant wages, and doesn't speak much German. Thus, most of the dialogue is in heavily accented English. One night, on her way home from a club, she meets a group of young men including Sonne (Frederick Lau), Boxer (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burak Yigit), and Fuss (Max Mauff), who invite her to hang out and party with them. Victoria takes a liking to Sonne, and unwittingly gets caught up in a job that Boxer has agreed to pull for a local crime boss.
About ten minutes into "Victoria," as I watched our heroine agree to go off with a pack of drunken hooligans she had just met, I decided that Victoria was a complete idiot. These guys start the movie off being refused entry to the club, spend a painfully long time talking Victoria into spending longer and longer stretches of time with them, and once they had her isolated they could have very easily assaulted her or worse. Not knowing much about the film except that it was some kind of action thriller, I expected that this was going to turn out to be a human trafficking story instead of one about an entirely different kind of crime. Maybe cultural differences explain away some of this, but I spent much of the first act wondering when Victoria was going to be roofied.
The pacing also drove me to distraction. The first hour of the film is just following the group as they drink beers and meander around Berlin, in search of a good time. Almost all the dialogue is improvised, and quite a bit of it is difficult to understand because of the thick accents. At one point around the midway point of the movie, Victoria and Sonne are able to spend some time alone, and I became hopeful that the movie might turn out to be a low key love story - so little had happened by that point that surely this couldn't be an action film. But, alas, after that one scene of decent interaction between our lovebirds, suddenly there's a small crisis that snowballs into a big one, and there are a barrage of illogical twists and turns. Because of course the young woman you've known for less than two hours who speaks no German should be asked to be your getaway driver. Of course.
it's a shame because when Laila Costa is actually given a few minutes to expound a bit on Victoria's past, she's quite compelling. The rest of the time she comes across as painfully naïve, taking stupid risks and displaying a profoundly poor sense of judgment. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that not only was she careless and unthinking, but really an awful human being. At least she fares better than Sonne and Boxer and the rest, who barely register as distinct personalities. They all seem to boast and lie and panic in the exact same ways. What really kills the film for me is how little it cares about showing you who these people are. There's almost nothing to latch on to with any of them. The guys are a standard collection of petty thieves who give the viewer every reason to think the worst of them, and nothing is ever really offered to refute that. Sonne is maybe humanized a little more than the others, but not much.
The slowly escalating heist and chase sequences that make up the final parts of the firm are technically impressive and do provide some good thrills, but they're not worth sitting through the first half of the film to see. And they're so hamstrung by all the weak contrivances and bad decisions that it took to get all the characters to that point that I couldn't enjoy them fully. I wish the filmmakers had spent a fraction of the time they spent on the cinematography on a solid, cohesive script.
---
Monday, December 7, 2015
Tweet, Tweet, Tweet
Next March will be the tenth anniversary of the launch of Twitter, once derided as a micro-blogging services for the self-obsessed, and now considered such a massively important method of online communication that outages are front page news. The rise of the Twitterverse seemed to happen so fast. Initially, the service was greeted with skepticism. What could you really say in only 140 characters? Did you really need updates on the everyday course of another person's life? Who would spend so much time composing and sending tweets? And who would read them? It turns out, depending on who was writing, everybody. Texting exploded in popularity right around when Twitter began. Within a year or two, everybody who was anybody had a Twitter account. And maintaining that social media presence could have a noticeable impact on the celebrity and standing of public figures. Companies and organizations have Twitter accounts. Heads of state and religious leaders have twitter accounts.
I think when it really struck me that Twitter was becoming a major force was when the cable news programs started mining them for quotes. Initially I thought this was in poor taste, discussing random netizen's commentary on various events in order to fill time. However, the curation of tweets quickly became better and more focused. Tweets started coming from notable figures, and some specific tweets were making headlines themselves. Then relaying tweets gathered from people in the middle of disasters and crises became commonplace. And we started seeing fights over Twitter censorship and Twitter blocking in various countries. People got persecuted and arrested for tweets. And then, of course, Arab Spring happened. And before I knew it, following hashtags wasn't anything out of the ordinary, and I was creating my own Twitter account to follow the conversations between various celebrities online, and announce updates to this blog.
I wasn't very good at Twitter though, and after about a year or so of actively trying to participate, I stopped reading my Twitter feeds. Around the time I went on hiatus, I stopped updating the Miss Media Junkie account for good. I don't think I ever had more than a dozen subscribers at any point anyway. What's so attractive about Twitter is the immediacy of it, the way you can be in contact with anybody in the public sphere with a few clicks, and amplify your message with enough retweets or the support of the right people. However, I found I don't have much important to say, and no real desire to be in the spotlight. Maybe in different circumstances, Twitter will be more useful for me, but I only managed to experience it as a time waster, and frankly I just ran out of time.
So I've watched the continuing Twitter takeover of the world mostly from the sidelines. It continually astounds me how creative and versatile the platform can be. I love the emergence of the fake Twitter accounts, like the glorious @NotTildaSwinton that dispenses absurdist Swintonesque nonsense, and @seinfeldtoday, which comes up with plot summaries of fake "Seinfeld" episodes featuring the daily annoyances of the 2010s. And you've got @RealTimeWWI tweeting updates form World War I as if it were happening in the present. And that British guy who tweeted the entire Bible over the course of three years.
And when people talk about social media campaigns, Twitter is the default method of getting the word out, for good or bad. When people want to make a stand or have their say, they can do it on Twitter without spending a dime. It's debatable how much of an effect it's having from one moment to the next, but it does have an effect. And the media and the powers that be have taken notice. I'm still a little resistant to the notion that measuring the incidence of certain key words or phrases in people's tweets can really tell you anything, but there are all kinds of trackers now, measuring just that for marketers and researchers.
And somehow the discourse hasn't become dumbed down or reductive. Twitter is just a different way of communicating and getting ideas across. It turns out that you can say quite a lot in 140 characters at a time, and there are no limits on the number of tweets, the length of Twitter conversations, or the number of people they can be directed to. Yes, a lot of it is silly chatter, but once in a while, a few little tweets are anything but.
---
I think when it really struck me that Twitter was becoming a major force was when the cable news programs started mining them for quotes. Initially I thought this was in poor taste, discussing random netizen's commentary on various events in order to fill time. However, the curation of tweets quickly became better and more focused. Tweets started coming from notable figures, and some specific tweets were making headlines themselves. Then relaying tweets gathered from people in the middle of disasters and crises became commonplace. And we started seeing fights over Twitter censorship and Twitter blocking in various countries. People got persecuted and arrested for tweets. And then, of course, Arab Spring happened. And before I knew it, following hashtags wasn't anything out of the ordinary, and I was creating my own Twitter account to follow the conversations between various celebrities online, and announce updates to this blog.
I wasn't very good at Twitter though, and after about a year or so of actively trying to participate, I stopped reading my Twitter feeds. Around the time I went on hiatus, I stopped updating the Miss Media Junkie account for good. I don't think I ever had more than a dozen subscribers at any point anyway. What's so attractive about Twitter is the immediacy of it, the way you can be in contact with anybody in the public sphere with a few clicks, and amplify your message with enough retweets or the support of the right people. However, I found I don't have much important to say, and no real desire to be in the spotlight. Maybe in different circumstances, Twitter will be more useful for me, but I only managed to experience it as a time waster, and frankly I just ran out of time.
So I've watched the continuing Twitter takeover of the world mostly from the sidelines. It continually astounds me how creative and versatile the platform can be. I love the emergence of the fake Twitter accounts, like the glorious @NotTildaSwinton that dispenses absurdist Swintonesque nonsense, and @seinfeldtoday, which comes up with plot summaries of fake "Seinfeld" episodes featuring the daily annoyances of the 2010s. And you've got @RealTimeWWI tweeting updates form World War I as if it were happening in the present. And that British guy who tweeted the entire Bible over the course of three years.
And when people talk about social media campaigns, Twitter is the default method of getting the word out, for good or bad. When people want to make a stand or have their say, they can do it on Twitter without spending a dime. It's debatable how much of an effect it's having from one moment to the next, but it does have an effect. And the media and the powers that be have taken notice. I'm still a little resistant to the notion that measuring the incidence of certain key words or phrases in people's tweets can really tell you anything, but there are all kinds of trackers now, measuring just that for marketers and researchers.
And somehow the discourse hasn't become dumbed down or reductive. Twitter is just a different way of communicating and getting ideas across. It turns out that you can say quite a lot in 140 characters at a time, and there are no limits on the number of tweets, the length of Twitter conversations, or the number of people they can be directed to. Yes, a lot of it is silly chatter, but once in a while, a few little tweets are anything but.
---
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