#yes this is my 'aquaman' sequel review

[stolligaseptember]

TOPO YOU'LL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS

#yes this is my 'aquaman' sequel review #it was surprisingly good #it's a Solid Sequel and a fun time!!!!! #even if i spent the entire last third terrified for arthur jr. #topo #aquaman 2 #aquaman and the lost kingdom #aquaman #the lost kingdom #movies #dc #dc comics

[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: Worst Films of 2023

So here we are. 2023 has ended and what a year of disappointments it has been. This year we saw alot of franchises return. A few in particular wanted one last chance to redeem themselves and in my opinion should've stayed in the shadows of their past glory. We also saw the end of a cinematic universe and how messy that was handled. Not all was bad though. We got to see a film with a fun concept that went all out on its gory promise and well, actually, it was pretty forgettable. I'm not gonna beat around the bush anymore. Without further ado, I give you my list of the worst films of 2023. As always, if you want a more detailed review of all the films on my list, just click the title of each film. First up......

Cocaine Bear: Talk about a wild story that was sort of true. The thought of a cocaine fueled bear on a rampage in a forest set in the 80's seemed like a ludicrous idea reserved for the back corner of the low budget horror section of Blockbuster. Well it was exactly that and for about 30 minutes, the idea was fun and had the right tone. Somewhere along the many lines of snortables, the film took a wrong turn and had no idea what it was trying to be. The tone was shifting from drug recovery to family comedy to romantic comedy to hardcore monster movie and so much more. It lost its appeal really quickly and failed to stay in the pocket it initially carved out. Such wasted potential.

The Marvels: And so Marvel Studios attempt to give their one overpowered and unlikeable character a second chance to be liked and actually have some form a story and character development. This time she had 2 additional heroes to come with her on this action packed romp and for the most part, it worked. Where the film truly failed is its terribly written plot that could've been summed up in less than 20 minutes and the fact that they made their main hero the villain without any sense of repentance for her actions against an entire civilization. There was an emotional core there that should’ve been fully explored and not drowned out by the needless action scenes and unnecessary musical sequence. The real standout of the film was Iman Vellani as Ms Marvel and I hope for the future that she takes the lead from now on. Everyone else in the film felt like an after thought, but at least the chemistry between the 3 leads saved the film from being a complete disaster. Speaking of disasters, don't get me started on the god awful mid credits scene.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: There was a small chance that this beloved franchise could rise from the ashes of the fourth entry and truly lay Indiana’s fedora to a satisfying rest. You had a great director, Harrison Ford dawning the fedora one last time and all the hopes of us Indi fans. What did we get? A over budgeted, character inflated, time traveling mess of a finale that spits in the face of what made those original 3 films magical. It wasn't about the action set pieces and the over use of CGI, but the fact that it was small, simple and real. There was a goal that had its other worldly properties whether it was the Arc of Covenant or The Holy Grail, but it felt more real than the finale of this film. What was really heartbreaking was the fact that once again our hero become sad, old, broken down loner with everyone in his life leaving him to rot in silence. It happened to Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and now Indiana Jones. This film introduced one of the worst characters in the franchise and one that I hated with a passion as she did everything in her power to try and get Indie killed or try to profit off of his dead friends. And you expect me to believe she all of a sudden cares about Jones in the last 5 minutes of the film?! Piss off! Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had more respect than this piece of trash.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: Ah yes. The end of an era lands on a sequel to a fun first entry that had stylistic problems, but nevertheless was good. Now, we get this extremely scatter brained and ridiculous excuse for a sequel. I felt that the tone wanted to have an underwater Lord of the Rings type of mythos which if edited and rewritten properly, could've been massive. Alas, we get this hot steaming pile of crap that was boring after the third overly CGI action sequence and weak one noted villain motivation. Jason Mamoa and Patrick Wilson were the only reason to watch this film. Jason was himself most of the time while cosplaying as Aquaman and Patrick Wilson was brilliant and sometimes dumbed down as Orm. The brotherly love and chemistry between them actually saved the last act of the film. Other than that, this film illustrated why the DCEU had to end and I wish it had stuck to their original plan of having one last meet up with Ben Affleck's Batman instead of the stupid mid credit scene we got to a joke that was great once.

Now we've come to the end of the road. There were some truly horrendous films this year, but none of them match the level of disappointment this film did. Ladies and gentlemen, the worst film of 2023 is........

Expendables 4: There was an idea to get all of the best action stars of the 80's, 90's and 2000's together in a pure action film that featured all of them together for the first time. It was The Avengers of action film stars and it worked...... in the first 2 films. The third film saw the horrible decision to make a PG-13 entry to appeal to the younger audiences. They realized that mistake too late and it cost them dearly. Well, now they came back with a hard R rated fourth entry, as it should've been, but with only a fraction of the stars that began this franchise and it was absolute garbage from beginning to end. The relationship between Sylvester Stallone's Barney Ross and Jason Statham's Lee Christmas was at the heart of the franchise and that is stripped away. What we're left with is a piss poorly edited, overly CGI'd mess of wasted time and money. Not even Statham could save this film from mediocrity or the horrible sight of Megan Fox trying to act or look like she could do any sort of fight sequence. You had one of the best action stars in Iko Uwais and you did nothing with him. Seriously, that man would destroy Jason and he barely got one or two worthy hits in. Andy Garcia was the only person that understood what type of film he was in and he truly went for it. John Wick 4 was one of the best action films in years and it showed that the action genre has moved far beyond these fossils.

And that's it everyone! That is my list of the shiniest turds known as the worst films of 2023. If you missed any of these films last year and have any interest in watching them, take this list as an advisory to what you're about to watch. Do you agree with my list? Let me know and tell me what your worst films of 2023 are in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

#worst films of 2023 #megan fox #jason statham #phoebe waller bridge #brie larson #ray liotta #indiana jones and the dial of destiny #expendables 4 #the marvels #aquaman and the lost kingdom #cocaine bear

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really THAT Bad?

The DC films have been a mixed bag, to put it lightly. As of 2020, for every fun and enjoyable superhero film like Wonder Woman, Shazam, Aquaman, and Birds of Prey, there has been a film that was reviled or polarizing. Dawn of Justice and Justice League are both common punching bags, but there is one movie that stands out as the single most despised film in the DC cinematic universe so far:

Suicide Squad.

A lot of this comes from just how unashamedly blatant the film is at being a rushed cash in on the type of quirky superhero movie that Guardians of the Galaxy helped popularize: a bunch of wild and wacky antiheroes team up, fight a big problem, make one liners, and become a family, all while an awesome soundtrack blares in the background. It seems like the easiest thing in the world to rip off, but there’s a lot of heart and charm in Guardians that it’s not easy to replicate. And if you ask most critics… this movie did not.

Opinions on the film tend to range from lukewarm to outright hating, with IHE and the [REDACTED] Critic all throwing in their two cents. Perhaps the most damning review of all came from Mick LaSalle, who wrote:

“If you know someone you really can’t stand — not someone you dislike, not someone who rubs you the wrong way, but someone you really loathe and detest — send that person a ticket for “Suicide Squad.” It’s the kind of torment you can wish on your worst enemy without feeling too guilty: not something to inflict permanent damage, just two hours of soul-sickening confusion and sensory torment.”

There’s not much love for this, is what should be abundantly clear. And it’s really a shame, because there is stuff this film has going for it, but it wasn’t really enough to stop DC from basically hitting the soft reboot button and snagging the actual James Gunn to make a sequel while also doing their best to downplay that the events of this film actually happened. But now with a few years of hindsight, I have to go back and wonder like the heathen I am…

Is Suicide Squad REALLY that bad?

THE GOOD

Yes, amazingly, there is some good stuff here, mostly to do with the casting. At least half the cast is just pitch perfect for their roles. Famous rapper and YouTube Rewind star Will Smith as Deadshot is, of course, one of the standout examples; he brings a lot of charm and charisma to his role of an assassin who really loves his daughter, but then again, this is Will Smith. It’s hard not to love the guy in anything he does. Viola Davis as Amanda Waller is another inspired bit of casting, and she truly owns the role, and Jai Courtney is perhaps the most consistently enjoyable member of the Squad, Captain Boomerang, the exact sort of stupid D-list villain who SHOULD be getting screentime in a movie like this.

Of course, the very best bit of casting is Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, in Harley’s big screen debut. Robbie has such an enthusiasm for the role that shines through even with the clunky script, and while she would definitely improve her craft for her outing in Birds of Prey, her performance here still has that spark of zany fun that Harley needs, cementing Robbie as the perfect star for the role. Frankly, that’s the feeling that can be gathered from a lot of these really good performances; they’re good, but they lack proper refinement, and so are stuck spouting the stupidest, corniest, clunkiest lines imaginable. But yes, really the worst thing you can say about Harley in this film is that her outfit is absolutely atrocious and demeaning.

While we’re on the subject of Harley Quinn, tough… while the whole situation with the Joker is something I’ll get to shortly, I think their relationship in this film is actually done well in many aspects. I’ve always preferred the original idea of “Mad Love” over the glorified domestic abuse that Joker x Harley has often devolved into, and while there is a bit of the latter, the fact that Joker literally goes out of his way to save Harley at every opportunity to the point he’s a definition satellite love interest is really good. Of course, this was thrown out for Birds of Prey, but I do think it worked in the context of this film.

Of course, we all know that the greatest aspect of this film is REALLY Slipknot, the single most powerful member of the Squad. I’ve already written an entire Psycho Analysis on why he’s the greatest villain in the history of cinema, so just read that for the rundown on how our man Slipknot climbs his way into your heart and mind.

THE BAD

So there is just a lot to go over here.

First, there’s the soundtrack’s implementation. As a blatant Guardians ripoff, everything the characters do needs to be punctuated by some sort of awesome music to tie the scene together. The difference is that where in the Guardian movies the soundtrack is used as a storytelling tool to help subtly emphasize points that the narrative doesn’t want to spell out for you, Suicide Squad just has these songs because they’re cool and because Guardians did it. Why is “Black Skinhead” playing while Deadshot tests his weapon skills? Why is “House of the Rising Sun” playing during Waller talking about the Squad? What exactly do these songs add besides background music? The opening montage of everyone in the Squad is particularly bad because the songs are just switching up really quickly as the montage goes along, which echoes a complaint I had about Little Nicky, of all films: “One of the more noticeable problems is the usage of music; in the course of one single scene, they play four different songs, and all of this is in a span of about one or two minutes. Just pick a song and stick to it for fuck’s sake!” About the only song that is really properly utilized is “Heathens,” which plays over the (admittedly cool) credit sequence.

Now let’s get into the characters, because for every awesome character in this film, there’s two that just absolutely suck or are so underutilized it’s laughable. Probably the worst case of this is Killer Croc, who despite being a stunning practical effect and probably the reason this film scored an Oscar, does pretty much nothing for the entire film, save for a short bit in the ending where he swims. You’d be entirely forgiven for forgetting he’s in the film, which is not something you should be saying about a Batman villain of this caliber.

Katana and Diablo are both characters who should be awesome, but the story givers them nothing to do and rushes their character arcs, respectively. Katana is yet another character you’d probably forget is there, even though she has a lot of fascinating elements to her character (some of which are detailed in her infamous introduction, which don’t worry, I’m working towards it), but nothing is really done with her. Diablo is actually one of the best and most fleshed-out characters in the film, but the narrative just completely fails to justify him or his ultimate heroic sacrifice; by the end, he claims the Squad is like family, but they’ve never really done anything to earn this. Like, think to the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy, where we have moments like Drax standing up for Gamora and Groot sacrificing himself. These moments only work because the characters had their relationships built up over the course of the movie so that there is a punch when these things happen. Suicide Squad really just throws it in just to have it.

Then we come to our villain. Enchantress is yet another villain I once detailed on Psycho Analysis, and my opinion on her remains unchanged. While she most certainly has a cool design, she is absolutely not the sort of world-ending supernatural threat a team of snarky jackasses should be fighting on their first mission together. The Squad should have had a mission more grounded in reality, and that can’t happen when you have an ancient interdimensional witch causing a Luddite zombie apocalypse through the power of interpretive dance. There’s also the fact that there’s never really any reason given to care about the character of June Moon, the host of the Enchantress, so the desperation of Rick Flag (a character so boring and pointless I didn’t even waste time mentioning him before) to save her comes off as hollow as most of the movie’s other emotional moments. Overall, Enchantress is just a boring generic doomsday villain who feels wildly out of place in the story and just doesn’t do anything to make herself stand out.

Then we have Joker.

I’m not really going to get into Jared Leto’s obnoxious behind-the-scenes antics, because that has little bearing on his performance, kind of like how his performance has little bearing on the film. As I mentioned before, this Joker is nothing more than a satellite for Harley. This is probably a good thing, because despite being called Joker he’s pretty divorced from most other interpretations; while he plays up the thuggish, brutish elements the Joker does typically have, everything else about him is just so jarringly non-Joker as to be laughable, from his ridiculous grill to the absolutely cringeworthy “Damaged” tattoo on his forehead. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say he’s the worst villain in a superhero movie ever as some have, mostly because he’s not even in the film long enough to leave much of an impact. I will, however, say that so far he is the absolute worst onscreen depiction of Joker in film. Once again, if you’d like to hear more of my in-depth thoughts on Leto’s portrayal, I did make a Psycho Analysis on him a while back.

But all that aside, the worst aspect of this film is the writing. The writing is just utterly abysmal throughout, and while there are a few good lines sprinkled here and there, a lot of the dialogue is cringeworthy and the story itself is a convoluted mess. The story takes so many nonsensical turns from the get-go, starting with how Amanda Waller thinks a bunch of non-superpowered criminals could take down a metahuman threat; what the hell is Killer Croc, whose only power is “being an ugly cannibal,” going to do against Superman? That’s like if you put Leatherface up against a Predator, who would be stupid en-

...Oh. Right. Well, if nothing else, Amanda Waller has a very bright future as a designer for Mortal Kombat games. Beyond that, as mentioned above, a lot of the characters simply exist and serve little purpose in the narrative, and the ones that do serve a purpose are underplayed unless they’re Deadshot or Harley. You’d think Diablo’s tragic backstory and desire to have a family or Flag’s desire to save June from her curse would be more major elements, but nah. We don’t get much, if any, development on these fronts. And for the dialogue… well, I think this one speaks for itself:

Is It Really THAT Bad?

So I’ve been pretty hard on this film overall, I think, but here’s the shocking twist: I don’t think this is the worst DC movie. Frankly, I find the claims that this is the bottom of the barrel in terms of superhero films a gross overexaggeration. F4ntastic and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are far and away worse films with little to no redeeming qualities whatsoever in them. At the very least, Suicide Squad is a fun kind of stupid, whereas those movies are bleak, miserable slogs that fail to even try and engage the viewer on any level.

And then, even within the DC movie lineup, I would not say this is worse than Dawn of Justice. Dawn of Justice has a more coherent story, and it in a general sense has better writing, dialogue, and so on… but it isn’t fun, it’s overly long, it’s incredibly pretentious, and it absolutely squanders the coolest concept for a crossover fight that there ever could be, all while giving us a Lex Luthor who is an obnoxious, whiny, sniveling brat who is utterly unbelievable as a threat. Suicide Squad almost seems within the ballpark of being self aware that it’s stupid schlock, and I find that infinitely more respectable than a film that, regardless of its artistic merit, thinks it’s deep and meaningful when it is anything but.

Suicide Squad is firmly on the side of “So bad it’s good,” and even within that category it’s somewhat underrated. I don’t necessarily think this film needs more respect per se, but I feel like it falls into the same category as movies like The Emoji Movie, where it isn’t good by any means but people will rant and rave about how it’s destroying cinema by being apocaliptically bad instead of just saying it’s crappy and moving on with their lives. Like this isn’t a great movie, but at least there’s a couple of enjoyable things, and superhero movies have been through far worse. Its current score of 6 on IMDB is honestly pretty fair. Is it spectacular? No. Could you be watching something way better. Definitely. But is it a trashy, idiotic romp with some good actors and some fun performances in a story so mind-bogglingly dumb that it needs to be seen to be believed? Hell yes.

#Is it really that bad? #IIRTB #movie #movie review #Suicide Squad #DC #DCEU #DC movie #superhero movie #so bad it's good

[animusrox]

Shazam! (2019) review

https://letterboxd.com/Kane52630/

The Shazam movie I've been waiting for since forever. This is without question, the best DCEU film and it's all thanks to David F. Sandberg who really knows how to do a pulp superhero story right. This was an incredible balancing act where he manages to go between comedy, drama, action, and yes... horror and make it flow seamlessly. It's very much the superhero version of Big (among other films) and they knew it going in. The comedy was fantastic and there's some great easter eggs that were a lot of fun.

Zachary Levi and Asher Angel did great job as Billy... they were in sync the whole time as they switch. Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy was also a big highlight, they both had a great comedic chemistry. A big surprise I had was Mark Strong as Sivana, they flesh his character arch to where he's not just a cardborard villain. A big thing they have been strategically leaving out from the trailers and promotion is the rest of Billy's family. I thought they were all great even if a couple of them didn't get a lot of screen time. The movie was shot beautifully and having the Christmas backdrop added a lot to the aesthetic. I will say I do have a couple of minor nitpicks, but they don't really hurt the film.

Overall, it's a fully realized superhero origin movie and the payoff at the end was worth it. The 3rd act is everything I could ever ask for. It's a superhero movie that, while is totally aimed for the younger crowd, isn't shying away from something gruesome or scary... or even something too real and down to earth like family dynamics. Shazam! is the very definition of superhero entertainment. It's got something for everyone. For my money (and this is no hyperbole), this is the best DC film I've seen since The Dark Knight. I can't wait to see it again and I hope they are working on a sequel with Black Adam as soon as possible. 9.5/10

DCEU Rankings:

1. Shazam! 9.5/10 2. Aquaman 6/10 3. Suicide Squad 5/10 4. Man of Steel 5/10 5. Wonder Woman 5/10 6. Justice League 4/10 7. Batman Verses Superman Colon Dawn of Justice 2/10

#shazam! #shazam #movie review

[freifraufischer]

Something else we can learn from Captain Marvel's anticipated huge global debut this weekend (a domestic debut presumably flirting with $120m-$140m and a global launch between $300m and $350m) is that we can finally and safely ignore the online trolls that have hijacked the conversation for the last few years.

We saw this in 2015 when a handful of grouchy dudes complained about Mad Max: Fury Road being dominated by Charlize Theron's Furiosa, but the film still opened with $46 million and legged it to $153m domestic. We saw this later that year when a handful of trolls tricked the entire Internet into writing about an alleged campaign to boycott The Force Awakens over the presence of Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in lead roles. The film opened with $248m, legged it to $937m domestic (the biggest unadjusted grosser ever in North America) and grossed $2 billion worldwide. Yet, that campaign, where a few folks wrote some mean tweets and the entire media covered it as well as the "clap backs" that followed, taught the press a horrible lesson.

Namely, that we could take a handful of mean tweets from anonymous people and frame it into a trend story, either about the initial offense or about how celebrities or fans were responding or fighting back. Such was the case when the Alamo Drafthouse announced their intent to hold women-only screenings of Wonder Woman which naturally caused a negative online response from the sort of folks who were naturally opposed to a Wonder Woman movie in the first place. But rather than ignore them, we turned this into a national conversation, with folks actually debating the morality of what should have been a giant "Oh, neat, that sounds like fun" issue of a theater holding women-only screenings for a female-led superhero movie. Oh, and Wonder Woman then opened with $103 million and legged it to $412.5m domestic and $821m worldwide.

Okay, but what about Ghostbusters? Well, the two years between the announcement of Paul Feig's female-led Ghostbusters reboot (starring Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon) became a canary in the coal mine for Gamergate politics playing a role in more mainstream discourse, one which had adult men losing their minds online over the notion of a Ghostbusters movie featuring ladies. And the end result was that the merely okay comedy (the extended cut is ironically a lot better) earned a just okay $126 million domestic. It cost way too much ($144m), didn't play in China due to their prohibition of supernatural content and was mostly ignored overseas for a mere $229m worldwide cume. But, warts and all, Ghostbusters was still the biggest-grossing straight-up comedy of the year give-or-take Deadpool.

Okay, fine, but Star Wars: The Last Jedi took a hit due to viewer dissatisfaction right? Well, to the extent that post-debut online complaints about the movie (specifically the online criticisms related to the gender and race of its heroic cast) represented the general public (with a possible push from Russian troll bots), The Last Jedi still earned $620 million in North America and $1.335 billion worldwide. Yes, that was 1/3 less than The Force Awakens, which is about the same decrease as The Empire Strikes Back from Star Wars and Attack of the Clones from The Phantom Menace, along with (random examples) The Lost World, Batman Returns and (domestically) Fate of the Furious and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. That loathed super-flop The Last Jedi made about as much in North America as Aquaman ($333m), Mary Poppins Returns ($171m) and Bumblebee ($125m) combined.

Now we have Captain Marvel, which has been greeted with the usual wave of online hysteria both over the notion of a female-led superhero movie and the idea that Brie Larson's request that the junkets be slightly less 'a bunch of white dudes' was tantamount to white male genocide. Rotten Tomatoes had to revamp their system to prevent trolls from pushing the film's pre-release score to record lows before a single consumer (or critic) had seen the film. They tried that with Black Panther as well, to great ($700 million domestic) and unmitigated ($1.346 billion) success. I'm sure it'll get review-bombed this weekend by the same folks who pushed The Last Jedi's Rotten Tomatoes user score down to 51%.

But history shows that the online troll brigade and their YouTube videos arguing that the Oscar-winning star of Room and Short Term 12 is going to singlehandedly destroy the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to be about as effective as they usually are. Yes, A Wrinkle in Time bombed, but not because of the trolls. Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed, but not because of the trolls. Both films, incidentally, did okay in North America ($103 million and $213m respectively) but were utterly ignored overseas. Oh, and the newest game is attempting to pit Alita: Battle Angel (allegedly a female-led action movie that isn't plotting the destruction of the male species) against Captain Marvel. Nevermind that both films are or will soon be under the Disney umbrella. You know what? I absolutely endorse the #AlitaChallenge.

I'm serious, folks. I encourage you to flood the theaters this weekend and buy tickets for Alita: Battle Angel. You clearly didn't do so in the during the $170 million-budgeted film's first month in theaters, as it has earned just $74m domestic and an okay but not big enough $360m worldwide, so you're missing out on a damn good action fantasy. I loved Alita, and my daughter really wants a sequel. So if you want to boost Alita: Battle Angel's fortunes this weekend right as Captain Marvel opens with its expected $100m-plus debut weekend and thus give a boost to a big-budget action fantasy starring a Hispanic actress and directed by a Hispanic director, I'd count that as a win/win. Or hell, you can absolutely boycott Captain Marvel this weekend and instead buy a ticket to Greta, Happy Death Day 2U, Miss Bala, What Women Want, Isn't It Romantic, or The Prodigy. Vote with your wallet and show Disney what's what!

The likely (relative) success of Captain Marvel in theaters this weekend won't stop the online troll brigade or the flurry of online abuse that is still going to be directed and women on the Internet for the crime of being a woman on the Internet. Yes, it's worse if you're a woman of color on the Internet, but I digress. But we have a chance to look at the relative success of Captain Marvel and realize that the trolls, be they actual racist and sexist schmucks, bots or just people who just enjoy spreading chaos, don't represent the general pop culture populace. We don't have to treat them as news and we sure as hell don't have to give them a seat at the debate table.

They didn't make Ghostbusters a flop and they certainly didn't stop The Force Awakens, Ocean's 8, The Last Jedi, Black Panther and Wonder Woman from being a hit any more than (all due respect) #WokeTwitter prevented Bohemian Rhapsody from topping $850 million worldwide and Green Book from winning Best Picture. None of these people will be the deciding factor as to whether Captain Marvel, which is earning mostly three-star reviews, grosses closer to Ant-Man money, Doctor Strange money or Thor: Rangorak money (or behind). After this weekend, it's time we stopped treating them as anything resembling influencers of anyone beyond themselves or those already converted to their toxic point-of-view. They will never stay silent, but we have a choice as to whether to give them a bullhorn.

#captain marvel

[cromulentbookreview]

Just Friendly Crustaceans

Under the sea! / Under the sea! / There’ll be no accusations / just friendly crustaceans / under the sea!

That’s Homer’s solution to everything, to move under the sea. It’s not going to happen.

The Light at the Bottom of the World by London Shah!

Leyla McQueen lives under the sea (under the sea! Sorry, I really can’t help myself). Anyway, Leyla lives in a world that was flooded as a result of an asteroid strike. Society has rebuilt itself, somewhat, under the water, despite the fact that living underwater isn’t exactly great for humans. I mean, just think of the mold! Euch. Or, well, in Leyla’s case, it’d be mould, because she lives in Underwater London which is either awesome or horrifying, depending on how you look at it. Leyla is a driving instructor by trade, teaching others how to pilot their submersibles, but in her free time, she loves a good race. In fact, we get our first introduction to Waterworld London via an unofficial road race which Leyla wins. Which is great, because she can really use the prize money to help pay for a lawyer to help her dad - see, Hashem McQueen has been arrested for supposedly helping depressed people suffering from an all-consuming sadness called the Seasickness kill themselves. Which is weird because I’m pretty sure that, even without his help, those people would’ve figured out a way to kill themselves anyway, but whatever. Either way, the charges are bullshit, and Leyla has been doing her damnedest to prove it, but keeps hitting roadblocks (waterblocks?) every step of the way.

Until she gets the chance to race in the London Marathon, the top prize of which includes a single personal request from the Prime Minister. If she wins the Marathon, she could ask for her dad’s freedom and it’d be granted, easy-peasy, right? 

Right?

Yeah, it’s not that easy. Nothing is ever that easy when you live under the sea (under the sea! Damn it!). Especially when there’s these weird, genetically modified humans called Anthropoids running around, committing acts of terrorism. Anthropoids were created to survive under the water, and survive they can - but apparently Anthropoids also went insane and hate normal people so much they just want to kill anyone who isn’t a fellow Anthropoid. London is supposedly safe from the Anthropoids, but this is a YA fantasy action/adventure novel so you know that won’t last long.

Anyway, Leyla competes in the London Marathon, but things absolutely do not go as easily as she’d hoped. I mean, the book would be pretty short if things went easily. After the race, Leyla is given a chance to leave the safe, familiar waters of London for the world beyond - and, possibly, a chance to rescue her father herself. Along with Ari, the infuriatingly handsome son of one of her grandfather’s friends, and her Maltese puppy, Jojo, Leyla leaves London and heads into the dangerous unknown. Under the sea. Under the sea. Darling it's better / Down where it's wetter / Take it from me...

Maybe it was just me, being a weird loner kid whose best friend was her imagination, but I loved imagining what life would be like if the world were entirely underwater. Getting to swim through your school, going from house to house on a canoe, diving for old-world treasures, riding a walrus to work, you know. All that fun stuff you can experience, unless Jasper Johns steals your boat. Because, seriously, life under the sea does sound awesome. Well, except for the cold. And the wet. And the pressure. And the dark. And the ability to, uh, breathe. And, I mean, we’d better get used to the idea as soon as Greenland and Antarctica melt. But anyway, the concept of an underwater London meant I was absolutely going to read this book. Shah brings the setting to life, with all the wonders/terrors of the sea. The writing is lovely, but story-wise, yeah, this is definitely the first book of a series, meaning: you have 10,000,000,000 questions, but this book won’t be answering all of them, so be prepared to wait. 

Character-wise, Leyla has an optimism about her that borders on naiveté - but even as she goes through some pretty harrowing experiences and learns her world isn’t what she thought it is, she remains optimistic. I love this - it would be easy for a YA protagonist to become cynical and bitter (adolescents, am I right?) but Leyla perseveres, despite her fears. It’s pretty clear throughout the book that Leyla suffers from anxiety, and Shah’s descriptions of Leyla’s feelings of panic and stress are absolutely spot-on. How she can maintain such a positive attitude living under the sea with her father behind bars and an anxiety disorder without prozac is a mystery to me. 

Ari, meanwhile, is much more of a cipher - he’s handsome, he annoys Leyla at first, but they grow on each other after a while, making eyes at one another...but pretty much all of Ari’s backstory is veiled, and I get the distinct sense that Shah is making us wait until the sequel to give us his full story. This is the problem of getting suckered into serieses instead of standalone books.

By the way: I do not recommend reading this at the same time as listening to the audiobook of Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire’s Into The Drowning Deep, because the events of both books will start to blend together in your head and you’ll get some pretty weird nightmares about living life underwater and weird merpeople/sirens/anthropoids. I figured, hey, both these books are about what it’s like under the sea, they can’t be so different, I’ll read one and listen to the other! Except they are. One is an optimistic YA fantasy action/adventure, the other is a straight-up horror novel in which scientists can be super smart, but also really, really stupid. Like, fatally stupid.

Also, and this is no offense to the action scenes of The Light at the Bottom of the World (which are awesome, by the way) but: how can you have flames and explosions underwater? I mean, you can definitely have an underwater explosion, but not with flames, right? 

Eh, if they can do it on Spongebob and in the Aquaman movie then that’s fine with me.

The Aquaman movie is very much OK with me. For. Uh. Reasons.

Yes. Reasons.

Hi there, Jason Momoa...

Where was I?

Oh. Yes. Light at the Bottom of the World by London Shah. Jason Momoa could be the light at the bottom of my world any day...

OK, back to the review, I swear. I didn’t intend for this to just become an Aquaman gif fest. (OK, maybe I did a little). 

Seriously, I can’t believe that once again I’ve found myself suckered into another series. Because of course this couldn’t be a standalone. Everything is a series these days. I mean, things tend to just go with this picture I saw on Brittany Cavallaro’s Twitter:

Every. Single. Time! Bah, I says. Oh, well. What’s next on my to-read list?

*checks to-read list*

Damn it, it’s all sequels!

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who has ever dreamed of what life would be like if we all lived under the sea, Aquaman, any literate dolphins out there.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who knows anything about what life would be really like if you lived under the sea; non YA fans, literate jellyfish.

RATING: 4/5

RELEASE DATE: October 29, 2019

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SEQUEL:  Mauna Kea

GRATUITOUS JASON MOMOA GIF:

AQUAMAN RATING:

JUST ONE MORE LITTLE MERMAID REFERENCE AND I’LL BE DONE, I SWEAR:

#the light at the bottom of the world #london shah #under the sea #london #underwater london #waterworld #young adult #young adult fantasy #young adult action/adventure #submarine #underwater action #aquaman #underwater explosions #the little mermaid #jason momoa

[wigwurq]

WIG REVIEW: MARY POPPINS RETURNS

Ok so first off: I saw this movie with my daughter (her first movie in a theater) and I highly recommend seeing it with a toddler because your enjoyment of it will improve by like 100x but also you’ll have to deal with a toddler who is afraid of animated wolves on bowls (and also figurative ones played by Colin Firth). Still, this is a kids movie for kids and my kid liked it. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WIGS? Let’s discuss. 

Let it be known that in preparation for seeing this movie, I showed the original Mary Poppins to my daughter and have now viewed it approximately 300 times. Clearly the filmmakers of the sequel did the same because they basically made a remake of it. I once coined a term for sequels that are just a rehashing of the original but with new actors - a repeatquel. This movie is the definition of repeatquel (also please make “repeatquel” happen you guys!) 

Emily Blunt is perfectly (or should I say “practically perfectly” - omg I’ve seen Mary Poppins so many times ugh) cast as Mary Poppins, an ageless sorceress who travels by umbrella or kite (depending) and can also travel between real or animated life (depending) and can speak to dogs and doesn’t explain anything. She is a supreme weirdo masquerading as a daycare employee and honestly she’s all of our lifegoals, amiright? 

There are few people who would want to take on this role and immediately be compared to DAME JULIE ANDREWS but Blunt pulls it off. Though she is basically supposed to be the same age as Julie Andrews in the first film, time has elapsed for everyone else and we’re now dealing with Michael Banks’ kids in the 30s. Michael Banks is now played by a mustached Ben Whishaw who has the very best hair in life anyway and Jane Banks is now Emily Mortimer in a very acceptable 30s bob. 

Also her hat and pants game is EVERYTHING.

Also national (American and UK) treasure Julie Walters is now the Banks maid, Ellen in a nice old lady wig. 

Clearly this production was MADE OF MONEY and for the most part, the wigs reflect this. Blunt’s 1930s fingerwave lewk is not to be trifled with and her olde timey Gibson girl lewk in this animated fever dream section is also pretty good. Also in this repeatquel, sidewalk drawings are now bowls. GO WITH IT.

Within this animated bowl fever dream, there is a section with dancing penguins and a vaudeville-like show which allows Lin-Manuel Miranda to rap (as contractually obligated?) and gives Blunt this blunt bob. This wig is better than anything sported by Roxie Hart in Broadway’s Chicago currently. So. Good.

OH AND MERYL STREEP IS IN IT. 

I see what they’re trying to do here with this wig but.....um......I don’t know if it is succeeding in the way intended. The cut is very Theda Bera but the color is pure Lady Gaga mid-A Star Is Born which is to say: TRASH. Also I’m sure this wig cost about 200x what Lady Gaga’s cost. Also this whole song was very bizarre but I think Meryl Streep now has the right to sing whatever song in whatever wig she wants always. I’m sure it’s in her contract. 

I cannot say a negative word about Dick Van Dyke. His whole lewk is magic and my reaction to this whole part of the movie is basically the same as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s face here. But also I cried. 

OH ALSO EFFING ANGELA LANSBURY IS IN THE END! This role was written for DAME JULIE ANDREWS but she was busy making Aquaman (YES REALLY) and I will take Dame Jessica Fletcher any day of the week. The hat is really doing the work for the wig here. 

In the end, much like the film: practically perfect wigwurq!

VERDICT: WURQS

#wigwurq #marypoppins #marypoppinsreturns #emilyblunt #linmanuelmiranda #benwhishaw #emilymortimer #merylstreep #dickvandyke #angelalansbury

[agentnico]

Aquaman (2018) Review

Hey, Dolph Lundgren’s in this film!

Plot: Arthur Curry learns that he is the heir to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, and must step forward to lead his people and be a hero to the world.

Another day, another Doug, another DCEU movie. Are we now going to get a film worse than Justice League? Is that possible?? Well luckily not apparently for as things go, Aquaman is actually fine. It doesn’t fix the DCEU however it’s a fairly harmless stand-alone superhero flick with enough enjoyment and star-power that you don’t mind having spent 2 hours watching it (unlike Justice League!).

James Wan takes the right choice of breathing new air (or in this case water) into the franchise by kicking Zack Snyder’s endless dark and brooding melodrama out and replacing it with quite campy fun which doesn’t make for a masterpiece, but heck, I enjoy. It’s colourful, over-the-top, ridiculous, Dolph Lundgren plays an ocean king, there’s an octopus playing drums....does it all make sense? Not really. But I had fun (unlike Justice League!). Of course I can mention the at-times terrible CGI, the on-the-nose cliches, the messy plot, the abundance of unnecessary exposition...yes, Aquaman is guilty of all of these, so if those things annoy you, well then don’t watch the movie. Simples! However if you allow the movie to sweep you away with it’s, lets admit it, stupidity, you’ll come out just fine. In my case after the previous train-wrecks of this franchise I walked into this film not really caring much, which is why I didn’t get annoyed about all the problems, as I was expecting them. But it’s the good parts of the movie that were the pleasant surprise.

This movie’s stronghold is its very likeable cast. No matter how messy Aquaman gets you’re generally having a good time watching either Jason Momoa’s fun personality or Amber Heard’s kick-ass Mera who ain’t no damsel in distress. There’s also a decent amount of Hollywood stardom here with the likes of Nicole Kidman and Willem Dafoe popping in and doing what they do best. There is also Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the comic-book favourite Black Manta, and he’s fine, however I feel like his character should have been saved for a sequel since in this film the focus is on Arthur Curry’s fight against his brother for the throne of Atlantis whilst Black Manta is just that random guy with a grudge who gets this big set-up but then is dealt with within one battle. Oh, and I did mention that Dolph Lundgren is in this film, right?

There are some impressive set pieces and the special effects at times result in some absolutely gorgeous imagery, and I should mention that the action scenes are actually done really well (unlike, you guessed it, Justice League!). Aquaman is a major improvement compared to the rest of the DCEU, and though it’s still quite forgettable you can still have a good time watching it this festive season.

Overall score: 6/10

P.S. Justice League sucks.

#aquaman #dceu #dc extended universe #aquaman review #james wan #jason momoa #amber heard #movie #film #superhero #dc #film reviews #movie reviews #2018 #2018 films #2018 in film #nicole kidman #patrick wilson #dolph lundgren #willem dafoe #yahya abdul-mateen ii #julie andrews #temuera morrison #action #adventure #fantasy #science fiction #atlantis #cinema #justice league

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 9/10/21 - MALIGNANT, THE CARD COUNTER, TIFF 2021, LANGUAGE LESSONS, THE ALPINIST, EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE, FAUCI, and More!

Before we get to this week’s releases-- and there are a lot of them, though not necessarily wide releases -- I probably should mention that the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is beginning this week up North across the board. I was unable to go in person, more due to the money than any worries about COVID. (Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on at the border right now between America and Canada, but I figured I better wait it out before attending TIFF in person… until I can actually afford it.)

This year’s TIFF offers a lot of premieres, most of them taking place in physical theaters in Toronto, such as Edgar Wright’s, Last Night in Soho, (which just premiered in Venice) and Universal’s musical, Dear Evan Hansen, as well as David Gordon Green’s horror sequel, Halloween Kills (which also just played in Venice oddly). Other movies playing TIFF include Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, and The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, both which star Benedict Cumberbatch. Mihael Peace's Encounter, starring Riz Ahmed and Octavia Spencer, and docs like Julia (as in "Child") and Attica. There’s even a doc about the Canadian rock band, Triumph! (I’m looking forward to that one.) Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the German film, The Guilty, starring TIFF regular Jake Gyllenhaal, will have its premiere, and many, many more. Too many to watch, let alone write about, but I’ll try to review a few of these over at Below the Line and maybe some here. (There are also lots of movies that premiered at Cannes in July that will play at TIFF, and some of those will also play at New York Film Festival later this month, which is where I’ll see them.)

A movie that I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time and is finally seeing the light of day is James Wan’s return to horror, MALIGNANT (Warner Bros.). Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll have a chance to see this before Friday, which is a bit of a bummer, but I’ll look forward to seeing it with the common people in a theater. Because I’m looking forward to this movie so much, I haven’t even watched the latest trailer, so I really don’t know too much about it, which may be for the better.

Of course, you know Wan’s name from some of the most successful horror franchises of the past two decades, starting with Saw in 2004. After a few movies that didn’t do quite so well, Wan reteamed with his Saw collaborator Leigh Whannell for Insidious in 2010, which also did very well and created a similarly successful franchise. (Whannell would go on to direct the third movie in the series, the respectable sci-fi thriller Upgrade, and then he directed 2020’s The Invisible Man for Universal, which was also a substantial hit.) Meanwhile Wan went on to direct The Conjuring in 2013 and its 2016 sequel, The Conjuring 2, based on the true case files of supernatural investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by regular Wan collaborator Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Both of those “Conjuring” movies opened with $40 million+, and you guessed it, they also led to hugely successful franchises for Warner Bros with spin-offs galore.

Although Wan has been making big studio mega-blockbusters like Furious 7 and Aquaman in recent years -- and he’s hard at work on a sequel to the latter -- Malignant is his return to horror after a whole five years, which certainly is exciting for horror fans and those who love Wan’s style of horror particularly.

One thing that’s become fairly obvious from writing about box office over the past couple decades is that horror movies are rarely sold on the names of their stars, although Wan has a fine lead in the form of Annabelle Wallis, who just so happened to have starred in the 2014 The Conjuring prequel called Annabelle, which did quite well. (No, she did not play the title doll Annabelle, if you haven't seen it.) And that’s about it. The fact that Wan can do whatever he wants these days, and he decides to return to the horror genre without stacking the deck with all sorts of name actor, is pretty impressive. Even Saw had bigger names actors like Carey Elwes and Danny Glover!

Although I don’t know much about Malignant, it’s definitely giving me vibes of Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, the horror master’s return to horror after making three “Spider-Man” movies. Although it’s well-loved by horror fans, it ended up opening with just $15.8 million in the summer of 2009. That’s a little daunting when you figure that Malignant is opening in September and in the second weekend of a huge blockbuster like Marvel’s Shang-Chi.

But there’s something else that’s been bugging me, as excited as I am to see the movie. I’ve been doing this a long time, and Warner Bros. has become almost legendary for screening all their movies in advance… every single one. I can maybe think of two examples of movies that didn’t get advance critics screenings. Malignant is screening for critics but only on Thursday night with an embargo Thursday at 10pm. That is not the move of a studio confident in a movie they’re releasing. Maybe it’s to avoid spoilers or maybe it’s ‘cause Malignant returns Wan to the craziness of the Insidious movies rather than the more commercial and mainstream horror of The Conjuring movies. I don’t know, cause I haven’t seen it, but I'm still gonna go see it on Friday night, ‘cause I like James and want to fully support his movie.

But that adds another layer of foreboding to the horror movie that will also be on HBO Max Friday, and it’ll be so easy for the curious to just hit “play” on their remote to watch it that way, which is what I think most people will do. Because of this, I’m struggling to find a way that Malignant makes more than $13 million, taking quite a distant second place to Shang-Chi in its second weekend.

Opening in roughly 500 theaters Friday is Paul Schrader’s THE CARD COUNTER (Focus Features), which stars Oscar Isaac as former prison inmate and professional gambler, “William Tell,” who drives around the casino circuit making money by playing blackjack and poker. He meets two people on his journey that changes the course of his path, the first being Tye Sheridan’s Cirk (Yes, with a “C”), a young man whose father ended up killing himself after serving time in military prison for crimes at Abu Ghraib. Tiffany Haddish plays La Lina, a woman who sees Will’s talent playing cards and wants to put him in her stable of players. The relationship between these three characters is what keeps the movie interesting even when there are only a few minor dramatic fireworks.

If there’s any doubt that Schrader, a significant Hollywood player in the ‘70s and ‘80s, is firing on all cylinders then The Card Counter confirms that 2017’s First Reformed was no fluke, as Schrader remains valid and important well into his 70s. Like First Reformed, this film features an undeniably solid performance from Isaac, who plays such a subdued character, an enigma who every so often truly explodes.

Sheridan's sheepish Cirk seems like an odd choice in road companion, although Haddish proves to be quite a counter (pun intended) to Isaac, as she seems far more comfortable in Will's world. Trying to understand Will and what he sees in Cirk and why he joins the World Poker Tour circuit despite wanting to remain anonymous is what keeps The Card Counter so invigorating. (One odd thing is that despite the title and the opening which literally teaches the viewer how to count cards while playing Blackjack, in most of the movie he’s actually playing poker.)

Folks who enjoy poker movies and the intricacies of Vegas and the gambling community in general should really enjoy The Card Counter for that aspect alone, but then there's the past of the main character, which ties into Abu Ghraib and the horrors of the tortures committed there. Some might feel that two decades after 9/11 isn't the best time to bring those crimes back to the forefront, but Schrader ably explores what it must have been like for the military torturers after they were convicted.

Few screenwriters and filmmakers could pull off what Schrader does in terms of combining these elements, as the story weaves itself through these very different worlds. Frequent Schrader collaborator, Willem Dafoe, takes on a smaller but still significant role as “Gordo,” Will’s commanding officer who trained him to torture. Even so, one of my favorite moments is a scene in a diner where Will performs a card trick for Cirk that would make the late Ricky Jay proud just adds to one's enjoyment.

I will say that I wasn’t as thrilled by the movie’s last ten minutes, as it feels like Schrader ran out of steam in terms of how to resolve all the pieces of a puzzle, leaving a couple pieces out before completion. Regardless, The Card Counter is a constantly compelling film that keeps you invested in the different characters’ behavior as things happen to and around them.

As far as box office, The Card Counter isn't getting a very wide release but with so many movies in the top 10 quickly dropping away leaving movies like Shang-Chi at the top, it should leave room for Schrader's film to inch its way into the top 10 and maybe even the top 5!

A movie I’m unlikely to see and know very little… okay… nothing… about is the faith-based SHOW ME THE FATHER (Sony/AFFIRM Films), which will open in about 1,000 theaters on Friday. Okay, fine, you twisted my arm, and I looked it up. This is a new documentary about fatherhood from the Kendrick Brothers, the duo behind faith-based hits like War Room, Courageous, and Fireproof. I've seen none of those movies, though I know all of them exceeded expectations, but this is also a doc, and those rarely do as well at the box office. I wish I could give you a definitive number for this, but something makes me think it won’t make more than $2 million, even if the religious right seem less worried about COVID and vaccines and wearing masks in movie theaters than everyone else. Expect it to end up in the bottom of the Top 10 with lots of confused movie writers not knowing what it is.

Kristen Bell and Kirby Howell-Baptiste (who have appeared both on The Good Place and in Veronica Mars together) co-star in the comedy QUEENPINS (STXfilms), which is being released straight to Cinemark Theaters on Friday and then it will be on Paramount+ on Sept. 30.

In the movie, based on a true story, Bell plays Connie Kominski, a suburban Phoenix housewife who thrills to saving money with coupons, hatches a scheme with her best friend JoJo (Howell-Baptiste) to sell coupons via mail, not realizing that what they’re doing is illegal as they rack up millions of dollars. Unfortunately, they have Paul Walter Hauser’s Loss Prevention Manager Ken Miller on their tail, and he teams with postal inspector Simon Kilmurry (Vince Vaughn) to try to catch them women trying to scam the supermarkets.

This movie, written and directed by Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, actually is based on a true story, but it took me a little while to get into it, and it definitely had its ups and downs. The first thing one has to get past is the fact that this is essentially a heist film that involves illicit coupons, and at first, Connie writing letters of complaint to companies comes across a bit like a Greenberg for middle-aged women. (Note: that film's star, Ben Stiller is one of the movie's exec. producers.) On the other hand, Kristen Bell tends to be great in this kind of role and you can tell she's worked with Ms. Howell-Baptiste from their organic chemistry as best friends. Joel McHale has a tougher time fitting in as Connie's husband Rick, but that actually works in this case. (A little trivia fact: McHale, Howell-Baptiste and Natalie Morales, whose directorial debut is reviewed below, all appeared in BenDavid Grabinski's Happily, as did Stephen Root, who has a small role in Queenpins.)

Queenpins eventually falls into a steadier pace with the introduction of Hauser's character and then bringing Vaughn into the mix, although the two of them have very little interaction with the two female leads, as the film instead cuts between the two duos. Hauser essentially seems to be playing a jokier version of Richard Jewell here, constantly trying to get more involved in the case and wanting to be deputized by Vaughn. The two of them work well together, and there's only one unfortunate scene involving… it's too disgusting to mention, but it's where the film needlessly delves into gross-out humor, and that's also where it falters.

As much as the law in this movie act like buffoons, the two ladies don't seem very much smarter, doing idiotic things like buying Lamborghinis and guns in order to "clean” the illicit money from the coupon-selling scam. Because of that, Queenpins gets sillier and sillier and feels less like any sort of possible true story as it goes along. The movie basically comes across like a less skilled version of Butter, but in that case, it was a movie that shouldn't have worked but did. In this case, it's the exact opposite.

Cinemark Theaters only has about 331 theaters across America, including a lot in Texas, California, and Ohio, but honestly, I don't think awareness is high enough for Queenpins for it to make much of a mark, but even if it makes less than a million, it could theoretically break into the top 10 this weekend, but I think it will fall just short.

The movies above are the only ones that may be going even remotely wide, so because of that, this weekend’s box office will look something like this with Shang-Chi remaining #1 with relative ease, Malignant taking a distant second, and Candyman and Free Guy fighting it out for #3.

1. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Marvel/Disney) - $33.5 million -56%

2. Malignant (Warner Bros.) - $13.6 million N/A

3. Candyman (Universal) - $4.8 million -53%

4. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $4.5 million -42%

5. The Card Counter (Focus) - $2.2 million N/A

6. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $2.1 million -48%

7. Paw Patrol: The Movie (Paramount) - $2 million -50%

8. Show Me the Father (Sony/AFFIRM) - $2 million N/A

9. Don’t Breathe 2 (Sony/Screen Gems) - $2 million -30%

10. Respect (MGM) - $600,000 -57%

--- Queenpins (STXfilms) - $445,000 N/A

It was tough to pick a “Chosen One” this week, because there are a few decent films, but I had to go with Natalie Morales’ directorial debut, LANGUAGE LESSONS (Shout! Studios!), which she co-wrote and co-stars in with Mark Duplass. I saw it at SXSW back in March, and I loved it just as much a second time around, due to the simplicity of the premise and just how much Morales and her co-star do using similar Zoom technology we’ve all been using for the past 18 months. Duplass plays wealthy Californian Adam, whose husband buys him a series of Spanish lessons, given over Zoom by Morales’ character Cariño, who lives in Costa Rica.

You might think after over a year of mostly communicating with family and friends via Zoom, we’d be so sick of it that a movie that uses that as a conceit would be absolutely horrible, but maybe that’s why it’s easier to connect with what Morales and Duplass were attempting with this terrific piece of work. How these two people from different backgrounds interact begins slowly as might be the case while getting online language lessons from a new teacher. As they become more comfortable with each other, there’s more playfulness, as they begin to open up to each other. (Adam's Spanish teacher definitely has a dark side that comes out as things go along.)

I’m not sure if there was a lot of improvisation involved with the script as with some of the films Duplass did with the wonderful Lynn Shelton, but however they put this film together, it works in a similar way where it’s charming and funny, even during some of the more emotional moments. Because Duplass’ character is declared as gay fairly on, there's none of the attempts at making this some sort of meet-cute romance, as may have been the case with a studio movie. There's also never anything lascivious or creepy about their relationship, which makes some of the moments a little confounding, but ultimately, it all pays off.

Even though there’s a certain aspect of the movie that makes you want it to be kept organic and authentic-feeling, there is some gentle scoring by Gaby Moren that’s kept far behind the dialogue that does add something subliminal to the film.

Language Lessons is absolutely delightful -- definitely one of my favorite films of the year -- maybe because it thrives on its own simplicity by just having two actors doing what they do best.

Another great movie coming out in select theaters Friday is EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE (Amazon), starring Max Harwood as Jamie New, a fairly normal gay 16-year-old from Sheffield, England… other than the fact that he wants to be a drag queen. His mother Margaret (Sarah Lancashire) supports him, as does his best friend Pritti (Lauren Patel) but Jamie risks the ridicule and mocking and bullying of his entire Year 11 class as he proclaims his desire to attend prom in drag. This is the feature debut by Jonathan Butterell, a choreographer who directed the original stageplay.

I honestly wasn't really sure what to expect when I went to a theater to see this with a real audience. For one thing, I had no idea it was a musical. I had seen Max on some morning show talking about the movie and how it was based on the true story of Jamie Campbell, a British teen who wanted to be a drag queen, but I don’t remember him saying anything about singing or dancing. And the music and performances are all terrific, including all the young actors playing Jamie’s schoolmates, who have more than a few spectacular numbers to show off their own skills. (They’re kind of like the Greek chorus for the film.)

Harwood is exceedingly likeable, which is why he can carry this film, but it’s then an even bigger joy when Richard E. Grant shows up in a mentor role, as former drag queen “Loco Channel.” Grant has proven countless times he can do anything, and though his singing voice takes some adjusting to, it also leads to two absolutely amazing moments. Same with Lauren Patel and Sarah Lancashire, who each have numbers that would bring down the house on a Broadway stage but just gets the tears flowing as you’re watching on the screen. Sharon Horgan, who was just in the recent drama Together, plays more of the antagonist role as Jamie’s disapproving teacher, and her one number does not show that singing is one of her talents. (She does okay, and gets through it, at least.)

That aside, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is a truly wonderful musical (and movie), one that took me quite by surprise, since I wasn't expecting something a bit more "Free to Be You and Me” (look it up). In fact, Harwood shines, and the cast around him does as well; the fact this musical was able to bring out so many emotions from me offers proof positive that it's a true winner.

Jamie is opening in select theaters this Friday, and then it will stream on Amazon Prime Video starting Sept. 17. I recommend going out and seeing it in a theater if it’s playing near you; it’s a real crowdpleaser, for sure.

Also launching on Amazon this Friday is the series, THE VOYEURS (Amazon), starring the terrific Sidney Sweeney (who many will know from Mike White’s The White Lotus on HBO Max) and Justice Smith as a young couple who move into a loft apartment in Downtown Montreal after which they become interested in the sex life of their neighbors across the street (played by Ben Hardy and Natash Liu Bordizzo).

I’ve really been looking forward to the action-thriller KATE (Netflix), starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who I love, so sue me. It also stars Woody Harrelson, who I’m also a fan of. Directed by Cedric Nicholas-Troyan (The Huntsman: Winter’s War), it has Winstead playing Kate, a kick-ass assassin who has 24 hours to get revenge on the man who tries to kill her, eventually teaming with the daughter of one of her targets. Harrelson plays her handler.

The fact that this movie, starring one of my favorite actresses playing an assassin and doing a bit more action than we've seen from Winstead in a while (Birds of Prey being an exception), comes so soon after The Protégé with Maggie Q may only be a coincidence, but whoever is making these movies clearly knows what I'm all about. This one also has a very tiny sci-fi angle as well, and much of it is set in Tokyo, so it has both those things going for it, too.

Is this Winstead's best role or movie? No, probably not, but it does show her versatility, the fact that she can do something like Scott Pilgrim and other types of genre, but also do serious drama, and this is much stronger a venture into a Japanese yakuza thriller by a Westerner than last week's Yakuza Princess. Much of that comes down to Winstead and Harrelson, who do a much better job selling even the weaker dialogue, because you can tell they're both taking it very seriously. Like Yakuza Princess (and Kill Bill, a model for both of them) Nicholas-Troyan leans heavily on his soundtrack and on some of the more stylish visuals, but at least this one offers other things beyond the constantly-circling camera in certain scenes.

Let's face it that watching Winstead taking part in some pretty impressive and violent fight and stunt sequences would probably be more than enough for me to enjoy this even, if there are moments that rip-off Kill Bill so obviously but again, better than other similar rip-offs. Eventually, Kate gets sidled with a young teen girl, Ani (Miku Martineau), the daughter of one of her victims, and that does take away from the "sole assassin” aspect but does give it more of the feel of The Professional. Maybe that would work better if Martineau didn’t seem much older than the teenager she was meant to be playing, which might be due to the fact that she swears more than Samuel L. Jackson. In some ways, Ani offers something more akin to Black Widow with a third act twist that few will see coming.

Ultimately, the movie works well as an action movie, if not slightly marred by its overuse of clichés. It probably will come as no surprise that I prefer seeing action movies like this on the biggest screen possible in a theater, and in fact, this did get a nominal theatrical run last week before streaming on Netflix Friday. Winstead's badassery does wonders at making sure that fans of her and the genre won't be disappointed by its few flaws.

Also hitting Netflix this week (today, in fact) is the doc BLOOD BROTHERS: MALCOLM X & MUHAMMAD ALI (Netflix), which has a fairly self-explanatory title. I haven't seen it yet.

A movie that people who liked the Oscar-winning Free Solo will also want to check out is Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen’s THE ALPINIST (Red Bull Media/Roadside Attractions/Universal), a documentary about the 23-year-old solo mountain climber Marc-André Leclerc, whose amazing climbs were counterbalanced by his elusive behavior that kept him mostly under the radar for so many years.

This is a very different movie from Free Solo, though. That was about Alex Honnold's determination to make one singular climb, while Leclerc was already making just as many impressive climbs at a younger age. It's pretty obvious that Leclerc was destined to climb even bigger rock faces as Mortimer (whose previous film, The Dawn Wall, was sadly overlooked with all the push behind Free Solo) and Rosen finally catch up with him.

I don't really want to say too much more about the film or Leclerc, since it's best to learn about him through the movie and the amazing interviews compiled by the filmmaking duo. There's a good reason why mountain climbing continues to be of interest to the casual non-climbers like myself. Great films like The Alpinist find ways to glorify these amazing climbers without glossing over how dangerous mountain climbing can be as a sport or hobby.

The Alpinist had a Fathom Event on Tuesday night, but it will also be getting a moderately wide release in theaters through Roadside this Friday as well. You can read my interviews with the filmmakers over at Below the Line, too. Also, I mentioned another Universal doc, Under the Volcano, a few weeks back, and I have an interview with those filmmakers over at Below the Line, as well.

Another doc of note out this week is FAUCI (NatGeo Documentary/Magnolia) from directors John Hoffman and Janet Tobias, which looks at the life and career of NIH Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, but it doesn't deal with the last year and a half where Fauci's main focus was fighting COVID. No, this goes back to earlier in his career, to when he started at NIH, meeting, working with and eventually marrying his wife, Dr. Christine Grady. (Nope, I had no idea he was married either.)

More importantly, the movie follows Fauci's role in the discovery of HIV and AIDs and the conflicts between the government and protest groups like ACT UP who didn't think Fauci and the government did enough to help the gay community fight against AIDS and certainly not fast enough to make a difference.

Hoffman and Tobias’ doc has a fantastic interview with Fauci at its core that sometimes gets a little cutesy, but also allows him to talk candidly about his efforts in fighting disease, including the efforts to help fight Ebola in Africa where it was so debilitating for those who couldn't afford medicine that the USA had to step in.

But AIDS is really the crux of the film's exploration of Fauci's past achievements (and partial failures), and watching a younger Fauci talking to the AIDS activists in a rousing speech is one of the highlights, as is watching the present-day Fauci tearing up while talking about an AIDS patient who died.

I’ve always had a bit of a skewed perspective on epidemiologists and infectious disease doctors due to a few incidents when I was fighting cancer, and Fauci has annoyed me for the good part of the year by being so wishy-washy and negative towards movie theaters (which led to a full-year of closings in NYC with no major super-spreader cases since they reopened). But this documentary definitely helped change my mind about Fauci, maybe because the general public really never had a chance to meet or know him or his work before COVID hit.

Fauci is quite a fantastic doc in terms of shining the spotlight on a needlessly controversial figure who has been politicized despite having held his position through six administrations. I would definitely point someone to this doc if they still feel negatively towards the country’s top epidemiologist. It helps to humanize Fauci much like the RBG doc did for the late Supreme Court Justice.

Seriously, there are so many movies this week that there’s no way I’m gonna review everything, but you can read about a few of them below.

A music doc hitting New York on Friday and then opening in L.A. on Sept. 17 is Tom Surgals's FIRE MUSIC: The Story of Free Jazz (Submarine Deluxe), exec. produced by Nels Cline and Thurston Moore (who happens to be playing his first NYC show in a couple years this Sunday). It covers the free jazz movement of the '60s and '70s that produced the likes of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane. The movie features archival footage from the '60s jazz scene and interviews with key players, including critic Gary Giddins. I'm not going to review this, but it's pretty good, because I definitely had a phase when I was really into this type of jazz, basically all-improvisational with less structure than the jazz that uses charts and such. I know that a lot of people hate or misunderstand the musical style but it's quite stirring, as is Surgal's film. I do feel you'll already have to be a fan of the musical genre to enjoy the movie, though.

Hitting Apple TV+ on Friday is the filmed version of the Broadway musical, COME FROM AWAY (Apple TV+) -- similar to last year’s Hamilton and David Byrne’s American Utopia -- which is being released on the streamer to coincide with the 20th anniversary of 9/11, since the musical is loosely based on the events. It was filmed earlier this year, 14 months into the pandemic that shut down Broadway with a fully-masked audience watching Broadway’s first live performance since the shut-down. This is one of the MANY musicals on Broadway that I’ve never gotten around to seeing but it involves a town in Newfoundland, Canada where a plane lands on 9/11 as they’ve been diverted following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Claire Lewins’ doc THE WONDERFUL: STORIES FROM THE SPACE STATION (Dog Star Films/Universal Home Entertainment) features footage from the International Space Station and interviews with the astronauts who have been involved with the extraordinary space project. I hope to watch this over the weekend, but it sounds like my kind of movie.

Already on Apple TV+ (it debuted Tuesday!) is Bailie Walsh’s BEING JAMES BOND, a documentary about Daniel Craig’s run as 007 over the past decade plus, which you can rent for FREE on Apple, so go do that!

On Monday, FX and FX on Hulu will debut the first few episodes of Y THE LAST MAN, the new series based on the Vertigo comic series by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra that I absolutely loved. Set in a world where every single male human and animal has died, it stars Ben Schnetzer (Pride, Warcraft) as Yorick, who is -- you guessed it-- the last man on earth. He’s also an escape artist/magician, trying to survive with his pet capuchin monkey, Ampersand, as he goes across country trying to find his girlfriend Beth who left for Australia before the event. It also stars Diane Lane (as Yorick’s mother, who becomes the President), Olivia Thirlby (as his sister Hero), Ashley Romans (as Agent 355), Missi Pyle, and lots of other actresses (because all the men are dead). I’m slowly making my way through the series, and I like what I've seen so far, but the first three episodes will premiere on Monday.

A few other movies, a couple that I’ve seen, which I just don’t have time to review…

Nicholas Cage stars in Sion Sono's PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (RLJEfilms), which opens at the IFC Center this Friday. He plays a bank robber who is sprung from jail by Bill Moseley's "Governor" whose adopted granddaughter (Sofia Boutella) has gone missing. Cage's character is allowed to go free to find her, but he's put in a suit that will self-destruct in three days if he doesn't return. So it's kind of like The Suicide Squad, and though it has an interesting cast (including Nick Cassavetes, who also appears in Queenpins this week), I don't remember liking this much at Sundance earlier this year. (I actually don't thnk I got through the movie.)

John Pollono adapts his own stageplay SMALL ENGINE REPAIR (Vertical) to the screen with John Bernthal and Shea Whigham playing life-long friends Terrance and Packie with Pollono’s Frank, who are overly protective of Terrance’s teen daughter, Crystal (Ciaro Bravo). A chance encounter turns into a night that spins out of control as the friends have to make a tough decision about how to resolve the situation. I was pretty mixed on this movie even though Bernthal and Whigham continue to be great in everything they do. (I just think Whigham's recent movie, The Gateway, was better.)

Hitting the horror-streaming network Shudder (I have a subscription, because I’m a fan) on Thursday is Ruth Platt’s MARTYR’S LANE, a ghost story about a 10-year-old girl named Leah (Kiera Thompson) who lives in an old house with her family but whose mother has grown distant. At night, she’s visited by a guest who challenges Leah in exchange for more information about the house and her family.

Saul Williams stars and writes the score for Charles Officer’s AKILLA’S ESCAPE (Vertical), a crime noir about an urban child soldier set in Toronto and New York with Williams playing Akilla, a 40-year-old with a covert cannabis operation that goes legit. As he’s ready to cash out, he’s robbed by a group of masked youths. Akilla captures one of them, a mute 15-year-old named Sheppard that is associated with the Jamaican crime syndicate founded by his grandfather.

Jonah Feingold’s DATING & NEW YORK (IFC Films), which premiered at the Tribeca Festival a few months back, stars Francesca Reale (Stranger Things) and Jaboukie Young-White (The Daily Show) as Wendy and Milo, two Millennials who are thrown together at the worst time in their lives for romance, as they meet on an app called Meet Cute, have a first date, and then ghost each other before being thrown back together into an unconventional romance. I’m usually a fan of the rom-com genre, and I often can even withstand one that takes place in New York City and uses my town in a completely unrealistic way to show how romance can flourish here. (*koff*BULLSHIT*koff*) But then you throw in the M-word (Millennials), and this grouchy old man could barely get through this movie, though I’m not even remotely surprised it premiered at Tribeca. It seems very much like a Tribeca movie, and yes, that was meant in a pejorative way as the former “Film” festival has lost its way over the years. I’m half-kidding, the movie is entertaining enough, and I’m sure younger people will enjoy it more than I did.

A few other films I didn't get to this week…

DOGS (Dekanalog) AZOR (MUBI) BAD CANDY (Dread)

That’s it for this week. Do we have any new movies next week? I think Clint Eastwood has Cry Macho

#Movies #reviews #The Weekend Warrior #box office #Malignant #Queenpins #Everyone's Talking about Jamie #Kate #Fauci #The Alpinist

[aion-rsa]

Why Zack Snyder Wanted a Clean Slate with Army of the Dead

https://ift.tt/3u6Phpp

Zack Snyder has come home. After spending a large portion of the past decade immersed in the DC film universe—even more if you count the development and production of Watchmen, his third film, a few years before that—Snyder has returned to the genre that launched his career as a feature film director.

That genre is horror, more specifically the subgenre of zombie movies, and the film is called Army of the Dead. Premiering on Netflix after a brief theatrical run, Army of the Dead is only the second movie of Snyder’s career not produced and distributed through Warner Bros. Pictures. The other one was his first feature, the 2004 remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which came out through Universal and was the movie that put Snyder on the map.

Coming back to horror—or in this case, a hybrid of the zombie movie and the heist thriller—was just what Snyder needed to clear his head after his complicated tenure with DC. To do that, he turned to the story for Army of the Dead, which had initially been developed as a direct sequel to the Dawn remake years earlier.

“Just exploring Dawn, in doing that movie and taking it apart [was exciting],” Snyder tells us during a Zoom interview. “When you do a zombie movie, even though it was the first time, I was exploring the genre, the different tropes of the genre and really was starting to get fascinated with the things in it that we all take for granted, whether it be that a zombie bite is infectious, or you shoot it in the head or whatever. These are things that people innately know.”

He continues, “I think the conversation I was starting to have with myself is: What will people allow in this genre of film? So it really got me thinking about it, and I’ve always been a huge lover of those really insane, big, seminal genre movies, whether it be Planet of the Apes or Soylent Green, or The Omega Man, or Escape from New York, as well as mission movies like The Dirty Dozen, which I love.”

Snyder says that combining the two was the key for him to make another movie based around the well-worn idea of the zombie apocalypse. “That was really was the jumping off point for this exploration, because I’d done the zombie movie, and then I had this basic love for the genre and how it worked. I think that it was the sort of deconstruction of those two ideas in my mind that led me to what is Army.”

Army of the Dead is set in and around Las Vegas, where the accidental release of a zombie with seemingly superhuman strength from a military convoy leads to a massive outbreak of the living dead in the city. The epidemic ends with Sin City emptied of humans and the town quarantined with huge walls around it. Meanwhile the surviving human citizens live in a suspiciously authoritarian “quarantine camp” outside the walls.

A former mercenary named Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) is approached by wealthy casino owner Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) about assembling a team to infiltrate the city, break into the vault in Tanaka’s casino, and remove more than $200 million. But they have to move quickly since the U.S. government has given up all hope of reclaiming Vegas and plans to eradicate the city and the zombies with a tactical nuclear strike.

Ward agrees and puts together his team, which includes, against his wishes, his estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell). But once they get inside, the team discovers that the mission isn’t quite what it was presented as, and the zombies themselves aren’t quite what they expected either.

Read more

Movies

Army of the Dead Review: Zack Snyder’s Most Fun Film to Date

By Nick Harley

Movies

Army of the Dead: How Zack Snyder Is Revolutionizing Zombie Movies

By Bernard Boo

“Frankly, the simple concept has existed since the beginning,” says Snyder, who conceived the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Shay Hatten and Joby Harold. “The zombie plague, the zombies get to Vegas, they build a wall around it, but they left the money inside. So we’re going to get this veteran team of zombie hunters to go in and get the money out. That’s been the pitch for forever. I happened to say it to the guys at Netflix, and they were like, ‘Yes, let’s do that.’”

Army of the Dead was mostly shot before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world and film production for the better part of a year, although Snyder did do reshoots during the shutdown to incorporate actress Tig Notaro into the story as Peters, a helicopter pilot originally played by Chris D’Elia.

Snyder digitally removed the latter from the film after allegations surfaced of D’Elia’s sexual misconduct. “It wasn’t [a difficult decision],” says Snyder when asked about the change. “I pretty much immediately was like, ‘We got to fix this, because it’s just the right thing to do.’”

One difference between making Dawn of the Dead and Army of the Dead is that Dawn—while still quite effective and one of Snyder’s best films—came with the baggage of being a remake of a landmark horror film, with fans outraged that Universal Pictures handed the project to an unknown first-time director.

With Army, Snyder not only brings his own personal brand to the project—one well-known now among genre fans—but has established his own mythology without having to stay at least within biting distance of the original Romero film.

“I think that was the cinematic challenge across the board,” Snyder says. “I just finished, whatever it is, almost 10 years of DC films and all of the massive amount of canon and dogma that surrounds those characters, though I love them. I was really excited about venturing into a world where I was setting the rules… That was really appealing and it’s really been fun.”

Snyder’s run in the DC universe kicked off back in 2013 with Man of Steel, the Superman reboot that was meant to launch the DC Extended Universe as a shared, interlocking web of films in the mold of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He also directed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017) while serving as a producer or executive producer on Suicide Squad (2016), Wonder Woman (2017), and Aquaman (2018).

But his darker vision of DC icons like Batman and Superman did not yield the box office or critical results Warner Bros. had hoped for, leading to tensions with the studio. And when his daughter passed away halfway through production of Justice League, Snyder stepped away.

What happened then has been extensively documented, but one gets the sense that Army was a way for Snyder to wipe the slate clean and start on a new path as a filmmaker.

“The experience was exactly that,” he affirms. “100 percent. It’s been an amazing journey. I have a great crew and a great support team, visual effects artists and stuntmen, that it’s just a joy every day to get up and go to work with them.”

By the way, don’t think for a minute that Snyder is done with shared universes; he’s just making his own now. A prequel to Army of the Dead, called Army of Thieves, has already completed filming, an animated series is in the works, and we imagine Netflix will be calling for a sequel should Army put the bite on viewers in a big way.

Snyder is ready: “We know exactly where everything goes. Shay and I have done a deep dive on a much longer storyline, as well as the animated series, which tells basically the exact origin stories of the zombie plague, down to the most minute details. It’s insanity and fun.”

Army of the Dead is streaming now on Netflix.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post Why Zack Snyder Wanted a Clean Slate with Army of the Dead appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3hJld0F

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[thezachrogers]

#justiceleague

The most non-anticipated comic book film of the year is in theaters now!

Ehh. That’s pretty much the summary of this film. With only a four film/two origin stories buildup to unite the six (Marvel had a five film/four origin stories build up to Avengers) Justice League doesn’t even break the top 25 of 2017, not even top 75 all time comic book list among Rotten Tomatoes, which honestly is heartbreaking.

Please note everyone that I am not a DC hater. I grew up the biggest Batman/Superman/Justice League fan. The Dark Knight trilogy stands as my all time favorite movie series. Yes, I am a bigger Batman fan than I am Star Wars and Marvel fan. However, Warner Brothers wanted to rush the DCEU franchise to compete with Marvel. If you didn’t know Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman both had the same release date. The Motion Picture Society of America let Disney hold their May release date and BvS had their late Winter release moved up to February simply because one thing: story. 

These WB writers just cannot figure it out. They want to cut against the grain and it just isn’t working. Disney-Marvel has laid out the formula to make a perfect comic book universe. Give every character their own origin story/solo movie before they all come together in one film. WB - “lets make a sub-par Superman movie with the director that made Sucker Punch, then lets put a different Batman that is not Christian Bale in a sequel THREE YEARS LATER!” 

This film has the biggest three comic book characters of all time in one movie. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are in one film (FOR THE SECOND TIME) and they still cannot break a billion. And then you give Thor his third (some would argue tired) film and it breaks Rotten Tomatoes records; and no one knew who Thor was seven years ago...

This is confirmed, not rumored that there are some massive changes happening to the DCEU. After the success of Wonder Woman this year (and yes that was a fantastic film; the only good film out of the 5 DCEU films) that there will most definitely be Wonder Woman 2 dropping in 2019 with its story taking place in the 1980s. Ezra Miller is getting a Flashpoint film that will rewrite the entire history of the DCEU. What this means is they will dismiss Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, and Justice League out of existence. This is a very similar approach to what Fox did with X-Men Days of Future Past in 2014 to write the Logan and First Class series into the X-Men canon without any plot holes.

Positives to take away from Justice League? I really like Ben Affleck as an older, tired, and bitter Bruce Wayne/Batman. Gal Gadot was born to play Wonder Woman, and it is very clear that Ezra Miller’s Flash is a similar play to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. I haven’t decided how I feel about Mamoa as Aquaman. He looks cool, but his Baywatch acting ability shines in this movie. Its just not there. Cyborg sucks. Jesse Eisenberg continues to suck as Lex Luthor. Cavill is a great Clark Kent/Superman, but as long as Zack Snyder (director/writer/lead executive producer) continues to sit on the throne, his character will continue to suck. 

I mean come on! Who thought Steppenwolf was a good idea as a villain? Who the hell is Steppenwolf? What about DARKSEID, THE JOKER, THE ENTIRE RESUME OF BATMAN VILLAINS!?

This movie dragged, there were some good moments, but all in all it was just okay and a cluster-you-know-what of CGI.

When you have that many big heavy hitters in one film, Justice League should blow us away. But it doesn’t. That’s why I say it sucks.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 40%, IMDB gave it a 7.2/10, I give it 3/5 stars.

Coming later today - review for The Disaster Artist

- Z

#justice league #wonder woman #2017 #movies #dceu #batman #aquaman #superman #gal gadot #khal drogo #game of thrones

[djjelo]

Justice League & The DCEU

Accepting that I’m in the minority. What I’ve loved about the DC universe is the dark tales. The tales of earth in jeopardy, heroes who’ve turned evil, Villains to heroes. Stories like Superman:Red Son that suppose the hero crash landed in Russia, not Kansas, and how that affected the way Kal-El would turn out. Stories like The Dark Knight Returns (no, not like the film in-name-only) where our vigilante ‘hero’ who tries retirement from being Batman is haunted by his choice. Plagued by the choice,even. Realizing that the costume he wears is really Bruce Wayne, not The caped crusader, and the consequences he faces returning to Gotham as an older man fighting a new war. There’s ‘Kingdom Come’, a dystopian tale of the Justice League that has our heroes battling their offspring, relatives and protégés , resulting in an all out war that engulfs all nations and nearly destroys earth. ‘Flashpoint’, a dark story that has The Flash doing his best to get back to the point in time where he feels he can make the difference and what his past choices have led to...a place where his friends are now enemies with each other hellbent on mutual destruction. Batman, again, in ‘The killing Joke’, battles Joker to near death. Realizing that if he would kill the clown villain that he may be without true purpose. There’s more...but, often, these stories are considered to be DC comics best tales. They’ve been reprinted, they’ve been retold. They’ve been loosely adapted to live action film which ultimately watered down the initial idea of the art. The stories have been animated and they’ve been sequelized and retold again and again on pages. Even though these stories were told as a reaction to the original tales of these heroes, from a golden era where battling Nazis and bank robbers inspired hope to the readers, the titles I’ve mentioned are known as DCs best sellers. The reason why DC became a powerhouse publisher. The numbers are there. I’m sure someone, somewhere is recalling when Superman stopped a train from running over a dog, or when Wonder Woman helped a lost child reunite with a family, or when Aquaman helped clean up an area of an ocean. Maybe someone can recall when The Flash was fast enough to slow down a speeding car from running a red light and causing an accident. I’m sure. But, whoever you are out there ...you’re in the minority of sales. Sales are votes. I know that the primary idea was that heroes should inspire and that these stories helped build into that mythology. The stories laid the groundwork for other legends like ‘TDKR’ or ‘Kingdom Come’ to happen. Yet, when these dark stories emerged from print, they crushed it with mega sales across the planet. Somehow, when adapted to the silver screen, that caused distress among an audiences everywhere. I didn’t get it. Just like ...I don’t think McDonalds makes the worlds best hamburger...yet, there it is. The planets best selling hamburger. I disagree with that opinion but the sales dwarf whatever the hell my thoughts are. I don’t piss and moan much about it as I’ve accepted that people want their shit hot and fast so they can take a fast hot shit. Meanwhile, I’m over at Holy Chuck and baby...that’s a hamburger ! So, when people bitched and moaned about Man Of Steel being too dark, that their Superman doesn’t kill, I thought to myself ‘Which Superman would that be?’ When BvS came out and people gripes about Batman ‘Not being a killer’ or ‘Superman’ isn’t supposed to be moody’ I wondered to myself ‘Which story are they complaining about?’ Batman kills lots in TDKR. Superman self exiles himself in Kingdom Come and is super moody. Wonder Woman is practically militant in Kingdom Come. These are DCs best selling stories. Sadly, instead of translating these mighty tales to film, they’ve been adapted and then relayed to some wonky, stock holding round table of asshats who chose to say shit like ‘too dark’ and ‘not enough light’ and even worse ‘not funny enough’ Before I leave the impression that I think the DCEU is flawless I’ll inject and digress towards my opinions ...loved Man Of Steel. Easily the best Superman I’ve seen on film and it’s a gorgeous looking movie. BvS has moments of awesome mixed with moments of true diarrhea and that’s because many, especially the audience that voted with dollars, had this screwed up reaction suggesting that ‘Superman was too dark’. He’s an alien on Earth ...alone and one of the last of his species. Affleck completely rocked it as Batman. Not one scene prior to Ben in the warehouse comes close to that type of awesome. When he’s training in that film we could believe that this Batman kicks ass. We also finally see Bruce as a detective and technician within the bat cave. He nailed it as Bruce. But, that death thing doe. I could talk all day about the terrible casting for Luthor and the unnecessary addition of Doomsday. I’m on that team. Then, because BvS undelivered at the box office despite the $1billion it generated, Suicide Squad came at us like a bullet of spit. We’ll never know the actual film that director intended us all to see because the studio got cold feet when they saw the dailies, suggesting the film was ‘too dark’ despite the title of the film ...wait for it ... “Suicide Squad” and what that meant. None of them were supposed to live but hey...marketing could’ve gone with ‘Almost Suicidal Squad’. Could’ve worked, maybe? Then ‘Wonder Woman’ happened and the studio and audience did a collective sigh because it brought in the big dollars which means it worked on a level that shareholders and audience members could agree upon. I liked WW but it’s far from perfect. Where the hell did that laser beam come from at the climax ? Diana shoots lasers?! Now, on the eve of the release of ‘Justice League’ all reviews point to ‘fun’ and ‘great jokes’ with ‘not too dark, like MoS or BvS’ and I’m over here scratching my head apart. Which stories were they reading ?! The stories that sold less than half of TDKR ? Or ‘Flashpoint’ ?! Marvel films are transforming into parody, popcorn fodder, and very little discussion happens after that. For example, I’m sure that no one is going to be talking about Guardians 2 the way that people were talking about Guardians1 except for ‘not as good’. Thor:Ragnarok was fun, fast paced and had me laughing out loud a bit but it won’t be this memorable film that I’ll want to replay years from now. In fact, most of the new Marvel films have a disposable feel where I never feel anything is at stake really...just stuff happening without any true resolve. Maybe that’s why I’m so hopeful for the upcoming Infinity War because Thanos kills everyone in the Marvel Universe. Sorry...spoiler alert ? Mostly, it’s this ...when I watch a DC movie I want to see the dark. That’s why I go !!! I want to to reflect and have thoughts and discuss with my friends who or what or when could be different. The change. The twist. I do not hope for my DC films to be like Marvel. But, with regards to Marvel, I mostly just hope for Thanos to kill everything just so we can all move on to something else. We need alternative. That breeds new stuff and new stuff is cool. That’s why these dystopian and dark messed up stories were so badass to begin with. Because they offered us, the readers and potential theatre audience, the opportunity to see ‘what if’. Yes, I know Marvel printed that stuff first and yea I was a fan of their tales. But, no one ever really dies in Marvel, do they. Or DC...they’re guilty too. That’s why the publishers printed these What If stories to begin with ! Otherwise it’s onwards towards the never ending. This type of shit removes the stakes at hand. That’s why the dark ‘what if’ stuff is awesome ...it follows through. It ends things and allows new shit to start. Otherwise we see Magneto die, again. We see Lex Luthor go to prison, again. Do you think Batman might capture the joker, again? How about Wolverine...will he escape the treacherous mutant bad guy...again? I got chubbed when Marvel announced Wolverines death. But, wouldn’t you know it...he’s back. So is Magneto. So is Lex. Pretty sure The Joker is murdering someone with laughing gas and laughing about it. Shocker, isn’t it? A lot of people will take a dump on the film makings of Snyder and what he tried to do with the DCEU. For all the stuff he tried that didn’t work, and some of it didn’t for me too, he def tried to do something different than what was done before his efforts. His reward was getting heaps of po0p thrown at him by keyboard warriors seeking a McDonalds hamburger. These same viewers who reward ‘same, same again’ and fuel the stockholders to sequelize and trilogize stories that we’ve loved at first into this endless, stakes free world, where nothing changes. It’s all safe and they’ll see you soontimes, even if they have to recast. But, get excited cuz this time they’ve got XYZ director at the helm. He’s supposedly got more influence than the shareholders and the board of boredom, donchaknow. I am super excited about seeing Justice League because I’m a slut nerd for comics to film, an admitted sorry ass zombie slave, hypnotized to sleep walk over to the box office regardless of who or what is directing or starring. For example, Taika Waititi didn’t put my ass into a chair. It’s not a perfect hypnosis ...I skipped seeing Suicide Squad in the theatres, I passed over Spider Man:Homecoming and I won’t be seeing Ant Man 2: Ant Harder. I really saw Thor 3 for The Hulk and the wondering of how badly they screwed over the ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline but Thor’s triceps looked huge and the first three times he failed was funny. The 20 times after that not so much. Anyways, the initial tracking after opening weekend for MoS fared shittily for the rest of what could have been the DCEU and sadly we won’t be seeing the ‘what if’s’ and instead we are getting served the ‘you knew it !’ versions of these movies. Also, a studio and round table so desperate to catch up to the financials of their competitors that instead of doing their bestest to tell great stories that they did for us on the page, they’re serving us some McDonalds hamburgers. Enjoy the super size. It’s only an additional buck more.

#justice league #dceu #superman #batman #wonder woman #aquaman #flash #cyborg #zack snyder #joss whedon #warner bros

[ronnie14208]

Saw it liked it but it’s not as good as Aquaman or Wonder Woman. In fact the MAN of STEEL was better. However it was easily better than SUICIDE SQUAD. I hope it gets a sequel. Review later. Yes I know I have been saying this for weeks but I gotta get my notes and shot together. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv5y1VDhUqX/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=9e0aqrgmbvue

[wbwest]

New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/07/28/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-72817/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 7/28/17

One of the best discoveries I’ve made has been the digital subchannel Heroes & Icons. If you’re a cord cutter, then get yourself an antenna and check this thing out. My favorite aspect of it, however, is the fact that it runs a 5-hour Star Trek block six nights a week. Star Trek at 8, Star Trek: The Next Generation at 9, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at 10, Star Trek: Voyager at 11, and Enterprise at 12. Sunday through Friday. And on Sundays they actually kick things off with Star Trek: The Animated Series at 7. I’ve pretty much watched nothing but Star Trek for the past 2 weeks. I’ve been reacquainted with favorite episodes, like TNG‘s “Chain of Command” and DS9‘s “Far Beyond the Stars”. I’ve discovered some hidden gems, like TOS‘s ” The Cloud Minders”. I’ve even discovered that I don’t hate Voyager or Enterprise as much as I thought I did.

I don’t talk about this too much, but the first 12 years or so of my life were comprised of pretty much NOTHING but Star Trek. From 1987-94, my favorite show on television was The Next Generation. When DS9 debuted, I expected it to continue my love affair, but it felt too preachy with its Space Holocaust allegory. It was in the later seasons, once the Dominion War began, that it actually ensconced itself as my favorite iteration of the franchise. By the time Voyager debuted, I had discovered comics, and they became my new mistress. While I watched about 4 hours of TNG a day in high school (Channel 20 REALLY loved playing TNG), my heart didn’t have room in it for a new Trek, so I “No time for love, Dr. Jones”‘ed Captain Janeway and her crew. Enterprise debuted when I was in college, and  I was simply too busy worried about other shit to watch Captain Quantum Leap and his crew. Plus, due to some kind of contractual fallout, Ithaca didn’t get UPN. So, since the finale of DS9, my Trekkerdom lay dormant.

But when I say “I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know”, that’s primarily about Star Trek. I had several editions of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, I had the Technical Manual, the Technical Journal, the Star Trek Chronology. All of it. I’ve got the figures, and the role play toys. I even created my own uniform for Halloween back in the 90s. I was all Trek, 24/7, and you couldn’t tell me shit. Over time, though, that trivia got overwritten by X-Men 1st appearance notations and the names of TNBC actresses. What I’m saying, though, is that Heroes & Icons brought it all rushing back. It’s like I’m 15 again, blowing the evening watching Star Trek episodes I’ve already seen hundreds of times already. It’s also given me new perspectives on things that completely went over my head when I was younger. For example, Sisko is the Bajorans’ Space Jesus, and that’s pretty heavy. Even he doesn’t believe it, but in the end, yup it turns out he’s Space Jesus. I’ve also got thoughts on the current state of the franchise, too.

At SDCC, we got the above trailer for Star Trek: Discovery, which will air in North America on CBS All Access (yes, Dean, I know you’ll say All Anal Access because it sucks that we have to subscribe to another service just to watch this thing). I had no interest in this show because everything I heard about it didn’t sound like Star Trek. Now, though, the more they try to sell it as a bunch of new ideas, the more it just sounds like DS9. It’s gonna be Trek with interpersonal conflict. Great. I can get down with that. Its aesthetic seems more like late-era Stargate than Trek, though – especially those Klingon designs. There are certain things, though, that still feel like they miss the mark.

Take for example the fact that the show will feature the first same-sex couple on a Star Trek series, played by Rent‘s Anthony Rapp and My So Called Life‘s Wilson Cruz. Yeah, I get that representation is important, but it bothers me that this is being done in a prequel series, set before the events of the original Star Trek. With the exception of Enterprise, this is the series that takes place the closest to our timeline, so it’s really not much of a leap to think that same-sex couples exist. Ya know what would’ve meant more to me (as a straight, cis male who really doesn’t have a dog in the race but is still opinionated)? If the show had actually been a post-Dominion War, sequel series to TNG/DS9/Voyager, and it featured a same-sex couple. Science fiction tends to go 2 ways: it’s either dystopian or it’s about HOPE. As it stands, from what we’ve seen, same-sex couples are pretty much nonexistent in the 24th century. Yeah, I’m sure they exist, but we never saw them. It seems like it would be a testament to how enduring they are to see them that far in the future as opposed to just a couple of hundred years from now, when Discovery is set.

I could also be politicizing this for my own agenda, as I really want to know what happened after the war ended. Sure, there are books and stuff, but those things aren’t canon. I feel there are so many stories to tell from that era, and I’d love to see the franchise move forward instead of dance between the raindrops of continuity in the past. It feels like they’re stalling, which is how it felt with Enterprise and even the Kelvin movies. Someone, somewhere out there has got to have a great idea as to how to move the franchise forward and I hope CBS/Paramount finds them sooner rather than later.

SDCC Bullet Points

The bulk of San Diego Comic Con took place over the weekend, and here’s some stuff that debuted:

Michelle Pfeiffer is Hank Pym’s lost wife, Janet Van Dyne, in Ant-Man and The Wasp

The Captain Marvel film will be set in the 90s, and introduce the Skrulls to the MCU. Oh, and Nick Fury will have 2 eyes

We got this trailer for Ready Player One, which was hella polarizing. It seems a lot of folks hated the book on which it’s based. If you ask me, it just looks like a cinematic version of this commercial:

Comic creator Frank Miller, of 300 and Sin City fame, is writing a Superman: Year One story with art from John Romita Jr. Nothing about that sentence makes me want to open my wallet.

We got a new trailer for X-Men spinoff, The Gifted. I’m actually surprised they used established mutants like Polaris and Thunderbird. And is that actually Fenris?! I want to like this, but it just looks so…Fox.

We got a new trailer for The Defenders on Netflix. I get that this is the culmination of all the Marvel Netflix shows, but it didn’t do much for me since I’ve only seen 2 out of 5 seasons so far. There’s no way I’ll get caught up by this premiere date, but I’m sure it’ll mean more to me once I’m up to date. Kinda tired of the hallway fight trope, though.

Legends of Tomorrow is such a fun show. It started kinda dry, but got so much better last year. It reminds me of a syndicated Saturday afternoon show, but in a good way.

This Justice League trailer did very little for me. It’s like, sure, Wonder Woman’s cool, but we JUST saw her. Aquaman seems cool, but he’s not really “Aquaman”. I’ll see it, but I ain’t looking forward to it. No, for me, November belongs to:

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

We’ll have to wait a bit longer for our annual dose of Abbi and Ilana, as Comedy Central has moved the Broad City season 4 premiere from August 23rd to September 13th

A few months ago, it was reported that Amy Schumer would be starring in a Barbie movie. Well, I made fun of that, she blocked me on Twitter, and then eventually dropped out of the role. Now they’re reporting that Anne Hathaway is up for the role, which is somehow more bewildering than the Schumer choice…

Justin Bieber cancelled the rest of his Purpose world tour because he was “committing his life to Christ”. This pissed off his crew, as they were left without jobs. He, then, proceeded to run over a paparazzo with his truck while leaving church. I swear, you can’t make this shit up!

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has replaced Bill Gates as the richest man in the world.

Beginning September 29th, Hulu will begin streaming the Warner Bros shows that comprised ABC’s TGIF lineup, including Perfect Strangers, Family Matters, Full House, Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, and Step By Step. Meanwhile, Netflix is feverishly developing Perfecter Strangers, Family Still Matters, Chillin’ With Mr. Cooper, and Step By Step By Step.

I haven’t seen a non-country music video in years, but apparently they still make them, as Katy Perry will host the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards

Speaking of the VMAs, following the lead of the MTV Movie Awards, they’re doing away with the gendered categories Best Male/Best Female Artist, to be replaced by Artist of the Year. Also, in a bit of pandering,  they’ve created the Best Fight Against the System, for those artists who have called for folks to #RESIST and all that.

Though I felt its farcical nature wore a bit thin during its first season, TBS’s Angie Tribeca has been renewed for season 4.

Smallville‘s Tom Welling is joining Fox’s Lucifer and *yawn* that’s really all there is to say about that.

Netflix has ordered 20 episodes of the animated series Disenchantment from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening. It will features the voices of Nat Faxon, Eric Andre, and Abbi Jacobson. Apparently it’s about elves and trolls and shit. Not really my bag, baby.

Person of Interest‘s Michael Emerson has been cast in a mysterious role for Arrow‘s 6th season. So, he’s probably Deathstroke’s accountant or something.

Because SyFy just doesn’t care anymore, and because they need something to air between Sharknados, Wynonna Earp has been renewed for a 3rd season.

The Wonder Woman sequel has a release date of December 13th, 2019

Apple discontinued the iPod Nano and Shuffle models, as they are the last remaining models that cannot run iOS apps.

Current Superman Henry Cavill grew a mustache for his role in Mission Impossible 37: Mission Harder, which will have to be digitally removed for Justice League reshoots. Ya know, the movie where he’s supposed to be dead, but is actually the worst kept secret in Hollywood.

Lionel Richie and Charlie Puth are in talks to join ABC’s American Idol reboot as judges. Yeah, that’s funny. Unless they’re coaching the contestants on how to get caught cheating while dancing on the ceiling, I’m not sure what Richie’s old ass brings to the table. And Puth is simply too new to be judging anybody.

New James Bond film in 2019. Nobody knows who’s playing him or directing the thing, but it’s coming. Yesiree, Bob!

Since they’re handing out cinematic universes like chicken samples at a food court, the John Wick universe will be expanded by the female-focused film, Ballerina.

Michael Phelps raced a CGI shark and people felt betrayed. He’s the friggin’ son of Poseidon! He can’t race ACTUAL sharks! There would be civil unrest beneath the surface!

With DC being the political capital of the country, it’s hard for a news person to stand out because the place is crawling with them. That wasn’t true, however, for Jim Vance. Everyone knew him and the man was an institution. Coming to NBC4 in 1969, he was one of the first Black anchors in a major news market. He anchored for over 4 decades, ingraining himself into the families of those who watched him.

When I was a toddler, I was really into the local news (I’ve always said I’m regressing as I get older), and I could name every anchor on every local newscast. And this was a golden age of DC news. You had the great Glenn Brenner, you had Maury Povich before he became a talk show host, and you had Vance. There was something about him that made him seem like your aunt’s cool boyfriend. He was an old man with a hoop earring. We used to laugh about it, but secretly I was hating because I knew I’d never be able to pull that off at his age. He rode motorcycles and laughed inappropriately at news stories he found funny. He was a guy who made you glad to watch the news, especially as the cries of Fake News! grew louder.

Back in May, Vance announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer, and it advanced rather quickly. He passed away last Saturday morning, and the announcement touched all corners of the DC area (no, I’m not calling it the DMV!). It was touching to see all of the tributes to him on the local stations, from those who were colleagues and competitors. Last Saturday night, News4 spent the entire 11 PM news talking about Vance and what he meant to DC. This might sound crazy, but it was so refreshing to watch the news without a single drop of actual news being reported. No Trump b.s., no local murders, not even a weather report. Just 30 minutes about a man who we basically grew up with in our homes. I always kinda took him for granted because you just expected he would be there every evening, but I’ve certainly missed him since he’s gone. I know he won’t mean much to those of you outside the DC viewing area, but believe me when I say that everybody here knew who Jim Vance was, and we’re all going to miss him in one way or another. For that reason, Jim Vance had the West Life Ever.

#Books #Comics #Marvel #Movies #Music #Politics #Pop #Race #Relationships #Religion #Social Media #Star Trek #Syndication #Television #TNBC #West Life Ever #West Week Ever #X-Men

[movienotes1990]

EVEN JASON MAMOA CAN’T RESCUE THIS WATERLOGGED SCRIPT.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

This review contains narrative spoilers. We highly suggest that you watch any film before reading any reviews about that film. Continue at your own caution but you have been warned.

     The most relatable character in James Wan’s Aquaman is one of the anonymous henchmen from the Sicilian fight sequence with Black Manta. The nameless stooge is decked out in a technologically advanced Atlantean land suit that helps him breathe above water (a sort of militarized walking fishbowl). Once his visor is shattered and water pours out of his helmet and he begins to be strangled by the Italian atmosphere, he spots a working toilet leaning against the wall. At that point, Atlantean Soldier #4 is compelled to shove his head into the John to survive. After paying for my iMax 3D ticket and sitting through the lengthy two and half hour running-time that painfully seems to be even longer, I felt as though I had given myself a self-inflicted swirly.

     Aquaman packs a whole lot of narratives into this one redundant script. Each fight sequence is kick-started by a jump scare explosion that must come out of habit due to Wan’s origins in the horror genre, political tête-à-tête about kingdoms we don’t know with creatures we don’t care about and snarky smirks followed by catchphrase intended one-liners that never seem to stick. The film is also derivative because the A-Story is a modern and not so subtle retelling of Excalibur (The titular character’s birth name is Arthur). The film also congests an origin story detailing Arthur’s childhood and the relationship of his parents, Black Manta attempting to fulfill vengeance by way of his dying father’s orders, a Game of Thrones type struggle for power, sibling rivalry and a RomCom adventure story that takes the king of the ocean on a quest through the desert. It crams all these plots while also letting the audience know of all the world building that is being constructed by needlessly labeling every location that is visited or by through the majority of dialogue which is all exposition and no subtext.

     But doesn’t the film look cool? Yes, I suppose so. It certainly looks like the $200 million dollar budget. The computer-generated imagery seems to have explored the ocean the way Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy conquered outer space. However, there is a saying in most writer’s rooms that, not unlike Arthur Curry when he retrieves the Trident and defeats his brother Ocean Master, the story is king and this film is lacking any sort of engaging narrative. The script seems as if they shoved as much as they could into the 120 something pages because of a dubious mentality for a sequel. The box office numbers solidify a future for an Aquaman led franchise which came as no surprise because the film was always tracking well both domestically and internationally but what is surprising are the praising reviews. I’m shocked to see how much fun audience members and established film critics had watching this movie because I found the film to be utterly exhausting. It seems as though to keep the checks and balances on the feuding cinematic universes, it’s possible that critics are beginning to grade the DCEU on an unjustified curve. I suspect that if the sequel produces a similar product it wouldn’t be welcomed as favorably as this movie.

Follow us on Twitter @notes_movie 

and see other reviews on Letterboxd @MovieNotes

#MovieNotes Aquaman

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND January 25, 2019  - The Kid Who Would Be King, Serenity

(Yes, I realize the weekend just ended for most, but hey, might as well get an early crack at NEXT weekend, huh? January is winding down with what’s going to be seem like a fairly boring weekend after last week’s M. Night Shyamalan sequel disappointing when compared to the sensation of Dragon Ball Super: Brolly, a movie that few movie writers knew about before Wednesday but grossed $21 million in six days. But hey, variety is the spice of life, and the two movies opening wide this week certainly add some spice with a duo of films from reputable British writer/directors.

THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING  (20thCentury Fox)

Written and directed by Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) Cast: Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Dean Chaumoo, Angus Imrie, Tom Taylor, Rebecca Ferguson, Patrick Stewart, Rhianna Doris, Denise Gough MPAA Rating: PG

On the one hand, this action-adventure film is an exciting one, because it’s the second feature from Joe Cornish following his astonishing 2011 debut Attack the Block, but also, because it’s Cornish’s first studio feature for a mainstream audience, geared towards family audiences in particular.

It’s a fairly standard take on the King Arthur mythos with a young British lad (played by Andy Serkis’ son) finding Excalibur, the legendary sword in the stone and having to team with his best friend (and a couple school bullies) to take on the return of Morgana le Fey (Rebecca Ferguson).

It seems like a good idea to get kids, especially young boys, interested in the tales of King Arthur even though the last few movies have bombed as neither Guy Ritchie’s 2017 film King Arthur: Legend of the Sword or the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced 2004 movie King Arthur found much of an audience. In fact, trying to bring any British legend to the screen and get American moviegoers interested might be a fool’s errand, as seen by last year’s Robin Hood bomb.

The thing is that other than Patrick Stewart – star of Fox’s ongoing X-Men franchise, which seems to be in limbo these days -- and Rebecca Ferguson from the last couple Mission: Impossible movies, there are no stars in the movie that could entice those on the fence about whether to see this movie.  On the other hand, reviews have generally been good which could help boost interest a little more going into the weekend.

At first, I thought maybe this would end up with around $10 million, but it’s basically going to be a family movie coming into a market where most other family films have been in theaters for three weeks or more. (Dragon Ball is an exception.) Fox was also able to get it into more than 3,4000 nationwide, because wisely, it waited until after Glass opened for this.  Because of this, I’m going to goose up my number to somewhere between $11 and 13 million with most of the family movies geared towards boys falling away and Joe Cornish’s older fans maybe giving this a look. Sadly, the movie is not being marketed as “from the director of Attack the Block” as it clearly should be.

Mini-Review: Granted that Attack the Block was always going to be a hard act to follow for Joe Cornish, and yet he has written and directed a follow-up that might appeal to younger moviegoers though maybe not so much Cornish’s older teen fans from his directorial debut.

Louis Ashbourne Serkis, who is indeed the son of Andy Serkis, plays Alex Elliot, a fairly normal 10-year-old, who stands up to a couple school bullies and while being chased by them finds a sword embedded in rock on a construction site. It is indeed the fabled “Sword in the Stone” Excalibur as used by King Arthur. Along with his best friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo) and their two relentless bullies (Tom Taylor, Rhianna Doris), they all go on a quest to fight Arthur’s evil sister Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) and save Britain.

The first major hurdle this otherwise fine kids’ action-adventure faces is the fairly weak cast, because without liking Alex or his colleagues, it’s hard to root for them even with the stakes never feeling too great. The one exception is Angus Imrie as the young Merlin who somehow manages to get more laughs than the older Merlin, played by Sir Patrick Stewart. Alex’s mother is played by Claire Foy lookalike Denise Gough, and she also doesn’t bring much to what should have been touching scenes with Serkis. Ferguson is decent as Morgana, although the role doesn’t give her much to do.

Using many of the same creative team used by buddy and sometime producer Edgar Wright on Baby Driver, including DP Tim Pope and editors Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss, as well as production designer Marcus Rowland, it’s a safe bet that Cornish has made another movie that looks damn good.  As with Attack, Cornish’s FX team perfectly integrate the many CG beasties with the human characters.

The thing is that Cornish does a fine job with this material, so that the movie is better than the Percy Jackson movies or other similar family films, and he should be commended for making such a smooth transition to studio family films. Even so, by the third act, I was just getting very bored, especially when I thought it was ending, and it went on for another 15 minutes.

The Kid Who Would Be King is perfectly fine -- it has its moments -- but there’s something about it that left me wanting, because it seems like it should have been a lot better overall.

Rating: 6.5/10

SERENITY  (Aviron)

Written and directed by Steven Knight (Locke, Redemption, “Peaky Blinders,” “Taboo”) Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou  MPAA Rating: R

The other new release of the weekend is something that possibly could have done very well in the ‘90s or early ‘00s as an erotic thriller, a genre that has had its ups and downs but has mostly done decently at the box office. This is the third movie from Steven Knight, the director of Lockeand writer of Eastern Promises, “Peaky Blinders” and “Taboo,” though I’m not sure his previous hits will convince many to see this in theaters.

Matthew McConaughey plays fishing boat captain Baker Dill, who has been living in hiding on Plymouth Island after his divorce. His ex-wife Karen, played by Anne Hathaway, shows wanting her to kill her violent and abusive husband (Jason Clarke) in order to save her and Baker’s teen son.  

McConaughey’s career has been all over the place in recent years, but his recent crime-thriller White Boy Rick didn’t do very well, and it feels like Serenity is heading towards a similar fate. In fact, McConaughey has been in quite a string of bombs since winning an Oscar for 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club with his biggest hit being the animated Sing. His most high-profile movie The Dark Tower made $120 million worldwide based on $60 million budget which made it barely profitable but especially disappointing due to its studio’s franchise plans.

Having Anne Hathaway could help as she’s been a lot more careful about her choices since winning her own Oscar a year earlier with last year’s Ocean’s 8, in which she played herself,being a relative hit with almost $300 million worldwide. Her last movie with McConaughey was Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar in 2014, which grossed $188 million domestically, so that’s somewhat of a bonus. The cast is rounded out by the ever-present Jason Clarke, who has yet to really break-out despite being involved in many Oscar-caliber films, as well as Djimon Hounsou, who is becoming a superhero film regular, having just appeared in Aquaman and having roles in Captain Marveland Shazam.  (Some might remember that he also had a great scene with Chris Pratt early in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie.)

While erotic thrillers have done well in the past, this movie was originally supposed to come out last September, and there was advertising trailers all summer – I know that because I saw the trailer for this in front of a ton of movies – but then it was moved to January, which is never a good sign of faith. This is a rare release from fledgling distributor Aviron Pictures, who released just two movies in 2018.  Aviron is releasing this one into just 2,500 theaters, which might already be too many screens considering how little marketing the film has

Reviews are still embargoed until Thursday (never a good sign), but I’m probably not going to review the movie, since I saw it quite some time ago, though I do have to say that that the big twist in this movie angered me more than anything in M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass.

This movie looks like the epitome of a late January bomb, one that probably won’t come close to $10 million for the weekend and might even end up closer to $5 million or a little more. Either way, it won’t have to make that much to end up in the top 5 this weekend since it’s going up against many movies that have been playing since before Christmas.

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Glass   (Universal) - $19 million -53%

2. The Kid Who Would Be King  (20thCentury Fox) - $11.6 million N/A

3. The Upside (STX) – $10 million -33%

4. Serenity (Aviron) - $6.5 million N/A

5. Aquaman (Warner Bros.)  - $5.5 million -47%

6. Dragon Ball Super: Brolly (Funimation) – $5 million -49%

7. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse  (Sony) - $4.8 million -37%

8. A Dog’s Way Home  (Sony) – $4.2 million -42%

9. Mary Poppins Returns  (Disney) - $3.1 million -45%

10. Escape Room  (Sony) - $2.8 million -46%

LIMITED RELEASES

Many of my colleagues will be heading to the Sundance Film Festival this week, but I’m not going, so I don’t have much to say about it. Sorry!

On a more local level , we get  FIAF ANIMATION FIRST FEST over the weekend, focused on the booming French animation film industry with a 20thanniversary screening of Michel Ocelot’s Kirikou and the Sorceress and 17 US  and New York premieres, including the New York premiere of Funanand a number of shorts programs. Studio Ghibli’s Isao Takahata, who died last year, will be honored. You can read the full program and schedule of events Here.  I personally have never attended, but if I wasn’t busy I might check out some of the programs.

As far as the limited releases…

Following its November qualifying run as Germany’s Oscar entry and with two Oscar nominations under its belt, Oscar-winning filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s (The Lives of Others) new movie NEVER LOOK AWAY (Sony Pictures Classics). The historic drama is loosely based on the life of visual artist Gerhard Richter with Tom Schilling (Woman in Gold) playing a young artist who has watched East Berlin go from Nazi occupation, watching his older sister be sentenced to death due to her mental illness by a ruthless Nazi doctor (Sebastian Koch), to falling in love with a young woman (Paula Beer) who happens to be that doctor’s daughter and escaping to West Berlin during the country’s contemporary art movement.  I found the movie to be overly long and a little confusing, because I wasn’t sure what the movie was supposed to be about until about 30 minutes into it.  

Just a few months after his last film The Mercy barely got a glance, The Theory of Everything director James Marsh’s new heist film  KING OF THIEVES (Saban Films) will open in theaters (including New York’s Cinema Village) and on VOD and Digital HD on Friday. The true crime tale about a group of retired crooks trying to stage an elaborate jewelry heist stars an ensemble of legendary British actors in Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon, Ray Winstone, Tom Courtenay along with Charlie Cox aka Daredevil. I had high hopes for this movie being better than the likes of Zach Braff’s Going in Style, something classier like last year’s The Old Man and the Gun, but sadly, it’s an obvious money grab for older British men and women reminiscing about all the better crime movies made by the cast.

Claus Räfle’s docudrama THE INVISIBLES (Greenwich) follows four German-Jewish youth who decide to stay behind in Berlin as World War II is beginning, living vicariously while dodging Nazi officials before eventually joining the resistance.  This story of survival opens at New York’s Quad Cinema and Landmark 57, as well as in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal on Friday.

The Brazilian animated film TITO AND THE BIRDS  (Shout! Studios) from filmmakers Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar and André Catoto tells the story of a boy and his father who are looking for the cure for an illness inflicted on someone after being scared. After playing a number of film festivals, it also opens at the Quad Cinema in New York

It’s hard to believe that 88-year-old French New Wave filmmaker Jean Luc Goddard is still with us and making movies, but all the recent repertory series in New York and L.A. have been leading up to his latest film THE IMAGE BOOK (Kino Lorber). Don’t know much about this film which received a special Palme d’or at Cannes last year, but apparently it’s a “collage film essay,” which means that it probably doesn’t have a plot or narrative that’s easy to explain. It opens at the IFC Center and Lincoln Center in New York.

Tom Arnold and Sean Astin star in Ron Carlson’s Dead Ant (Cinedigm) as the members of an ‘80s hair metal band called Sonic Grave who had a power ballad hit 30 years earlier, and while they’re on a road trip to Coachella, they find themselves trying to be relevant again…. Until they’re attacked by giant killer ants. Okay, I think I need to see this movie, as it seems like my kind of movie.

Playing for one night only nationwide on Thursday as a Fathom Event is Timothy Woodward Jr.’s horror film The Final Wish (Cinedigm), starring the wonderful Lin Shaye (Insidious), Michael Welsh, Melissa Bolona and Tony Todd, and produced by Jeffrey Reddic (writer/producer of Final Destination).  Welsh plays Aaron Hammond who returns to his hometown after the death of his father to help his bereaved mother (Shaye) and deal with the demons from his past, finding a mysterious item while going through his father’s belongings.

Opening at New York’s Cinema Village on Friday and at L.A.’s Laemmle Music Hall on Feb. 1 is Francois Margolin’s controversial French drama Jihadists (Cinema Libre), co-directed by by Lemine Ould Salem, which was banned in France. It follows two filmmakers who were given access to fundamentalist clerics of Sunni Islam to show what it’s like to live your life under jihadi rule.

From Bollywood comes Vikas Bahl ‘s drama Super 30 (Reliance Entertainment), starring Hrithik Roshan as Patna-based mathematician Anand Kumar, who runs the famed and prestigious Super 30 program in Patna. Not sure of the theater count but it’s probably opening in a dozen or so theaters.

Opening on Wednesday following its premiere at Doc-NYC is Robert Townsend’s doc The 5 Browns: Digging through the Darkness, which looks at the 5 Browns, a group of Julliard-trained sibling pianists who rose to stardom only to be devastated when it’s revealed that the three sisters were sexually abused by their manager father Keith Brown. It opens at the IFC Center for a single-week run.

Also opening at the Cinema Village and in select cities is John Kauffman’s Heartlock (Dark Star Pictures), a love story about a female prison guard, played by Lesley-Ann Brandt,  who becomes the subject of affection from a charming male convict (Alexander Dreymo) who wants to use their relationship to help him escape.

STREAMING

The main film streaming on Netflix on Friday is Jonas Akerlund’s POLAR, his follow-up to Lords of Chaos, which premiered at Sundance last year and comes out a few weeks later. Based on the Dark Horse graphic novel, it stars Mads Mikkelson as assassin Duncan Vizla, known as the Black Kaiser, who is getting ready for retirement in a suburban town when he’s dragged back into one last job, but when it goes wrong, Duncan’s new love interest (Vanessa Hudgens) is dragged into it. I’ve never read the graphic novel, and I’ve generally been mixed on Akerlund’s films, but this one is definitely in the same absolute insanity realm of his earlier film Spun with a lot of crazy over-the-top performance from the likes of Matt Lucas (Little Britain) and Johnny Knoxville (Jackass), but in this case, it’s not a good thing. Mikkelson gives another stellar performance, and Hudgens is also quite good (didn’t even recognize her) but the craziness surrounding them from Lucas and the other assassins sent after Duncan made it hard to enjoy the film, especially compared to Mikkelson’s other upcoming film Arctic, but hey, it’s on Netflix so I’m sure people will watch it anyway.

Speaking of which, I also want to note that last week, I didn’t notice that a science fiction film called IO: Last on Earth, starring Margaret Qualley (Novitiate),was also streaming on Netflix. I haven’t watched it yet, but one of the writers also co-wrote Claire Carée’s Embers, which is one of my favorite festival discoveries from the past few years.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

The Metrograph has a couple new series starting Friday, including Hou Hsiao-Hsien in the 21st Century, featuring 35mm prints of four of the Chinese filmmaker’s recent films: Millenium Mambo, Three Times, Flight of the Red Balloon and Café Lumieré. Then on Saturday, the Metrograph will show the classic Gone with the Windto kick off its Produced by David O. Selznick series, and there’s some great stuff to come, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellboundand Rebecca.  The theater will also be screening a 35mm of Ken Loach’s 1991 film Riff Raff, starring Robert Carlyle, who would breakout in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. On top of that, Kay Francis: Queen of Pleasure continues with William Dieterle’s Jewel Robbery (1932) and 1929’s The Cocoanuts this weekend, while this weekend’s Late Nites at Metrograph  option is Chantal Akerman’s News from Home  (1977) and Playtime: Family Matinees shows the 2015 animated film Shaun the Sheep.

THE NEW BEVERLY  (L.A.):

Weds. and Thurs. see double features of the 1977 film The Late Show and ‘78’s The Big Fix, starring Richard Dreyfuss. Friday sees a double feature of American Graffiti  (1973) and The Lords of Flatbush  (1974) with More American Graffiti (1979) added on Saturday… for just 10 bucks!The weekend family matinee is 1947’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, starring Danny Kaye.  The Sunday/Monday Franco Zeffirelli double feature is Romeo & Juliet (1968) with Brother Sun, Sister Moon  (1972). Tarantion’s Jackie Brownonce again plays at midnight Friday and the Tuesday Grindhouse triple feature is Katt Shea’s Poison Ivy  (1992), Streets (1990) and Stripped to Kill  (1987), which is already sold out online but may have more tickets at the door.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Far Out in the 70s: A New Wave of Comedy, 1969 - 1979 continues with La Cage Aux Folles and The Seduction of Mimi on Wednesday, double features of Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? and Theater of Blood on Thursday, Woody Allen’s Sleeper and Bananas on Friday, then Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Saturday, and Papermoon, What’s Up, Doc? starring Barbara Streisand and Woody Allen’s Play It Again Sam on Sunday. As part of the series focusing on the great filmmaker and actor Elaine May, Film Forum will show A New Leaf (1971) and Mickey and Nicky (1976) next Tuesday. The weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is Gordon Parks’ 1969 film The Learning Tree.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Beginning another fun series of double features this weekend with Argento/De Palma with a double feature of Suspiria and Carrie on Thursday, Blow Out and Inferno on Friday, and Dressed to Kill and Tenebrae on Saturday. Saturday sees a special presentation of Craig Owen’s The Silent Film Era at the Alexandria Hotel, while the 1916 Douglas Fairbanks film His Picture in the Papers will also screen on Saturday with live music accompaniment.

AERO  (LA):

The AERO is offering an eclectic mixed bag of films this weekend including the 4k restoration of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987; Janus Films) on Friday night, David Fincher’s Fight Club  on Saturday, and the WC Fields comedy My Little Chickadee (1940) on Sunday night.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Continuing the theater’s attempt to keep up with ‘90s Cinemax with its X-rated fare, Just Jaekin’s erotic drama Emmanuelle (Kino Lorber; 1974) will screen in a special engagement, leading up to next week’s Beyond Emmanuelle Just Jaeckin retrospective and Erotic Journeys: The Many Faces of Em(m)anuelle. 

IFC CENTER (NYC):

On Friday and Saturday at midnight, the IFC Center will show the 4k restoration of Dario Argento’s Suspiria as part of its Late Night Favorites series. While The Image Book opens here on Friday, Weekend Classics: Early Godard  continues with a 35mm print of A Woman is a Woman  (1961) and Waverly Midnights: The Feds screens Michael Mann’s Manhunter(with Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal coming in the next two weekends!)

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

Friday night’s midnight screening is the Rocky Horror Picture Show follow-up Shock Treatment (1981).

MOMA (NYC):

This week’s Modern Matinees: Sir Sidney Poitier offerings are A Patch of Blue  (1965) on Weds, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! (1970) Thurs, and No Way Out  (1950) on Friday. MOMA is also screening Ida Lupino’s Never Fear (The Young Lovers) (1950) to end its 16th annual To Save and Project series, although there’s a couple second screenings for those (like me) who only just found out about it now.

That’s it for this week… next week, it’s February! Already?? While many movie writers are still at Sundance and others are preparing for Super Bowl Sunday, Sony releases the crime-thriller remake Miss Bala.

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend WeekendWarrior TheKidWhoWouldBeKing Serenity Movies Reviews BoxOffice