Like many films out there, Atomic Blonde appears to have its fans and detractors. Those who like the film enjoyed the action sequences -some of which are quite excellent- while those who don’t like the film all that much point out the fact that the plot is rather bland and, at times, confusing and/or slow.
I can see both sides, though I ultimately fall on the “liking it” side.
Directed by David Leitch, Atomic Blonde basically plays out like a late Cold War version of Mr. Leitch’s previous film, John Wick. Instead of a pseudo sci-fi set up involving assassins and their murky world, we’re placed in Berlin during the Cold War, when the city was separated by a wall and, as we find, we’re at the moment when the wall is about to come down…
…only there’s a problem: There’s this guy with a list that could prove very damaging to all the various spy agencies populating the area. The Brits send Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron, quite into the role) to go look for this list (I suppose they could call it the McGuffin list). Once in Berlin, things quickly go sideways as the Soviets seem to already have a bead on her.
She meets her contact, David Percival (James McAvoy, quite fun), but doesn’t know just how much she can trust him. She also realizes she’s being followed and dangers lurk around every corner.
Atomic Blonde is told in media res. When we meet Lorraine, she’s already out of Berlin and is debriefing with her boss (Toby Jones) and in the company of a CIA man (John Goodman, quite fun as well) of the events that happened in Berlin.
The events make for a whopper of a story, full of plot twists that border -and often pass- into the realm of the ridiculous.
And yet… I was entertained.
There are plenty of things the film could and probably should have done better yet I liked what I saw and felt Ms. Theron once again proved herself more than capable of doing the action hero thing.
So, if you liked John Wick (and, bear in mind, I did not like John Wick 2), then Atomic Blonde might just be up your alley.
Just sit back and enjoy the action and the wonderful 80’s soundtrack and don’t think too hard about all those plot twists.
Over at the Daily Mail, Sebastian Shakespeare (what a name!) offers an article and a Q&A to Barbara Broccoli, producer of the James Bond films, concerning who might be in line for the role after Daniel Craig…
Nowadays, the idea of changing the gender, race, age, etc. etc. on long established characters (film or novel/story) is at least somewhat in vogue.
One of the earlier attempts at doing so was the film version of The Wild Wild West, a TV series which featured Robert Conrad in the titular role as secret agent James West…
…and the film version featured Will Smith in the role…
In the case of the movie, it was bad no matter who played the title role, but in this case, the changing of the character’s race was even more troublesome given the time frame the TV show/film exists in (ie post Civil War America). To be very blunt: It was difficult to accept the idea of a black man, dressed to the hilt and obvious to anyone who looks his way, could somehow walk around post Civil War America and function successfully as a secret agent.
Nonetheless, I’m not against the idea of changing long established characters, so long as the end result is positive.
We are dealing with entertainment after all and the ultimate judge of success in a movie, book, or story is how audiences react to it.
In the case of James Bond, I feel the article is a little… misleading. This is the important stuff from the article:
(Barbara Broccoli) was asked if we could expect to see a female Bond or a black 007.
‘These films tend to reflect the times so we always try to push the envelope a little bit,’ she replied. ‘Anything is possible.
‘Right now it’s Daniel Craig, and I’m very happy with Daniel Craig, but who knows what the future will bring?’
So, basically, she gives a non-answer here. Sure, in the future, there might be a (insert pertinent race/sex/gender here) James Bond but right now we’re focused on Daniel Craig.
So there’s less to the article than appears… except for one thing. Toward the end of the article we get this quote from Roger Moore concerning who should play the character:
Sir Roger, who died in May at the age of 89, told this newspaper in 2015: ‘I have heard people talk about how there should be a lady Bond or a gay Bond.
‘But they wouldn’t be Bond for the simple reason that wasn’t what Ian Fleming wrote.
‘It is not about being homophobic or, for that matter, racist — it is simply about being true to the character.’
He does make one very salient point regarding the idea of changing a well-established character’s sex/race/age: Should we be so quick to do these changes with characters that were never written by their creators in this manner?
One should, at some point, respect the original author’s vision.
Perhaps a better option would be to create a new character?
I’ve long wondered about the various streaming services out there and how exactly they operate. I assumed it was akin to a radio station in that they play the music you want but you are forced to put up with their advertisements.
However, in this day and age and unlike radio stations, you can specify exactly which music and songs you want to hear and which you do not, an advantage over radio stations but also another source of head scratching for me. How does the advertisement work then?
What about new music? Some people may be comfortable with the old standards and are adverse to seeking out or listening to new music. Finally, how much does a service like Spotify pay the artists whose songs/albums they play?
Apparently, the answer is not nearly enough, at least according to the article I’ve linked to above and hence the reason for the lawsuit.
In this day and age when so much entertainment is available free but illegally online, it’s high time artists fought back when they feel people are listening to their music or reading their books or watching their TV shows/movies without proper compensation.
If Spotify is indeed stiffing the people who make them their money, I hope they lose. Big.
****
Secondly and though I promised not to dwell on this much more, I just headed over to Rottentomatoes.com and, curious to see where audience reaction was regarding Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I clicked on the movie’s specified link and found…
The movie is now listing an audience reaction of exactly 50%.
In other words, this film has apparently (there are those who feel a concerted effort is being made to bad mouth the film) very evenly split audiences, even as it makes Disney a ton of money.
Still, I wonder if, like Warner Brothers and their handling of the DC properties, the fact that the movie has engendered so much negativity may make them reconsider some of their future plans regarding the franchise.
I’ve been hearing rumblings that the next Star Wars related film, the “young” Han Solo feature whose original directors were sacked and Ron Howard was placed in charge, may be in trouble as well, though the same word of mouth came prior to the release of Rogue One.
As with so many things, we’ll see how this works out.
I can go really short with my review here: The film starts very well (and uses an extremely appropriate David Bowie song in those opening minutes), goes on to give us a plethora of superb effects, falls very flat in its middle third, then manages to give audiences a fairly exciting ending.
Unfortunately that flat middle section, and a couple of other problems I’ll note below, really hurts the film and makes it far less successful than one would have hoped.
When I heard a Valerian movie was in the works, I was excited. I’m probably one of the few people in the United States who knew about the European comic books/graphic novels that were the basis for this movie. Here’s one of the first graphic novels featuring Valerian I purchased way back when:
Here’s what the main characters, Major Valerian (in the movie, played by Dane DeHaan) and his partner Sergeant Laureline (in the movie played by Cara Delevingne) look like in the graphic novels:
I found the comics often quite clever and loaded to the brim with ideas, though I will also admit the artwork didn’t always wow me like some other artwork and the story lines were at times odd… though that may have been a function of the translation.
Still, I was eager to see a film version of the characters, and especially so when Luc Besson was revealed as the director. Mr. Besson has a long history in movies, first rising to prominence for movies such as La Femme Nikita, Leon: The Professional, and, especially, The Fifth Element.
In many ways, The Fifth Element was Mr. Besson doing his “original” take on those many European sci-fi graphic novels presented in Metal Hurlant and drawn/written by the likes of Moebius as well as, yes, the Valerian graphic novels.
With the release of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Mr. Besson returns to that vibe but, unfortunately, I feel the results aren’t quite as good. Here is the movie’s trailer:
While its easy to see the similarities between the two films, its their differences that make Valerian, IMHO, a lesser work.
To begin with, it pains me to say this but Dane DeHaan simply isn’t very good in the titular role as Major Valerian. He certainly looks like the Valerian character found on the graphic novels pages, but he also feels far too young to be what is essentially a dark haired version of Flash Gordon. Indeed, there are moments in the film where DeHaan is acting opposite what are supposed to be “grizzled” military veterans and each and every one of them look far more competent and capable of handling action than he does… and yet we’re supposed to view him as their better.
Cara Delevingne as Sgt. Laureline is sorta/kinda ok, but the problem with her character is one that is all too common in the role of women in many films: She’s a character and not much more. She’s the love interest and woman of everyone’s dreams, she’s the damsel in distress. She’s the “tough as nails/hard to get” one. There isn’t a whole lot else.
Worse, DeHaan and Delevingne don’t have much chemistry between them, though I feel much of the problem for that lies in the breakneck pace in which director Besson moves from place to place and heavily special effect scene to scene instead .
Then there’s the movie’s runtime: 2 hours and 17 minutes long.
Once again it feels to me like a film fell under a director’s extreme love for presenting spectacle -the more the better!- and in this case a little more editorial guidance might have come a long way to strengthen the story. Though the situation isn’t quite as bad as Blade Runner 2049’s 2 hours and 44 waaaaay too long minutes (IMHO!), I could have used a few “quiet” scenes between Valerian and Laureline to better establish their relationship. Unfortunately, the near constant barrage of special effects in that middle section of the film got more than a little boring after a while.
The movie features cameo appearances by Clive Owen (he must have worked for maybe two days on the film), Ethan Hawke (ditto), and Rihanna (she’s also a cameo, though a somewhat longer one), but none of them add that much to the film. At least fans of Rihanna get to see her playing dress up for another of those too-long special effect scenes.
So, unfortunately, despite some positives, I can’t recommend Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets to your average movie-goer. Those who enjoy movies with heavy special effects may find more to enjoy, however.
In this era where sexual harassment has become something everyone is far more sensitive to -thankfully!- there are things from the past that are being looked at with fresh eyes.
One of them is this song, Baby It’s Cold Outside…
This is the first appearance of the song in the 1949 film Neptune’s Daughter and, yes, that’s Ricardo (KHAN!) Montalban singing!
The song is one of those very big Christmas songs that has been covered by many, many singers over the years since its release. Here’s another version, by Dean Martin, which I’m embedding below only because it offers the lyrics to the song…
What’s the song about? Easy: Sex. Here we have a guy and a gal together in the guy’s apartment/home and the gal wants to head out but the guy wants her to stay over, and its not so they can finish off the latest New York Times crossword puzzle.
Yes, Baby It’s Cold Outside is a Christmas sex song!
Here’s the thing though: Is the song really an innocent ode to having good ol’ fashioned sex or is this song about… sexual coercion? Date rape?
Kim LaCapria at snopes.com offers an examination of this song and the opinions about it, especially in these times:
As per usual, I don’t want to spoil everything in the linked article, but I will offer some analysis/notes of my own, some of which can be found in the article above.
First, the song clearly presents a woman who is, at least as the song starts, not interested/wanting to stay with the man. The man, on the other hand, is clearly horny and wants the woman and the line “Baby, it’s cold outside” is his attempt to convince her to stay, among other things.
As the song progresses, the woman notes her mother and father will worry and, if she were to stay, she worries what the neighbors will think. She’s offering multiple reasons for leaving while the man comes closer, offers her drinks, tells her there are no cabs to be found, etc. etc., all in the attempt to get her to stay the night with him.
Is it indeed sexual coercion? Or is the song meant to be playful, with the protagonists of this song -both the woman and man- really wanting to get it on and we’re given a “wink wink” view of sexual politics, the woman playing hard to get -but not too hard to get- while the guy has to smooth talk his way to get to where they both want to go…
Here’s the thing, and I posted it clearly in this particular blog’s title: Times Change.
A short while back, and in another blog entry entitled Time Passes and Things Change (gee, how about that?!) I wrote about seeing the opening minutes of the western comedy Waterhole #3. That film, which featured James Coburn as the protagonist, involves a search for missing money.
I like James Coburn. I think he was a great actor and he appeared in many fine films, as well as the occasional dog. Waterhole #3 isn’t one of his better known films, but it is an example of how sexual mores were different in the past versus what we have in the present.
While one could make a case that Baby It’s Cold Outside isn’t quite as dark a song as some view it now, there is no doubt, viewed from today, that the sexual “seduction” scene in the early parts of Waterhole #3is rape.
Here’s what I wrote about the movie and the “seduction” scene between James Coburn and Margarete Blye’s characters in the film:
Billee (Margarete Blye) finds Cole (James Coburn) in her barn, with his pants down (I’m not entirely sure why he isn’t wearing his pants…I suppose that was meant to be part of the “fun”), and he corners her (“humorously”), she tries to fight him (“humorously”), he pulls her down to the ground (“humorously”), he starts kissing her (“humorously”), and then, but of course, she’s somehow charmed by his actions and succumbs to the passion.
I then added this: Holy shit.
Mind you, this happens within the first approximately fifteen or so minutes of the film and, no, the Billee and Cole characters do not know each other before their encounter and, yes, the scene was so off putting to me that I had to shut the film down right then and there.
But my point is this: Until recently (and by that I mean the last ten or so years and, particularly, within the past year) there was a far looser sense of sexual politics and in a movie like Waterhole #3, released in 1967, the idea that women would naturally fall for a “scoundrel”, especially one played by James Coburn, trumped the ugly implications of what was clearly, clearly, a forcible rape, which disgustingly was played for laughs!
Still, it doesn’t shock me that a forgotten film like Waterhole #3 doesn’t engender the same scrutiny as a famous song like Baby It’s Cold Outside.
Yet its a good thing, in my opinion, that people’s eyes are opening a little more to the world around us.
And if you think this is much ado about nothing, please take a moment to see this video. If this doesn’t open your eyes about what its like to be the victim of sexual harassment, nothing will.
I’ve written perhaps a little too much about Star Wars: The Last Jedi, especially considering I have yet to see it. Further, unless I somehow find some free time, I suspect when I do catch it, if at all, it will be when it hits home video.
Even though I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, as I’ve noted far too many times before, the reality is that as a sci-fi and movie fan I’m fascinated with the stuff that is popular -or, conversely, the stuff that hits cinemas with a massive “thud”.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (LJ from here on) as I stated before looked like it would be a “can’t miss”. Before its release and after Disney allowed critics to publish their thoughts, the reviews were gushing. It looked, for all intents and purposes, that this would be a hit with fans, as well.
And then the fans/regular audiences saw the film and, well, I’ve written about that before (here and here), but the bottom line remains: LJ has very sharply divided audiences. The film, on Saturday, had an audience approval rating over at rottentomatoes.com of 57%. Since then and as of today, Tuesday the 19th of December, that rating has further slipped to 55% positive.
Disney probably doesn’t care: The film took in a whopping $220+ million over the weekend and will no doubt earn its investment for the company (whew… wouldn’t want Disney to have to face any hardship! 😉 )
Anyway, the point of this post is that I stumbled upon this fascinating analysis of the film by Gerry Conway. Mr. Conway, for those who may not know, was a prolific comic book writer who wrote just about every major comic book character there is. He is most famous for writing the “Death of Gwen Stacy” story for Spider-Man and has, more recently, done considerable work in television.
Here he presents his thoughts on LJ and I have to say, its one of those analysis pieces that is so deep and insightful that either he’s dead on and the makers of the film really thought through more things than one thought were possible… or that perhaps Mr. Conway is seeing layers upon layers within this film that aren’t there:
I have to admit, either way I’m fascinated by his analysis. I think he is right in the sense that LJ is the first “Gen X” version of Star Wars and as such provides an analysis/critique of the Boomer generation which came before it in the form of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and (while he doesn’t appear in this film) Han Solo.
Having said that, I stand by the feeling that his analysis might, in the end, be a little too much…
Still, a fascinating read if you’ve got a few minutes and definite food for thought.
A few days back I wrote about a few “Best Movies of 2017” lists (you can read them here) but now that we’ve dispensed with those stuck up high brow (I kid, I kid!) lists, let’s get into the meat of the matter:
I won’t give it all away, but of the films listed I was aware of 16 of the 20 films listed and hadn’t seen a single one of them. Of the ones listed, there was only one that I wanted to see, at least based on its trailers (I found them amusing), the Amy Poehler and Will Farrell comedy The House.
The reason I wound up not going to see it? Because the reviews were absolutely brutal and I didn’t want to waste my time.
Perhaps I made the right choice?
Ah, that barely whet’s my appetite…
Over on RollingStone.com, the focus appears to be on “big” studio film releases for their list…
In this case, I know all the films presented. One of the listed films, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, I have sitting next to my DVD/BluRay player, my most recent Netflix film. I’ll watch it, though I don’t expect much. There’s a second film on the list, the Tom Cruise led The Mummy, which I may give a shot. We’ll see.
Note that I set the link above to the start of the 5 Worst Films of the Year. You can go backwards if you want to see what they consider the best films, but I want to focus on the worst. Once again, I’m familiar with all five films presented. Their #1 worst film, The Emoji Movie, seems to be making multiple rounds in these lists…
If you’re really into such lists, then you’ll be in nirvana (or on overload) with this list…
Yesterday I was frankly stunned to find that over on rottentomatoes.com the latest Star Wars film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, after receiving so much near universal love by critics (who currently have the film at a very lofty 93% positive), has far, far less love from audiences. Yesterday, only 57% of them felt the film was good. That rating has dropped a point to 56% today, with a total of 97,100+ reviews.
If nothing else, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (let’s refer to it as LJ from here on) is -obviously!- splitting audiences and fans almost right down the middle.
Because I clearly have way too much free time on my hands, I read through many of the audience reactions presented, both positive and negative, and found the following (and this ain’t brain surgery, folks):
The reactions are split into three distinct camps:
Those who love the film
Those who feel the film was good but not great (this seems to be the smallest group)
Those who hated the film
The ones who love the film feel it was an emotional tour de force, that it was filled with great action, excitement, and plenty of surprises. They felt an emotional connection to the cast and characters and were floored by many of the surprises presented within the feature. Some have also noted the film actually presents a clever theme: One involving failure. Each and every main character in the film, they note fails in their own way, which may well be a way of then showing them, in the next film, learning from their mistakes and succeeding where they failed before (until the final film in this most recent trilogy is released, obviously, this is a complete guess on my and some other audience reviewers’ part).
The middle group, which appears to be the smallest of the three groups offering their opinions on the film, note, among other things, that LJ is a decent/good “action/sci-fi” film but not a very good Star Wars film. In other words, that this film doesn’t feel like it belong to the others, and many wonder whether director/writer Rian Johnson “gets” the Star Wars universe.
I find that analysis fascinating because, to some degree, this critique, only far more negative, appears and repeats by many in the third group, those who feel the film is terrible.
Many of these complaints center on the story: That it is full of holes, that there are parts of it that were better left on the cutting room floor. Though I haven’t seen the film, some of those who even liked the film admitted its second act was too slow and/or unnecessary.
Now, let me repeat: I haven’t seen the film but as I didn’t think I’d catch it in theaters anyway, I didn’t mind reading some of the comments and critiques and having parts -indeed the whole- of the story spoiled.
Another bit of criticism I’ve found repeated by many who didn’t like the film (and even among some who did) was that they felt the film’s makers had contempt for the character of Luke Skywalker. That’s not to say they thought Mark Hamill was bad in playing the character again over for the first time after so many years. Quite the contrary, most feel his acting was one of the film’s highlights. What they felt was bad was what he became since last seen in Return of the Jedi.
What’s fascinating about that is that before the film’s release, actor Mark Hamill, in an interview with Vanity Fair, said the following regarding his reaction to first reading the film’s script:
…after reading Rian Johnson’s script for The Last Jedi, Hamill said, “I at one point had to say to Rian, ‘I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you’ve made for this character. Now, having said that, I have gotten it off my chest, and my job now is to take what you’ve created and do my best to realize your vision.’ ”
Good, bad, or indifferent, clearly the film will make huge box off money this week.
The big question, given how many people seem to not like the film: How big of a drop off will we see in week 2?
Arguably the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been one of the, if not the movie most sci-fi fans have been anxiously awaiting.
Word was this film was very well received, and Disney studios so pleased with the final product, that director Rian Johnson was given free reign to create a new Star Wars trilogy which, according to him, didn’t even require much of a pitch.
Then came the reviews, and they were for the most part ecstatic. Currently, the film is currently charting an incredibly high 93% positive among critics. I wrote, however, a couple of days back about the fact that a) Rottentomatoes has a habit of lumping films into a good or bad category with little space for grays, and b) based on at least one review I found (granted, an exceedingly small sampling) I further wondered if maybe the critics were enamored more the Star Wars brand and were perhaps willing to overlook the film’s flaws.
Regarding that later point, I wondered if that was the case that maybe this film, like the Prequel films before it, would over time find people re-assessing their views on it. I’m old enough to recall that the Prequel films -each and every one of them- were met with near complete adulation but over time people’s opinions of them soured and many now view them as not very good.
So too was the case, for some, with 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. People loved the film when it came out and it made a boat load of money but now, two years later, I suspect many see the film in a somewhat harsher light, even if they may not feel it was a complete bust.
Having said all that, what I didn’t expect, not in a million years, was the audience/fan reaction to this film.
As I mentioned above and if you go by rottentomatoes.com, critics loved the film.
For further comparison, let’s look at the audience reaction to two recently released (and still in theaters in one case) action/adventure/sci-fi films that one could say are in the same general genre field:
Thor: Ragnarock has a 88% positive rating among audiences.
Justice League has an 80% positive rating among audiences.
Whoa.
Also being released this weekend and to little fanfare is Beyond Skyline, a sequel to a barely remembered sci-fi alien invasion film. Currently, its rottentomatoes.com audience approval rating sits at 55%, just two points below Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
As I said before, I did not see this coming at all.
As you also may know, if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, I’m not a huge Star Wars fan. Though I was of the right at at the right time when the original film was released way back in 1977 and had/have a huge interest in all things sci-fi, Star Wars simply didn’t do all that much for me.
Mind you, that doesn’t mean I’m feeling glee at these frankly shocking review numbers. I’ve always been a “live and let live” type guy and if Star Wars is your sci-fi nirvana, more power to you.
Even if Star Wars doesn’t do it for me personally, being so into sci-fi, I’m intrigued to read about the latest news/reviews on any sci-fi works, including Star Wars films.
Now, we are in only the opening days of the release of this film so perhaps people’s opinions will change in time.
The big question is: Will these opinions mellow over time, or become still more harsh?
Woke up today to the news that Disney is, as the headline right above states, buying up most of Fox Entertainment’s assets. The link below is to a CNN article written by Hadas Gold and Charles Riley concerning that big bit of news…
To comic book/movie geeks like me, this means that Disney, who owns Marvel Comics and the characters, nonetheless did not have the right to make movies using the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and only until recently, Spider-Man, even though those characters and the ancillary characters around them were part of the Marvel Comics stable.
Why?
Because there was a time, believe it or not, when Marvel Comics wasn’t doing all that well financially and the rights to the movie versions of these properties were sold to what eventually became 21st Century Fox. These properties, ironically enough, were THE most popular properties in the Marvel stable, so when the Marvel films first started coming out, they were forced to use “lesser” characters at first.
Sure, people knew the Hulk and Captain America, but Iron Man wasn’t a big character. Thor, also quite well known in comic book circles, was hardly a Marvel “A” lister. So too the Guardians of the Galaxy.
But the movies were successful beyond anyone’s dreams and, voila, the Marvel films were hot hot hot and when Disney purchased them, lock, stock, and barrel, they continued the success… and even managed to procure the use of Spider-Man.
I suspect that small opening allowed Disney to continue their negotiations with Fox and, today, it looks like we’ve come to the logical conclusion.
So, now what?
Will we see the Fantastic Four and X-Men finally come into the Marvel Universe?
I strongly suspect we will.
And… it kinda depresses me.
Look, its nice that the Marvel properties, both in print and in theaters, are now going to be under one umbrella. The properties should be together as they always were in print.
However…
Is it me or are we rapidly coming to the point where our entire lives are going to be influenced by only a handful of companies?
Think about it: In entertainment Disney, Warner Brothers, and Sony are a trio of incredibly big and influential companies. Fox was, too, but now Fox is part of Disney.
I could go on with other companies, such as Amazon and Apple and Samsung and Microsoft and… the list sure seems to get smaller and smaller, no?
One other thing: Fox owns the rights to the original cut of Star Wars (1977). Now, supposedly George Lucas, when he sold his Star Wars properties, put a clause in there nixing any release of the original cut of the film.
But now Disney actually owns that cut (again, this was like the Marvel deal, while Disney owns the Star Wars properties, Fox had the rights to the original theatrical version of the original film).
