Over at Quartz Media, there is an article by Ashley Rodriguez which points out the amount of money Netflix is spending on comedy/stand up shows and how they are paying so much that HBO, who used to have plenty of stand up comedy shows, is now falling back (though they did just sign Jon Stewart):
In the article linked above, this paragraph is worth noting:
(Chris) Rock’s two specials and Chappelle’s three reportedly cost Netflix $20 million apiece, for a whopping total of $100 million. And Netflix reportedly spent another $100 million on Seinfeld’s pair of specials, combined with his full series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. That’s roughly what HBO spent on the entire sixth season of Game of Thrones.
That expenditure doesn’t even account for the nearly $295 million Netflix supposedly spent to make some four movies, Death Note, Will Smith’s Bright, Brad Pitt’s War Machine, and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.
I admire the fact that Netflix is trying to create their own entertainment “world”, and clearly at this point they are so flush with cash that they can afford to make the investments.
However, I also wonder just how long this magic ride of theirs can last. Death Note and War Machine, for example, didn’t seem to create much in the way of buzz. While War Machine did receive some critical kudos, Death Note seemed to do the exact opposite and I don’t know if either property made Netflix a profit or broke even.
The amount of monies spent on these comedy specials, too, seems rather crazy. Spending $100 million for Jerry Seinfeld’s two specials and Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee cost the same as the entire sixth season of Game of Thrones?!
Game of Thrones features a large cast and special effects and one can understand it needing funds to be made… though it seems the investment was worth it given the fact that Game of Thrones is one of the most talked about -not to mention successful– shows out there. On the other hand, the Sienfeld material, as good as it may be, involves no special effects, minimal staff to film or have before the cameras, and therefore a product that has to be done very cheaply… yet it merits a payment in the range of a Game of Thrones?!
Look, I like Jerry Seinfeld and the fact that he’s still earning that kind of money is a tribute to his talent. Further, I’ve heard his Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee is quite good.
Having said all that, does the show do Game of Thrones business?!
I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.
I guess the bottom line is this: I worry for Netflix. No, I don’t own stock in them or have family or friends working in the company nor any personal reason to care what happens to them other than as a consumer… but I do feel they are way too free in their expenditures and think that one day they will suddenly find they’ve wasted on hell of a lot of money on stuff that (perhaps) will never give them back their return.
If there’s one thing you have to admire about Kong: Skull Island it is that the film knows what it is and gets right down to the action/adventure and monster mayhem without wasting our time on needless subplots or attempts to create something more “elevated”.
The characters these actors play, by and large, don’t have a whole lot of depth but in this film, it doesn’t matter all that much. Just know that Hiddleston’s character is the intrepid and independent jungle tracker/explorer. Larson’s character is the journalist and anti-war person, which puts her squarely up against Jackson’s military commander of the ops and, as the movie progresses, more and more deranged Kurtz-like personality. John Goodman is the brains behind the operation, the one who sets things in motion and carries his own secrets. Finally, Reilly is the castaway and -perhaps- crazy veteran of WWII who has survived on Skull Island all this time.
Basically, the movie goes like this: The Vietnam War is ending and the U.S. has a tight window of opportunity to explore a mysterious -and unexplored- island that locals in the area have avoided. A permanent cloud bank/hurricane shields the island from outsiders and, when our assembled group head over there, they find more than (most) of them bargained for.
Kong: Skull Island isn’t 2001: A Space Odyssey or Citizen Kane. Neither is it the best “monster” movie I’ve ever seen (that distinction would probably go to the original King Kong and Godzilla). While it doesn’t necessarily deliver the best monster movie evah, it delivers on the thrills and gives us engaging characters to both root for and boo. It is, in the end, a supremely competently done Americanized version of the old Toho monster movies and, as such, hits its target well.
If you do catch the film, make sure to stay through to the end credits. Like the Marvel films, there’s a very amusing end sequence that hints at the direction future movies set in this “monsterverse” may go.
I’ll give the movie’s makers this much: They really want to pursue those old Toho features!
Recommended… especially to fans of monster movie mayhem.
As someone posted on the comments to the article, the premise is incorrect: Rotten Tomatoes takes critical reactions and makes a simple average of them. Thus, if seven out of ten critics liked Movie X, then the movie receives a 70% approval rating. On the other hand, if a movie finds favor in only 2 out of 10 critics, you get a 20% approval rating.
Got it?
Ok then!
Now, ignoring the incorrect premise of the article (It probably should have been 26 Films The Critics Rotten Tomatoes Uses To Average Films Out Got 100% Wrong), it offers some interesting food for thought, especially for someone who loves reading opinions as much as I do.
While I won’t go over every film in the list (that would take way too much time and effort… not to mention there are some films I haven’t seen and therefore could not offer an opinion about), I do think there is a fascinating element articles like this point out: How opinions on films (and, for that matter, anything artistic) can change over time.
Sometimes, its a matter of audiences not necessarily “getting” the film when it was originally released. Sometimes, it may be a more superficial reaction.
When I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness, I recall being entertained by the film and liking it well enough. In fact, I found it more enjoyable than the first of the “New” Star Trek films, which to me had a tremendous amount of plot holes (not that Into Darkness didn’t). Still, I liked it enough to write up a recommended review.
But as time passed and I thought about what I just saw, the film’s merits became… less. In fact, I found myself thinking less and less of the film and, today, feel it was no more than mediocre at best.
Then there’s the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds (no, this movie is not listed in the article above). I’m a fan of Mr. Hitchcock’s films (and let’s just ignore his weird personal issues), but I couldn’t understand what people liked about that film. It didn’t scare me, it didn’t intrigue me, and I felt the movie’s non-ending was frustrating.
And then, in a flash, I suddenly realized something: The Birds was Mr. Hitchcock doing his version of what in the 1950’s and into the early 1960s was a very popular sci-if/horror genre: The “oversized” monster terrorizing humanity films. Godzilla, Them!, Mothra, etc. etc.
These films had developed certain storytelling cliches: The monster was often a smaller, pretty ugly creature rendered monstrously large and dangerous. There are usually plenty of military hardware present. The handsome leads persevere. The films usually ends with some kind of new, “killer” formula or explosive that saves humanity’s bacon.
What Mr. Hitchcock did, ingeniously, was to take every single one of those genre cliches and invert them. There was no “colossally” large menace. In fact, the menace was an animal humanity essentially takes for granted: The common bird. There was no military presence. At all.
The spunky leading lady is left so shaken as to barely be able to walk or talk. The handsome leading man is left in a similar predicament, happy to get his loved ones out of dodge.
And the ending? There is no secret weapon that saves everyone. There is no clever scientific solution. We’re screwed. The end.
With that realization, a film I thought was no good suddenly became incredibly good to me. Excellent, even. Easily one of Mr. Hitchcock’s last true masterpieces.
So read the list and check out the opinions. Of the films I’ve seen, I mostly agree they may have received either too good or too bad a review. But again, that’s on the critics and not necessarily on Rotten Tomatoes.
When the list of 2017 summer movie releases was made, I listed the ones I found interesting and possibly worth checking out (you can read the full list here).
One of the films that was most certainly on my radar was the Edgar Wright written/directed Baby Driver. Of the movie I said this:
I’m a sucker for well done car chase movies and this film, directed by fan favorite Edgar Wright, looks interesting… though I really don’t like the “main character has to listen to music to get into the zone” thing.
Even with the caveat regarding needing to listen to music to get into his “zone” (something which was, by the way, used before by Jessica Biel’s character when she “got into a zone” to fight in the 2004 movie Blade: Trinity… yes, my head is just chock full of useless trivia!), I was interested in catching the film. I have generally enjoyed the films of Mr. Wright and feel he’s always trying hard to give audiences something unique and good.
When the movie was finally released to theaters, I unfortunately never found the time to go see it. But my interest in the film grew stronger as the reviews were almost uniformly positive. To this date and over on Rottentomatoes.com, the film has a pretty spectacularly high 93% positive among critics and an equally impressive 88% positive among audiences.
I was certainly interested enough -and figured this was such a no-brainer- that I pre-purchased the film through VUDU figuring this would be a film worth owning. It was only the second time I’ve ever pre-purchased a film (the previous one being Batman v Superman which blah blah you already know how much I like it blah blah).
Last night and along with my wife we put it on, fully expecting a night of enjoyment and fun.
Ho boy.
To say I was disappointed with this film is a gross understatement.
Mr. Wright undeniably continues to show great skill as a director, but the fact of the matter is that Mr. Wright, the movie’s writer, let down Mr. Wright, the movie’s director.
Big time.
Baby Driver doesn’t need all that much explaining: It is a crime film cum musical which features Ansel Elgort as “Baby”, escape driver supreme with a severe case of tinnitus which he got as a result of a bad car accident which left him an orphan, who has to do jobs for Doc (Kevin Spacey) who he owes while having to deal with low lifes like Buddy (Jon Hamm, quite good here), his psycho girlfriend Darling (Eliza Gonzalez), and the deranged Bats (Jamie Foxx, also quite good).
Baby longs for paying his debt to Doc and, when he finally does, things look bright for him as he meets the love of his life, Debora (Lily James) and looks forward to a straight life.
This is not to be because Doc knows he has a great driver in Baby, and the last job turns out not to be so final and Baby is forced into another job, one that could upend his life as well as Debora’s.
Watching Baby Driver I felt it was as if Mr. Wright was combining two Walter Hill films, the 1978 film The Driver (not to be confused with the Ryan Gosling film with the similar name) and 1984’s Streets of Fire. The former is about a driver (duh) who is just like Baby and ferrets criminals out of their heists and eventually having to deal with the consequences. The later was a criminally underperforming rock n’ roll “fable” that featured some gruff characters and a very young, and absolutely stunning, Diane Lane in a musical milieu.
Both films, IMHO, are much, much better than Baby Driver, even if one could argue that technically (i.e. The way Mr. Wright mixes sound and visuals) is on a level of its own.
The problem, as I stated before, is that while the film exhibits technical brilliance, the movie’s story is ultimately weak. To begin with, why have the revolving cast of bad guys Baby has to drive? Why not stick with the consistent cast, then have the jobs turn more and more deadly and present the moral quandary to Baby that things are slowly, inevitably, getting out of hand? This would work better than what we’re given as it would allow us to feel some sympathy for Doc… he’s the brains behind everything but he’s becoming powerless to stop the bloodbaths and, when (MILD SPOILERS) he finally sides with Baby, it would make a hell of lot more sense than the “I was in love once” absolute -pardon my French- bullshit we’re given.
Also, had Mr. Wright used the same group of thugs, he could can have more organically shown the progression of Buddy from what appears to be a “decent” criminal into a violent, blood-lusting creep he eventually became.
But there’s so much more. How convenient the group happen to drive by and decide to go to the diner Debora is working at. Really!? There were no other diners in all of Atlanta? Also, why exactly did the thugs leave Joseph alive? These “hardened” thugs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Finally, at one point toward the film’s climax Buddy becomes Jason and/or Freddy Kruger all rolled up in one and that, to me, became silly rather than a genuine threat to Baby and Debora.
Finally, given all the carnage, are we really to believe the movie’s ultimate resolution regarding Baby? Wouldn’t he merit pretty stiff punishment as an accessory to multiple murders and untold property damage? How can we sympathize with him by the movie’s end?
When the movie was over and I looked over at my wife, she wasn’t happy to have wasted her time on this film. Yet she, like me, couldn’t help but acknowledged the direction was quite great and there are some extended sequences, especially one toward the movie’s beginning, that are eye-popping.
But good -hell, great– direction takes you only so far. There is a great deal of talent on display in Baby Driver. I just wish the story was as good as the rest of it.
One of my biggest fears as a writer is that whatever I spend my time, blood, sweat, and tears on is no good… and because I’m so close to the product I won’t even know it.
Understand, my novels/stories are my babies. I devote so much energy to them and love them to death while, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, try to look at them with as harsh an eye as I can to make sure that when they are eventually released, they’re the absolute best thing I could have done.
I also recognize opinions on entertainment are just that, and what to you may “rock your world” to some others might be a complete dud (I’ve pointed it out many times before that I loved Batman v Superman while so many savaged it and I found the original Guardians of the Galaxy complete crap, while so many loved it!)
Thus, I know that if someone doesn’t like any of my works (while, hopefully, a whole bunch of others do!), I can rest easy in the knowledge that I did the best I could at the time I wrote my latest work. I scrutinized every chapter, paragraph, sentence, and word. I checked and re-checked the plot and the delivery of the story. If it didn’t work for you, it simply wasn’t meant to be.
But going back to my biggest fear: Because I’m so intimately involved in my stories/novels, there is the danger that I might miss something. There might be this big plot whole right there which I’ve somehow missed, being so focused on a tree and not seeing the forest around me. Or, worse, the story simply isn’t all that good, and I should probably let it go and do something else.
Which, in a roundabout way, brings us to the latest Ridley Scott directed Alien film, Alien: Covenant.
Mr. Scott created an incredible stir, and elevated himself into the pantheon of “A” list directors, with his original Alien film, released in 1979. He would follow that up with Blade Runner, a not at all bad one-two combination for a then up-and-coming director.
Had Mr. Scott not released another film after those two, his legend would be set. He continued though, amassing a mind-boggling amount of produced and directed works. Some haven’t been terribly good while others have been outstanding (Blackhawk Down and Thelma and Louise are two which, IMHO, are among his better works).
Recently, Mr. Scott returned to the world he created in Alien, first with the 2012 film Prometheus, and now in 2017 with Alien: Covenant.
And I really, really wish he hadn’t bothered.
Prometheus was a gorgeous film. It featured a powerhouse cast and scenes that you could stare at for hours. It also featured a lackluster story, characters doing mind-bogglingly stupid things, and an ending that promised a far better story than the one delivered in this film.
Walking out of the theater when I saw that film, the writer in me thought Prometheus was little more than a prologue, something done away with in maybe half an hour and that the film proper should have started afterwards, when Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw headed out to the stars, to find out what those pesky aliens were up to with their weird genetic works.
With Alien: Covenant, whatever story was supposed to happen afterwards with Shaw was almost totally jettisoned, which proves if nothing else how almost completely irrelevant the whole endeavor was.
Alien: Covenant plays out like three films smashed into one. Given the lukewarm response to Prometheus, perhaps Mr. Scott realized his original grand vision of, who knows, five to six Alien films which would form a long saga had to be wrapped up much quicker and therefore we get a film that is chock full of story…
…which, unfortunately, is not very good.
Mr. Scott does away with Elizabeth Shaw’s character (don’t believe IMDB’s statement that she’s in the film… if she is actually in the film it was cut out of the theatrical version) and her search for answers in flashback and sticks us with yet another bunch of victims and potential victims on their way to colonizing a world but, after your by now cliched emergency, are re-routed to another, tantalizing world from which a mysterious signal is coming.
On this world they find David (Michael Fassbender), the android from Prometheus. The crew has their own android, Walter (also played by Mr. Fassbender), which -how can I put this delicately?- only makes sense given where the story goes in the end.
It seems logical that if you’re going to create automatons that look eerily like people, you might want them to look different from each other, no? I mean, your David is my Walter or Jim or Charlie. Wouldn’t that just open things right up to a lot of confusion?
See where I’m going here?
Tell you who didn’t: The survivors of this wretched film.
So the crew of the Covenant (that’s the name of their ship) heads to the weird planet and is amazed at how it looks so good but you know things will go sideways soon… and of course they do. But, like Prometheus, as an audience you’re once again marveling (if I could use that word) at the sheer stupidity of their actions. They encounter David and ignore all the many megawatt neon lit “DANGER” signs flashing all over him and allow themselves to simply follow along where he takes them, then split up (idiots) to then be picked off one by one, leading to the “exciting” climax back on the ship with that one last alien you just knew would somehow mysteriously (and without explanation) get on board their ship.
I didn’t like Prometheus much. I thought it was a misfire from a story standpoint but could admire the fact that Mr. Scott was trying, though ultimately failing, to do something new and different within the Alien universe. With Alien: Covenant, my patience with the story he’s determined to follow (Let’s just call it what it is: David’s story) was at its end. The now two part story is silly when its not cliched and the villain of this piece (who I suppose was becoming the villain in the first) is all the more annoying because we simply can’t root for the people around him… they’re so dumb you can be forgiven for hoping they get what they deserve.
And then there’s the odd casting choices, which make me wonder just how serious Mr. Scott was when making the film.
Why exactly was James Franco here? I know he was given some actual “present day” dialogue in the “prologue” stuff that was released to the internet before the film’s debut but here he literally says nothing -except in a video- and his role maybe lasts like a minute, if that.
There’s also Danny McBride. Known for mostly playing stoners and/or in your face morons (likable or not), I think he’s a good comedic actor and he certainly isn’t terrible in this film and in this more serious role but, like all the rest of the Covenant crew, he is a walking piece of cardboard and not a fully fleshed being. Thus his role, like James Franco’s, screams stunt casting. I could never quite remove myself from him being just a second away from lighting up and/or doing something silly.
Finally, there’s an opening scene involving Fassbender’s David and Guy Pearce’s Peter Weyland that, like was ultimately done in Prometheus, probably should have been left on the cutting room floor, even if it was visually striking.
Supposedly Mr. Scott plans to make a third, concluding chapter to his Alien prologue films. Perhaps that one will finally be good, because the first two, in my opinion, haven’t been.
We’re at the (gulp) 40th Anniversary of the release of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a new, cleaned up version of the film is about to be released in honor of that anniversary to theatres.
CEOT3K was Mr. Spielberg’s follow up to the incredible hit Jaws (1975). It was another hit movie and further cemented his reputation as a director whose works audiences were eager to see.
I haven’t seen the film in full since probably some time in the late 1970’s or very early 1980’s, but while I appreciate the way Mr. Spielberg so skillfully told his story and the hopeful tone the movie had at the end regarding our first encounter with aliens… there was always something about it that turned me off.
That something is the main character of the film, Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss, returning to Mr. Spielberg’s world after Jaws).
Neary is a character who, after chasing a UFO down a highway, finds he has some kind of strange, never quite explained psychic link to the aliens. Following this “close encounter” with them, he becomes so focused on actually meeting them that he does increasingly strange and odd -and destructive- things around his house (I won’t go into too many spoilers for those who haven’t seen the film). These actions draw the ire and bewilderment of his wife, who eventually cannot take his bizarre actions and grabs their three children and leaves him.
That’s right: The good guy of the movie is a man who becomes so self-involved in his mania that he allows his wife to take his three children and abandon him.
Mr. Spielberg himself, again if memory serves, stated that when he made CEOT3K, he was a young, single man without kids and that later on, after having children of his own, realized the perspective presented with regard to Neary would likely have been very different had he made the film later on versus in 1977.
But the facts are the facts and we have the Neary we’ve got and for me, his character is really hard to root for.
One can (and I did) look at Neary as a pathetic person who couldn’t accept being an adult, a Peter Pan-like figure who wanted so desperately to escape into his fantasy world of aliens while the ordinary, grinding “real world” brought him down. But he kept fighting for that fantasy world and eventually does enough stupid shit to unload all those who keep him down, including his wife and children, so that he can (selfishly) escape to the stars.
Even though I myself was a very young man when I originally saw the film (certainly younger than Mr. Spielberg), I found his character weird and, frankly, more than a little disturbing, especially given how he loses his wife and kids. Especially his poor kids!
Again, I haven’t seen the film in full since way back near the time it was originally released but do have it on BluRay.
Maybe seeing it again I might change my opinion of Neary and what I feel is the selfish nature of his character.
Cult director co/writer Ben Wheatley and his co/writer (and spouse) Amy Jump are the brains behind 2016’s Free Fire, a dark comedy/action film that features a very impressive cast… and a sadly underdeveloped story.
I’m going to be blunt here: I was hoping for much more in this film than what I got.
The story goes like this: Back in 1978 (why set the film in this year? Easy, because it was before the advent of cell phones. If the film were set in the present and cell phones existed, this story would be done very quickly) a group of individuals get together in an abandoned factory for a gun sale. Things go sideways quick and the various members of the cast are soon engaged in an extended gunfight which plays out for perhaps 3/4ths of the film.
I’ll get into SPOILERS in a moment but here are the things I liked about the film:
Armie Hammer, an actor whose appearances I’ve found not all that memorable (my general experience is, and I don’t claim to have seen all his various roles, he’s been cast too many times as the big, quiet -and boring- type), is quite good as the somewhat arrogant, pot smoking intermediary who gives off vibes of being quite dangerous beneath it all. But is he?
Sharlto Copley is an actor who can be somewhat… overwhelming… at times but here his arrogance and silliness serve him well.
Cillian Murphy, another actor with a very long list of roles, is obstensibly the hero of the piece, an IRA man who is interested in purchasing weapons and who has an eye for…
Brie Larson, Oscar winning actress plays a woman of mystery here, an intermediary for the IRA fellows who gets caught in the resulting crossfire. Or does she?
These are the four roles I found most intriguing in this film but, truthfully, just about everyone is good -or, more properly, bad– in their individual roles but the biggest problem this feature has is that after everything is set up, there just isn’t all that much of a second act. The characters attack and counterattack and after a while it feels repetitious and we’re dealing with diminishing returns.
Based on that, I can’t recommend Free Fire. If you’re curious, here’s the movie’s trailer and, afterwards, I’m going to get into a more SPOILERY focus on one of the film’s elements leading to its conclusion…
As mentioned, we’re now going to get into…
SPOILERS!!!!
Still here? You’ve been warned!
As a writer, I’m always interested in all things story and Free Fire was no exception.
If there was something that kept me going on with it, even after feeling the film was running out of steam, was where it was going. The fact is that while I ultimately can’t recommend the film, I could see that the people behind it were certainly trying to do something interesting.
The film isn’t “just” a silly shoot out. It’s an attempt at making a black comedy with the action elements. Sadly, in the end there wasn’t enough “there” there for me to like it, but I was still intrigued as to where it was going.
Which is where, from a writer’s standpoint, the film somewhat misfired because the movie’s conclusion was set up only minutes from the movie’s actual conclusion.
Let me explain: I kinda knew the film would feature the slow deaths of the many characters within it. I wondered who would survive to the end and, when we got to the “last three”, two of the characters got together and one of them states something to the effect of: “Let’s go, the police will be here in fifteen minutes”.
Then, the final of the three characters emerges, takes out the other two, and tries to get away with the money intended to pay for the guns. However, as this person is heading to the exit, the lights from police cars is seen pouring from under the door of the factory. The final survivor is caught.
Allow me to humbly point out: THIS IS STUPID.
Why, suddenly, are the police an issue… other than to provide closure to the film?
Free Fire starts with the various characters going into the abandoned factory and, because this is a gun purchase, they have to check the merchandise. Therefore, before any monies are exchanged, the buyer gets to try out one of the weapons he’s interested in buying.
I assumed at that point in the film they chose this abandoned factory for the purchase because any gunfire -specifically the gunfire from the buyer examining the merchandise- would be muffled and therefore the police would not be called to the area.
What the movie needed was AT THIS POINT IN TIME to explain the situation with the police.
Have one of the characters say: “Look, take your shots quick. We’re pretty muffled for sound here but you never know if someone out there might hear them and call the cops.”
THAT’S IT!
With that single line and, even more importantly, at that point in time, the film’s makers don’t have to put the awkward bit of dialogue at the tail end of the film -and moments before its actual ending- to clue us in on how the film will end. Instead of the character suddenly pointing out the police will be there in 15 minutes, this same character would then say something to the effect of: “We really need to go. This place muffles plenty of sound but with this much gunfire someone out there must have heard something. It would be a miracle if the cops weren’t on their way right now.”
I know, I know. A silly little peeve but its there, nonetheless, for me.
Now that I’ve mentioned this writerly peeve, let me give the film some love: I really like how they subtly laid down information regarding Brie Larson’s character. There are at least two bits of dialogue, both given by her and one of which is included in the above trailer, that hint to what she’s all about.
Speculatin’, especially in light of the very recently announced Martin Scorsese produced Joker movie (which reportedly also won’t fit in with any other movie continuity), suggests that DC/Warners may be moving away from the continuity heavy movie releases -ala Marvel films- and instead hit audiences with films that may not be tied into one another.
There is speculation, and it is natural, that what lies behind this may be related to a) The Justice League film being “bad” and/or b) Ben Affleck wants out of the role.
While the Justice League film certainly has an interesting backstory regarding its making, there is an Aquaman movie being currently filmed which clearly is tied into the continuity and the Wonder Woman sequel, one would think, is still tied into the continuity as well. However, reports released suggest the Flash film is taking on the Flashpoint storyline, which essentially resets the universe/continuity and could offer a way to reboot the DC superhero universe and, if necessary, remove actors who may not want to stay in their respective roles.
On the other hand, DC/Warner, unlike Marvel, has a pretty long -and successful- history of having films set in their own continuity. The Christopher Reeves Superman films, regardless of their quality beyond the second one, were their own thing. As was the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman films. As were the Joel Schumacher Batman films that followed them. As were the Christopher Nolan films that followed them.
Many of these films made tons of money and were very successful. Others less so.
Regardless, DC/Warners, unlike Marvel/Disney, has tasted considerable success with movies featuring their characters in their own proper continuity (Sony, who until recently owned the film version of the Spider Man character, had success with the Raimi movies and less so with the ones that followed, set in their own continuity).
Therefore, it might make more sense that they aren’t as enamored of the idea of continuity heavy films.
Sinister? A sign of bad things regarding the Justice League film and Ben Affleck’s continued presence in the famous role of Batman?
Todd Phillips is probably best known as the director of the three The Hangover films (he was also the writer of the later two in the series, which were IMHO quite horrid).
Scott Silver is mostly known as a writer and his most successful project was 8 Mile.
Martin Scorsese, on the other hand, needs no introduction, being the acclaimed director of such seminal films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and, more recently, The Wolf of Wall Street.
So the article above states that these three individuals have gotten together to make a Joker “stand alone” film which explores Batman’s arch-villain’s origin. Mr. Scorsese, it is implied, will serve as a producer and not direct.
Now, a few points regarding this article:
How freaking insane does that trio of individuals coming together to make a Joker film (of all things!) sounds?
Is it really wise to make a Joker film without Batman?
What exactly will the tone of this film be? The article indicates the film will be “hard boiled” yet at least one of these three individuals is known for comedies.
It is stated the film will lie outside the other movie continuity, which seems to indicate we won’t have Jaret Leto playing the character. Given we have Martin Scorsese involved, can Leonardo DiCaprio be far behind?
I repeat: How freaking insane does this sound?!?
When I read the original article, my first move was to check the calendar.
Yesterday, alas, was not April 1st.
Over on various comment boards some people far more clever than I wrote that this sounded like a movie version of Mad Libs.
When I saw the first trailers for the new Steven Soderbergh directed film (his first after declaring he was retiring from direction several years before) Logan Lucky, I was intrigued.
Seeing Daniel Craig, who for far too many years acts in films -like the James Bond films, natch- that required him to be so serious and dour, acting in this …unhinged… looking manner had my complete attention.
So this weekend, when my wife and I found ourselves with –gasp!– some free time after a far too grueling month of moving our kids into their apartments, decided to head out to the theater and watch a film.
But, what to see?
The choices boiled down to The Hitman’s Bodyguard and Logan Lucky. The Hitman’s Bodyguard, alas, has been taking a beating from critics and, to be very honest, after that grueling month I’ve been through, I didn’t want to waste my time and Logan Lucky was certainly getting a lot of critical love.
So Logan Lucky it was.
The film’s story is pretty clearly laid out in the above trailer. The Logans, Jimmy (Channing Tatum), Clyde (Adam Driver), and Mellie (Riley Keough) join forces with the hilarious Joe Bang (Daniel Craig, natch) and his redneck brothers to pull off a heist at the Nascar raceway.
Why?
The spark, apparently, for the action was Jimmy a) being fired from his job because of a knee injury sustained when fighting for the army and b) finding out his ex-wife Bobbie Jo Chapman (Katie Holmes in what amounts to a cameo) and her current husband are going to move to another state and, therefore, take their daughter with her.
So Jimmy wants/needs cash (perhaps… I’ll say no more), and he presents his plan to his brother, then together they visit Joe Bang in prison and we’re off and running.
Logan Lucky is far from a perfect film. In fact, the first act, before the arrival of Daniel Craig’s Joe Bang, is kinda dull.
But once the actors are in their place and we’ve moved on to the actual heist, things get fun -and funny- and we’re having ourselves a good time.
It helps, by the way, that almost all the characters presented are decent people. The only big exception is Seth MacFarlane’s Max Chilblain, a shallow Nascar promoter who is a narcissist and may wind up being the proverbial fly in the ointment when it comes to the heist going as planned.
Even Katie Homes’ Bobbie Jo and her silly new husband, who could have been presented as far more antagonistic, are instead shown to be caring parents in their own way, even if their means far outstrip Jimmy Logan’s.
So, if you can patiently wait a few minutes for the film to find its legs, you’ll have fun with Logan Lucky. It may not be one of the most scintillating comedies or heist films ever made, but its a fun piece of work and, if nothing else, its worth seeing for Daniel Craig’s hilarious turn as Joe Bang.
