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Movies, TV

On Writing… and the season two finale of Ash vs. Evil Dead

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I’m not alone in loving most of the Evil Dead series.  What started as a low budget movie released in 1981…

…was “rebooted” into a satisfying horror/comedy mix which absolutely worked in 1987’s Evil Dead II.

So successful was this film that in 1992 we were treated with a third movie, Army of Darkness.  In this movie’s case, we moved farther away from horror and more into straight up comedy…

Like Evil Dead II, I loved it.  Audiences, however, didn’t.  Not at that time.  In fact, Army of Darkness was a flop when it was initially released though subsequent home video releases made plenty for the studios.  However, that initial failure is the reason it took many years, twenty one in fact, before we had another Evil Dead feature.  2013’s reboot, entitled Evil Dead, was a straight up horror movie which, IMHO, wasn’t all that great, though I do think the trailer is creepy as hell…

This film did well at the box office and, with the realization that perhaps there was a demand for more Bruce Campbell starring Evil Dead, the wheels were in motion.  It would come to be.  Not as a new movie but rather a series from Starz titled Ash vs Evil Dead…

The first season of this series, IMHO, was quite good and took the same blend of horror and comedy that worked so well in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness.  I loved the new show though I thought its finale wasn’t all that great.  Still, it was a very entertaining ride and I very much looked forward to season 2.

The second season, IMHO, was absolutely glorious, better than the quite good season 1.  Last Sunday, December 11th, the season finale of season 2 of Ash vs Evil Dead was played and…I’m sad to report history repeated itself.  As good as the second season was, I found the final episode/resolution, like season 1’s, also disappointing

Turns out, there might be a reason for that.

Craig DiGregorio, Ash v Evil Dead’s showrunner, left the series after season 2 and, following the presentation of the season finale, was interviewed on why he left the show.  As it turns out, there were considerable creative differences between he and producer Robert Tapert (who has been with the Evil Dead series since its inception) which resulted in a last minute rewrite/reworking of the season 2’s finale.

If you have seen season 2 of the show and are curious as to what the original plans for the finale were, check out this interview with Mr. DiGregorio…

Craig DiGregorio on leaving Ash v Evil Dead and the original season two finale

Read it?

Seen it?

Good.

I won’t go into all the details presented in the interview as they speak for themselves, but the ending Mr. DiGregorio was working at sure sounds a lot better than what we were given.  Again, the season itself was a complete blast and therefore I can’t be too unhappy by the fact that the final episode didn’t work for me as well as it should have.

I am, however, concerned about what will come.

Mr. DiGregorio, whether you agree with his opinions or not (or feel he shouldn’t have spoken out as he did, biting the hand that feeds you and all that), was behind two for the most part delightful seasons of the show.  While Ash v Evil Dead tended to lean toward comedy and some felt there should have been more of a balance between that and horror, I loved it…well, again, except for the end of season 1 and now the end of season 2.

Would Mr. DiGregorio’s original ideas have worked better?  We’ll never really know though the ideas he presents are certainly far more ambitious and, to my mind, interesting than (SPOILERS!) the bland celebratory festival we were given in the season 2 finale, which played out like -of all things- the ending of Return of the Jedi, complete with ghostly apparitions giving our heroes the “thumbs up”.

I point all this out -and if you’ve paid attention to the headline of this blog entry- because we’re dealing with the job of writing here.

When I was considerably younger, I dreamed of one day being the writer of Batman.  I loved, loved, loved the character and having a hand in his stories was my ultimate writer’s dream.  Mind you, this was before Batman became BATMAN, the character everyone now knows and loves.  Back when I had this dream, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Tim Burton’s Batman movie was still to be and the multi-billion dollar franchise megalith the character has become wasn’t quite there.

Yes, people knew the character, if only from the Adam West TV series, but he was far from the character everyone knows and loves today.

Which means if you are the writer of Batman today you have to deal with the suits behind the character.  You have to please them as much -probably even more!- than the readers.  You have to heed their advice even if it means cutting story ideas you may love to pursue what the people who own the character want you to do.

In the case of Mr. DiGregorio, it feels like he was in a similar situation.  He spent two years devoted to Ash v Evil Dead and, for the most part, delivered a pretty damn great product.  If his interview reveals anything it is that some of his concepts and ideas -and most certainly his ending to season 2 of the series- clashed with producer Robert Tapert’s vision.  Clearly these clashes were too much and he left the show.  Equally clearly, he’s not all that happy with the “new” ending which was imposed upon the season.

Yet he’s also sanguine enough to note that Mr. Tapert, being one of the people behind the Evil Dead from its inception, rightfully had the power and right to exercise control over the product and impose his ideas over Mr. DiGregorio’s.

Some have said this interview was a hatchet job directed at Mr. Tapert, a one-sided low blow from a disgruntled writer who thinks himself bigger than those who created the series to begin with.

I suppose it is possible but what I read was an interview with a man who clearly put in a great deal of effort into a product he was proud of but ultimately had to leave it over creative differences.  Then again, as I writer, I have sympathy for someone who works hard on a creative idea only to see it scuttled for something they may feel is inferior.

Think about that: Mr. DiGregorio is a writer.  His profession offers almost no guarantees of a steady paycheck, yet he lands a plum job working on a successful series.  He could have swallowed his pride and “gone with the flow” and continued his job but felt that his vision and the producers clashed so much that he decided to walk away.

From a well paying, high profile job.

There was rancor in the interview, certainly, and Mr. DiGregorio is clearly nursing a bruised ego.  But I didn’t read the same levels of rancor some have said there was.  He appeared sanguine about the situation and noted he had to go because he simply didn’t have the power over the product and didn’t want to continue clashing with the producer who clearly wasn’t into his ideas.

This, to me, is the adult way of going about things.

I suppose the big question becomes: How will the show do without Mr. DiGregorio?  If he was responsible for many of the good things the series presented in its first 2 seasons, how will things go with season 3?

As with so many things, we’ll see next year…

Movies

The Last Witch Hunter (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Hmmm…The Last Witch Hunter…it was a Vin Diesel film, right?  The follow up to his incredibly successful (and goofily over-the-top) Furious 7?  Which in turn was his follow up to his cute (even though I personally didn’t like the overall film) vocal turn in Guardians of the Galaxy, right?

I mean, Vin Diesel was on such a roll!  Yet I recall The Last Witch Hunter (I’ll refer to it as LWH from now on) came and fled the theaters -and everyone’s memories- quicker than you could say, “Vin Diesel is in a new movie and its called–”

I kid, I kid.

But the reality is that while this film featured a big cast, including Michael Caine, Elijah Wood, and Rose Leslie in the principal roles, the studios seemed to smell a stinker and while the movie was released to theaters, it felt like not much of an effort was made in the promotion of this feature.  It kinda came and went.

The critics were certainly not kind.  Over on Rottentomatoes.com, LWH scored a pathetic 16% positive among critics yet, curiously, total reviews were only 123.  Generally, a “big” film release winds up with at least 200 “professional” reviews.  Furious 7, for example, had 233 professional reviews.  Suicide Squad had 294.  Jason Bourne 259.  Thus, LWH’s 123 is a pretty small amount.

The point is, critics weren’t all that interested in, or bothered, to review the film and those that did, obviously, hated what they saw.  Audiences, too, weren’t all that impressed.  Again based on Rottentomatoes.com, only 44% had a favorable opinion of it.

So why the heck did I like the film?

Don’t get me wrong: LWH is far from a “superb” film.  It loses steam as it goes along and the climax wasn’t nearly as exciting as it could have been.

And yet, I liked the damn thing.

In some ways the movie reminded me of the Hellboy comics/movies.  Here we have an alternate reality where the “real world” goes about its business yet in dark corners and alleys a parallel world of magic exists, in this case where witches go about their daily business.  At one time, however, witches and humans clashed.  800 years before Kaulder (Vin Diesel) and his people confronted a particularly evil witch.  Kaulder slayed her but she “cursed” him with immortality.

In the present, Kaulder works for a religious organization which has made peace with the witch population.  Kaulder acts as an enforcer, making sure the witches don’t stray and/or abuse their power.  While the witches view him as a stern, fascistic “cop” and rightfully fear he may end their lives at any moment, we find that Kaulder, while stern and no-nonsense and has a past which should make him hate all witches, is actually a very even keeled man who isn’t a bloodthirsty killer at all (I really liked the opening “present” day act on an airplane and the way Kaulder interacts with a witch who has accidentally endangered the entire flight).

Kaulder’s right hand man, a priest named Dolan (Michael Caine), is the 36th “Dolan” to have stood by Kaulder and helped him do his job.  When the movie starts Dolan 36 is set to retire and a new Dolan (#37, played by Elijah Woods) is set to take over.  But Dolan 36 dies of old age…apparently…and after the funeral Kaulder suspects something is amiss.

When Kaulder and Dolan 37 investigate Dolan 36th’s apartment, they find things indeed aren’t what they seem and a mystery is revealed…one that has ties to Kaulder’s origins.

I won’t go into more spoilers but, again, this movie entertained me.  The effects are top notch and the story moves along nicely.

It is a straight up fantasy story and perhaps those accustomed to seeing Vin Diesel play either sci-fi heroes (a-la Riddick) or macho car-driving heroes had a hard time accepting him in an action/fantasy role, especially when he plays a character who many think is a “bad ass” but turns out to be the type of hero that is willing to smile and has a soft spot in his heart for others…even if they may be witches.

Again, LWH isn’t The Greatest Thing I’ve Ever Seen™, but it is an entertaining action/adventure/fantasy that wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the studios and the relatively few critics who bothered to write about it thought it was.  At least IMHO!

Movies

Phantasm: Ravager (2016) a (almost right on time) review

I’ve written before of being terrified way back in 1979 or, more likely, 1980 when I saw the original Phantasm (the movie was released in 1979 but I must have seen it at least a little after its theatrical release as I wasn’t in the U.S. at the time).

The movie was incredibly creepy and downright shocking to my then 13-14 year old mind.  The scene with the flying ball-o-death, in particular, had me shaking.

The memory of the film stayed with me but it wasn’t until many years later that I got to revisit the movie.  By then, there were at least three sequels (Phantasm II came out in 1988 and is probably the best of the sequels.  Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead came out in 1994 and Phantasm IV: Oblivion came out in 1998).  All four of these films were written and directed by Don Coscarelli and feature (for the most part) the same recurring characters, protagonists Mike (A. Michael Baldwin, though he was temporarily replaced with James Le Gros for Phantasm II), Reggie (Reggie Bannister), Jody (Bill Thornbury), and, most importantly, the movies’ villain: the very sinister Tall Man (Angus Scrimm).

The plot of that first film played out like a beautiful, unsettling, and ultimately terrifying nightmare: Young Mike, his brother Jody, and best friend Reggie lose a good friend (this happens in the movie’s opening act).  During the funeral, Mike witnesses a strange sight involving the Tall Man, the funeral’s director, lifting without any apparent effort a coffin with their friend’s body in it.  What is this sinister -and clearly superhuman- man up to?

What follows is Mike’s attempts to get his brother and Reggie to believe him that something is most decidedly up at the funeral parlor.  Eventually they face the Tall Man and, more terrifyingly, the strange flying metal balls which serve as security in the funeral home.  These ball ram a victim in the head and impale themselves into a victim’s skull via razor sharp blades.  Once impaled, a drill opens up the victim’s skull and sucks out their blood.

I’m tempted to show the movie’s most famous sequence here, but for those who haven’t seen the film, give it a look.  While the original movie has aged some it remains, IMHO, a decent watch, especially since it was remastered this year.

Phantasm II, as I mentioned before, is probably the best of the sequels though by the time it was released I couldn’t help but think The Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead II (1987) had an impact on that feature.  Ironically, it wouldn’t surprise me if The Evil Dead, which came out a couple of years after the original Phantasm, was inspired to some degree by Phantasm yet It seems to be the case that Evil Dead II, which came out a year before Phantasm II, proved something of an inspiration to that movie.

In Phantasm II you had a little more humor and a “hero” in Reggie who armed himself in a semi-goofy manner not unlike Ash did.

Phantasm III, to my eyes, felt like a half-baked work.  It wasn’t terrible by any means but it just felt far from complete.  I’m not certain if I’ve seen Phantasm IV but if I have, it clearly didn’t register all that strongly.

Which brings us to Phantasm: Ravager, the fifth and, most likely (I’ll get into that in a moment), last Phantasm film.  Don Coscarelli co-wrote the screenplay of the film but co-writer David Hartman took on the directorial reigns.

The film follows Reggie as he appears to move from alternate world to world, seeing himself as an old man nearing his death in one world to the fighter he always was taking on the Tall Man and his menacing silver balls in the next.  He also gets to meet up with the mysterious Lady in Lavender (Kathy Lester), a still sexy incarnation of the Tall Man.

In the retirement home Reggie finds himself in he is visited by a now grown and much older Mike who listens to his friend’s stories of confronting the evil Tall Man but barely believes them.  In another reality, he wanders a desert area, meets up with a beautiful woman, and is confronted by the menacing silver balls.  In a third reality, he faces a world in flames and under the thumb of the Tall Man.

The story, as one suspects, is presented in a fragmented manner and the viewers are possibly dealing with a elderly man who may be losing his mind as he draws nearer and nearer to death.  The original Phantasm was essentially a meditation on a young man’s mental breakdown following the death of (I’ll try to be delicate and non-spoilery here) a very close family member.  When that film is done, we’re not certain how much of what we saw was real or not.

Subsequent Phantasm films, especially the second one, tried to straddle the reality versus fantasy elements to varying degrees and its fair to say the more that was revealed the less successful the films were.

Phantasm: Ravager inverts the original film’s formula and, to my mind, this is where it is at its most clever, especially after all we’ve experienced in 2016.  Instead of a young boy working out the trauma of death, we have an older man whose best years are behind him dealing with his approaching death (again, so 2016).  Has any of what he’s done before been real, or is he suffering from age related dementia?  It’s heavy stuff which could have made for great drama but…

…the film simply doesn’t stick the landing as well as I hoped.

The sequences of Reggie in a nursing home are, in my opinion, the best the movie offers.  When Reggie talks of his past to the grown Mike and Mike nods and patiently lets his good friend vent (noting at one point he’s heard these stories before), as a viewer I couldn’t help but feel touched by Mike’s caring and Reggie’s confusion.  These scenes were handled quite well by the actors.

Angus Scrimm, who played the movie’s villain The Tall Man, appears here for the last time in the various movie timelines in his most famous role.  Mr. Scrimm would pass away before the film was completed but his presence in this movie proves most welcome yet again, though the fact that the actor has passed may well indicate the movie series has reached its end.

While I enjoyed much of what I saw in the film, what seriously hurts it, IMHO, is its climax.  Set in a Tall Man created apocalypse, these scenes could have been very grim but instead are goofy thanks to the introduction of another character (I won’t go into spoilers but this “tough as nails” character was too late an addition and his “smart ass” quips felt out of place with what we had going until that moment.  I can’t help but wonder about the wisdom of going in that direction at the tail end).  It also hurts that these sequences show the film’s very low budget in a very unflattering way.  What does it say when the best scenes in the film have Reggie and Mike talking in a nursing home with no special effects at all?  I can’t say Phantasm: Ravager is an outright terrible film.  It works well enough and provides fans of the series several things, particularly the touching idea of this hero we’ve followed for so long being laid low by the ravages (pun intended) of time itself.  Others who are not as familiar with the world of Phantasm will surely not enjoy the material as much and should probably try the first two films to see if they like them before dipping their toes into this one.

In the end, I can only offer a tepid recommendation for Phantasm: Ravager.  If you’ve been around since the beginning and want to see the end, its a decent enough bookend flick that could have been, with a slightly different focus, a stronger overall work.

Movies

Sometimes, you feel so out of it…

Today, being the 9th of December, 2016 and also being only a few short weeks before the end of the year, one starts to see “best of” lists appear.

You know, best books of 2016, best albums/songs of 2016, best TV shows of 2016, and my personal favorite: Best movies of 2016.

When done well, I absolutely love movies.  Sadly, I don’t have the free time like I used to have to actually sit down and watch them.  My Netflix account is used more by my daughters than myself (I rarely stream anything through the service, instead getting the DVDs sent to me).  Similarly, my DVR is loaded with far too much stuff to see, some of which takes me many months to get to…if at all.

Anyway, we’re starting to get the lists of best movies of 2016 and, if you’re curious, here are a few of them:

Entertainment Weekly’s 20 Best Movies of 2016

New York Times Best Movies of 2016

Rolling Stone: Peter Travers’ 20 Best Movies of 2016

Variety: Owen Gleiberman’s Top 10 Films of 2016

There are several duplicated films in the various lists I’ve read.  High up there for many is the Ryan Gosling/Emma Stone musical La La Land (It makes the #1 spot in a few different places).

There are a smattering (only!) of films I’m familiar with.  Several (far too many!) I’ve only first heard of by these lists.

One of the more curious list items is Owen Gleiberman putting Deadpool at #9 on his list.  I thought the film had its moments but…a top 10 film of the year?

I dunno.

Entertainment Weekly has two Marvel films among their top 20, Dr. Strange (#20) and Captain America: Civil War (#10).  I have yet to see either film, but…I dunno.

If you’re really into these type of lists, you should check out Rottentomatoes.com’s Top 100 Movies of 2016.

Then, if you’re unlike me and have the free time, you may want to give ’em a look see.

Now, the category I’m certain everyone loves even more than the best of list…The Worst Films of 2016…

Business Insider’s Worst 25 Movies of 2016

Entertainment Weekly’s 5 Worst Films of 2016

Time Magazine’s Top 10 Worst Movies of 2016

Interestingly, I’m more familiar with/have seen more of the films in these lists than I have in the “best of” ones…and in some cases disagree quite strongly on their inclusion.  (Yes, I’m mostly referring to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.  Though I’m noticing people already, especially with the director’s cut out there, giving the film a second look and not being quite as down on it, the critics were pretty unanimous in their hatred of the film.  I don’t agree with it, but that’s just my opinion and they’re certainly entitled to their own)

Of the films I’ve seen in 2016 that really disappointed, I’d have to go with the wretchedly stupid Zoolander 2.  The first movie was a funny, innocuous goof of a comedy that happened to be released at just about the worst time possible (very shortly after the events of 9/11).

The film managed to become known despite the poor box office, to the point where studios were willing to fund a very belated sequel.

I noted in my review of the film that once it was done, I turned to my wife and daughter (who sat through that turd with me), and said:

This has to be the stupidest film ever made.

My statement was most certainly not a complement.

Zoolander 2 is easily the worst film I can think of (though I grant you there may be others) that I saw this year.

Keep very far away from this one.

Movies

It Follows (2014) a (mildly) belated review

In cinema, sex and horror go together like bread and butter or politicians and corruption.

The 2014 horror film It Follows uses this trope very…intimately (ouch) and, for the most part, effectively.

The movie starts with a very distraught young woman running from her home and, eventually, driving away.  She drives until night and finds herself sitting on a secluded beach while the lights of her car shine on her.  She’s on a cell phone talking to her father whom she treated badly before and, between tears, says she never meant to be so mean.  It sounds like a deathbed confession/call for forgiveness and, when daylight comes, we realize all too graphically that’s exactly what it was.

From there we’re introduced to Jay Height (Maika Monroe) a gorgeous young woman who lives in what we assume is a broken home.  She is not the only one.  There is very little parental supervision for seemingly everyone in this neighborhood.  Jay has a devoted younger sister (Lili Sepe) and several friends, including a young man whom she’s known since they were children and who all too obviously pines for her.

Jay heads out on a seemingly innocent date with Hugh (Jake Weary) but dark clouds are hinted at.  After driving to a distant location Jay and her boyfriend have sex.  Afterwards, Jay is knocked unconscious by her boyfriend.  When she comes to, she’s tied to a wheelchair and between apologies Hugh tells her he’s transmitted a strange curse onto Jay by having sex with her.

The curse involves a shape-shifting, and slow moving, creature that only the potential victim(s) see.  The creature follows you after you have sex with another infected person (kinda/sorta like the curse of the werewolf) and, unless you have sex with someone else to pass the curse along, this creature will follow you until it kills you.  Complicating matters, if Jay doesn’t have sex with anyone else and should she be killed by the creature, Hugh says, it will go back to hunting him down.

Of course Jay doesn’t believe him, but then the thing appears in the guise of a nude woman…

In many ways It Follows is like a horror/sexual themed game of “tag”.  You’re it, until you’re killed or you get someone else to be “it”.

It Follows features some genuinely frightening scenes, scenes which had me on the edge of my seat.  The movie accomplishes this without relying on gore (the most gory segment is presented at the start of the film).  Further, the characters -and actors who play them- are all uniformly good.

I would most certainly recommend It Follows to horror fans, but with some caveats.  First up, the film is rather slow moving, especially in the opening acts.  It takes some time for things to get going, and some may not have the patience to put up with such a slow pace.

Secondly, the film’s makers delight in offering vague possibilities of things that may have happened.  The audience is expected to think through what they’ve seen and decide for themselves on things that may have happened, and I suspect there will be those who aren’t happy with many things being up in the air like that (I’ll offer more information after the trailer in a SPOILERS section below).

Finally, as a fan of director John Carpenter, it was all too clear this film used Mr. Carpenter’s original 1978 Halloween as a template.  Depending on your tolerance for homages (or, to put it less kindly, rip offs), you may lose patience at the way this movie cribs from that one.

Regardless, I still recommend It Follows.  It’s a genuinely scary film with some well earned shocks and will leave you with a sense of unease when all is said and done.

SPOILERS FOLLOW BELOW!

SPOILERS!!!

Still here?

You’ve been warned!!!!

Ok, so I mentioned above It Follows presents vague scenarios which the viewer is meant to interpret.  I’ll get into a couple of them and offer my thoughts but, as stated, I do get SPOILERY here.

That was your last warning.

After determining there is indeed some kind of monster coming after her, Jay drives alone very far away from home and falls asleep on her car in some secluded beach area.  When she wakes up, it is daytime and she hears the sounds of men talking.  She walks to the beach and sees a boat off in the near distance with three men in it.  She takes off her pants and, in underwear, walks into the water.  We then cut to her driving back home.  Her hair is wet and we are left to wonder: Did she have sex with the three men to pass off her curse?

My guess is she did not.

The reason being that the creature is after her once again very -indeed too– quickly.  Of course, that isn’t the only interpretation.  Perhaps the three men, after having sex with her, remained together and the creature caught up with them all at once.  This is certainly a possibility, but my interpretation is that Jay very seriously flirted with the idea of passing off her problem but ultimately did not.

Later still in the film Jay and her friends go to an indoor pool they once frequented as children (water and pools are a recurring motif in this film).  The idea is to have Jay go into this very large pool and draw the creature into it.  Once inside, Jay swims out and the gang zap the slow moving creature with any of the numerous electric devices they brought with them and have plugged in and waiting beside the pool.

When the creature arrives, Jay is asked what shape it has (again, the creature is only visible to its victims).  Jay refuses to say and, in the IMDb page, it is revealed the creature took on the shape of “Mr. Height”, ie Jay’s father.  Only those with eagle eyes who notice the family portraits presented earlier in the film will realize this is the final shape of the thing.

Once at the pool area, it is clear the thing does not want to go into the water.  It tries to kill Jay by throwing the various objects the gang left around the pool at her.  Jay and her friends, however, manage to throw the creature into the water and, apparently, kill it.

The big question is: Do they?

The film ends with Jay giving in to her childhood friend.  Their relationship, however, is entirely loveless.  Though she sleeps with him, whatever “heat” the boy felt for her is dissipated by the sobering reality of the monster that may still hunt them.

Her new/old boyfriend is seen driving by a pair of (all too obvious) prostitutes after they sleep together and we’re again left to wonder if the curse, now passed on to him, he intends to pass off to them.  However, we see him drive on and are left to wonder if he gave in or, like Jay, maybe decided to take responsibility for his actions…if the creature is still alive.  (I like to think he, like Jay, realizes it is tempting to pass off the deadly “problem” but decides not to…which is my own subjective view.  Again, the movie leaves us without a clear answer)

The movie ends with the pair walking down a sidewalk, hand in hand, while someone walks a ways behind them.

Is it the creature?

We’ll never know…

…Or do we?

Once again the film leaves us to interpret what we see rather than give us straight answers.  In this case I suspect the movie’s beginning offers a clue to what happens at the movie’s end.

As I stated before, we start with a young woman running away to a beach and eventually calling her father on her cellphone before becoming, we assume, the first victim movie-goers see of this creature.

If you paid attention you will notice this young woman drives a modern car and talks to her father on a cell-phone.

HOWEVER, the rest of the film presents a time period which very much looks like it belongs in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s.  All the TVs during the bulk of the movie are the old “glass” panel type.  The cars on the streets are older models.  None of the characters, except for the one in the opening of the film who drives a modern car, have cell phones.  Other than a strange “Kindle” type reading device one of the characters carries, every bit of technology we see is at least thirty years old or more (I have to wonder about that device.  It’s stands out as being really out of that era -and ours!- yet was clearly included for some reason in the film.  I can’t guess as to why).

If we are to assume the opening act of the film takes place in a our present and the rest of the movie in the past, then we have our answer regarding what happened to Jay and her boyfriend, right?

And it is as downbeat as you think.

Anyway, just some of my own personal thoughts.  Yours may well be different.

Movies

Suicide Squad Extended Cut (2016) a (right on time!) review

If the 2016 Summer Movie season is remembered for anything, it likely will be for the way internet comments/critiques fueled interest and/or hate toward certain films.  Example “a” of this is, of course, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.  This film was positively crucified well before its release.  And when it did make it to the theaters, things got even more saucy.  There was a virtual war of words between professional critics (who for the most part hated the film) and audiences, who liked it considerably more.

I’ve made my opinions regarding that film well known.  I liked the theatrical cut fine even as I found the “Director’s Cut” even better.  I’m also of the opinion that over time this movie will be re-evaluated and people will come to view it as one of the better superhero films made.  Regardless of that, BvS found a strong audience and, despite attempts by those who hated the film to minimize its accomplishments, it pulled in great numbers and was a success.  At least financially.

BvS, however, was only the first of two DC Comics films released this past summer.  The second, Suicide Squad, followed almost exactly in BvS’s footsteps.  There was early word/rumors Warner Brothers execs were unhappy with the final product and had therefore ordered re-shoots (re-shoots were indeed filmed, though the reason for them was never publicly revealed).  As the movie neared its release, a new rumor emerged that the movie’s director created a darker version of the film and Warner Brothers had the people behind the amusing trailers create their version of the film.  With two versions created, the studios decided to merge the “best” of both versions and that was supposedly what was released to theaters.

Upon the movie’s release, the critics slaughtered it but, as with BvS, audiences were far kinder.  The film proved a huge financial success.

What did I think of it?

I found Suicide Squad an oddity of a film.  I thought the story it was telling was a mess but there was an undeniable energy to the proceedings which was contagious.  Further, the actors were so damn game and fun to watch going through their paces.  My reaction to Suicide Squad was an odd one, for sure: I liked the film despite the fact that it should have been an easy pass.

And as with BvS I was curious to see the other version(s) of the film.  Would Warner Brothers release both the director’s cut and the trailer maker’s cut?  So far, they have not but with the release of the digital version of the film this past week, we’ve been given an “Extended Cut” of Suicide Squad.

I picked it up, watched it, and…

…my opinion of the film remains roughly the same.

Unlike BvS, the Extended Edition of Suicide Squad doesn’t add all that much to the film.  Perhaps the single biggest add on is an all new sequence featuring Dr. Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn) as she quite literally pursues an exasperated Joker down on a motorbike.  We also have a little more of the bad guys planning to bolt at the start of their mission and get a little more of Katana, including her taking off her mask, but the extra scenes don’t change the film for the noticeably better as the extra scenes did for BvS.

Still, if you haven’t done so already and are interested in seeing Suicide Squad, you should see the Extended Cut.  At the very least you can’t go wrong with more of Harley and the Joker.

Interestingly, I watched the film with my wife and, unlike me, she’s far from a fan of comic book films.  In fact, before I put the movie on she told me she was about to head to the bedroom to rest.  She caught the first few minutes of the film and asked me:

“Is this a Batman film?”

I told her it wasn’t and that his appearance was only a cameo.  After telling her this I expected her to grab her tablet and head out but she stuck around.  She laughed at the movie’s jokes (especially Captain Boomerang’s bar scene) and watched the whole thing.  When it was done, told me she enjoyed the film.

“Did the critics like it?” she asked, dimly aware of the critical drubbing the film received.

“No.”

“They didn’t like it?”

“That’s putting it kindly,” I told her.

She shrugged and said:

“I thought it was good.”

What more is there to add?

Movies

Star Trek Beyond (2016) a (mildly) belated review

2016 was supposed to be a very big year for the Star Trek franchise.  Fifty years before, in 1966, the original series premiered.  Since the first appearance of that series, which limped to three seasons yet somehow, miraculously, found life after death in syndication, we’ve had numerous movies, TV shows, and still more movies, this time featuring the Next Generation cast before reverting to the original series but with a twist.

The twist was that the “original series” and her characters existed in an alternate time.  While you still had Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy, their “universe” was altered in time and this allowed for a new, young cast to take over for the original cast and try to chart their own path in the franchise.

I didn’t like the first movie featuring this new cast, 2009’s Star Trek, though I give everyone involved in the project an “A” for effort.  The new cast were remarkably good taking over the very familiar roles but the story…it just didn’t do it for me.  There were simply too many echoes to 1982’s magnificent Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

Still, I was impressed with this new young cast and hoped that despite my reservations, this new version of Star Trek would work.

In 2013 Star Trek Into Darkness, the second feature starring this new cast, was released.  While watching the film I enjoyed myself and thought it was far better than the first film but the good feelings turned out to be transitory.  The moment the movie was over and I started to think about what I just saw, plot holes and silly elements became only too obvious.  Star Trek Into Darkness, like Skyfall, proved to be one of those experiences you enjoy while watching the movie for the first time but if you spend even a second thinking about it afterwards your enjoyment rapidly sours.

Fast forward three years and we’re in 2016 and the third Star Trek film featuring the new cast, Star Trek Beyond, was announced and then…

…nothing.  Not even, it seemed, a peep.

The summer movie season was taken up with internet arguments regarding DC movies and Marvel movies and the silliness tied into the new Ghostbusters film.  All the while, Star Trek Beyond became a ghost.  An abandoned work.

Some people openly wondered if the film was a disaster and Paramount Studios realized it and was trying to bury the film.

It certainly seemed so.

And then, a trailer was released and actor/co-writer Simon Pegg expressed his disappointment of it and urged fans to “hang in there”, that the film was much better than this trailer made it out to be.  Incredibly, Paramount would subsequently release a trailer that proved even worse as it gave away a key plot element of the movie’s plot.  Once more Simon Pegg was forced to express his feelings about the movie’s trailer, this time urging them not to see it or any trailers that should follow.

I can only imagine how unhappy Mr. Pegg must have been with this, the third film in the franchise and the first to feature his actual (co)writing and the way Paramount seemed determined to botch the whole damn thing.

Star Trek Beyond was released on July 22, 2016 and while it did decent enough business, it appeared not to recoup its budget, never a good sign.  While the film received positive reviews and good word of mouth, the Keystone Cops routine Paramount engaged in before the movie’s release appeared to have dampened the excitement the film should have had.  Conversely, it is possible people were never all that attached to this new iteration of Star Trek and maybe this particular franchise was suffering from diminishing gains.

Regardless, as a Star Trek fan I wanted to see the film.  Unfortunately for me, the movie was in and out of theaters in a flash and became yet another of those films I’d have to wait to see when it reached home theaters and video.

That day finally came and yesterday I got the chance to watch it.

I’ll be blunt: Star Trek Beyond is easily the best of the “new” Star Trek movies and also the one that most captures the original series.  There is plenty of plot here and the excitement builds as the movie moves along before reaching a very exciting climax.

What more could you ask for?

Well, there are a few nits to pick…

A big part of the reason I’ve had a hard time warming up to the new Star Trek is that I’ve found the new actors, as good as they are, never “gel” into the extended family we had with the original actors.  Despite plenty of behind the scenes rumors/gossip of how little the actors of the original Star Trek got along with certain other actors in the cast (most of these rumors boil down to William Shatner being an incredibly difficult person to work with), the fact of the matter was that those original actors were spectacularly good at rising above whatever tensions existed behind the scenes and creating a genuine sense of being an extended family.

When (SPOILERS!) Spock dies at the end of The Wrath of Khan, the acting of everyone, particularly William Shatner, drilled home the agony of loss and, in an abrupt -and dare I say logical- gear shift, the hope for the future.  Spock’s death, as sad as it was to the characters, meant they would live.  His death was a noble sacrifice and the crew/actors conveyed their conflicting emotions incredibly well.

Compare that to Star Trek Into Darkness which was a thinly veiled remake of The Wrath of Khan.  There, surprise!, Captain Kirk “dies” and it is Spock who grieves for his death but the emotions feel hollow.  In these actors I never got a sense of them being a family and therefore whatever sadness was expressed felt…phony.

This is rectified to a great degree in Star Trek Beyond, which pushes the characters front and center and them interact to a greater degree with each other than they did in the previous two movies.  Every one of them shines and therefore we feel more engaged with not only them but the story, even if they still have a long way to go to give us the same sense of family the original cast offered.

Regardless, it is a big step forward.

As good as that was, however, the plot of the film could have used some tightening.  The main villain and his plan are presented in a rather sloppy way.  Further, after a big action sequence that winds up separating all the characters, they seem to bump into each other awfully quickly after being stranded on a large and rocky planet.  It was like they landed within two or three miles from each other.

Still, this is nitpicking.

The film builds up the tension and stakes and makes us care for the characters and their fate.  While the villain winds up not being as well defined as I would have hoped, his plan is truly evil and he has to be stopped.

As I said before, the film builds up the excitement and shines brightest in its climax.  Had someone explained the climax to me beforehand -and mentioned the music dragged in from the first movie as a key piece of that climax- I would have rolled my eyes into my head so fast they would have caught fire…yet in the movie it works exactly as it should, being both hilarious and thrilling at the same time.

Despite Paramount’s best/most inept efforts and some nits I have to pick, Star Trek Beyond, as I stated before, is easily the best of the three “new” Star Trek films.  If you’re a fan of the original or new Star Trek series yet haven’t seen this film yet, by all means give it a look.

Recommended.

Movies

Green Room (2015) a (mildly) belated review

I like “siege” films.  In fact, one of my all time favorite films is John Carpenter’s very low budget 1976 film Assault on Precinct 13 (avoid the 2005 remake)…

So when I heard about the plot of the 2015 film Green Room, I was intrigued.  Especially considering the director and writer of the film, Jeremy Saulnier, was also responsible for the intriguing 2013 movie Blue Ruin.

Like Blue Ruin, Green Room is a tense, though low budget thriller which involves a down on their luck punk rock band that barely scrapes by between low-attendance gigs.  They travel some 90 miles out of their way under the promise of a concert only to find the venue is now closed to the man who offered them the job.  To make up for it, the man offers them another gig at a relative’s place but warns them the venue is made up of neo-Nazis.  As long as they do the gig and not get political, he tells them, they’ll be fine.

Hard up for the cash, the band heads to the venue and performs.  But, after the performance, a cell phone left behind in the venue’s green room (the place where the band prepared for the concert) winds up causing them to witness a murder.  From there, the band and an unlikely ally are forced to fight for their lives to get out of this closed-in place.

Green Room, as mentioned before, is a “siege” film.  What that means is that you have the main character(s) locked in a small area while bad-guys mercilessly assault them from without.  In the very best siege films, the characters are inevitably outnumbered and outgunned and have to rely on their wits, rather than strength, to survive.

In the case of Green Room, the characters presented aren’t the sharpest and are likely more than a little buzzed after the concert but do realize quickly, though not quickly enough, the extent of their predicament.  Like the best of the siege films, not everyone survives and likeable -as well as unlikeable- characters meet their fate in brutal ways.

The movie’s cast is solid, with the late Anton Yelchin playing Pat, the band’s leader.  Alia Shawkat, often a more familiar face in comedic roles, is also very good as Sam, another band member and confidant of Pat.

But clearly the biggest, splashiest -and surprising- role is that of neo-Nazi leader Darcy, played by Patrick Stewart.  Unfortunately, this bit of “big” casting, to me, didn’t work quite as well as I hoped it would.

Taking a very well known -and for the most part beloved- actor and sticking him/her into a nasty role has been done before and sometimes to very good effect.  Henry Fonda, for instance, had a decades long reputation for playing salt of the earth types…people who were genuinely good inside and looked out for others.  This made his role of Frank, the cold-blooded killer in Once Upon A Time In The West, all the more shocking.

In Green Room, unfortunately, Darcy’s role is presented as one of cold expediency.  He is evil, yes, but in a cold, methodological way.  In other words: When presented with problem “a”, he logically figures out the steps needed to clean it up.  The evil presented here is -purposely, I suspect- like the Nazi collaborators of World War II.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t make for a particularly gripping bad guy.  Worse, unlike seeing the evil Henry Fonda’s character was capable in Once Upon A Time In The West, Darcy’s evil is done by surrogates and therefore he’s always above the fray and doesn’t become the hissable villain we really needed to have.

Coming away from the film, I was left with other questions as well.  One of the big ones involved the injury sustained to one of the band members very early in the film and when they realized, without a shadow of doubt, that their lives were in mortal danger.  The injury presented (I won’t go into spoilers here) is gruesome and chilling and kudos to the special effects department for the way it was presented.

However, such an injury would clearly be life threatening to the character that received it.  This injury must have severed many, many blood vessels and arteries and yet the character continues on doesn’t bleed out.

Further, after a while I couldn’t help but wonder why Darcy and his crew didn’t just rush the damn green room and blast everyone away.  Granted, the script tried to explain this but…I dunno.  Again, I don’t want to go into spoilers but it just seemed the bad guys were holding back more than they needed to…and ultimately that was to the benefit of the “good guys” and the resolution of the film.

Despite all that, I still think Green Room is a decent, tense siege thriller.  If you don’t think to hard about certain elements of the film (as I did), you will find this an enjoyable nail-bitter.  It is also a film not for the squeamish!

Movies

The Accountant (2016) a (right on time!) review

Let me state the following up front: The Accountant is an incredibly silly film.  Even stupid, if you think about it.

Yet it’s also a very effective throwback of the meaty thrillers of yesteryear and is presented in a clear and concise manner, an incredible accomplishment considering all the characters and story points addressed, all the while being entertaining as hell.

First, let’s talk negatives: The movie expects you to accept there is this “super” accountant out there who works for all kinds of super-evil groups (think big time terrorists, drug dealers, etc.) and also happens to be a super efficient killing machine…who happens to be a high functioning autistic man…who…

I don’t want to get into spoilers (there’s plenty more about the character revealed in the course of the movie) but, come on.  None of this is even remotely possible.

So if you’re going to scrutinize all the plot elements laid out in the film, you may not like what you see.

However, if you roll with the film and accept it for what it is, as I did, you’re in for a damn good time.

Ben Affleck is good in the central role, playing the mysterious “Christian Wolff” (a pseudonym), the super-Accountant who’s worked for some very shady characters.  When the movie begins, we’re not entirely certain of his morality, though his first actions presented involve helping a elder, simple farmer couple out from under a heavy tax burden.

Meanwhile, Treasury Agent Ray King (J. K. Simmons offering another very solid character work) essentially blackmails Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), a up-and-coming analyst, into investigating this mysterious “Accountant” and. presumably, bring him to justice.

Added to the mix, the Accountant’s mysterious female contact (essentially a “voice” on the phone, not unlike the voice which sends our heroes in motion in every episode of Mission: Impossible), sends him to check on the books of a major robotic company, one which may be hiding very dark secrets.  There, our Accountant meets up with Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick, another solid turn), that company’s accountant, and eventually all hell breaks loose.

While watching The Accountant I couldn’t help but feel it fit in with some of the better thrillers of yesteryear, either the breathless pulp fiction works you used to find on those bookstore (remember them?) racks or in films such as Three Days of the Condor.

We are presented with a strong cast of characters and a meaty story which, as I stated above, is very well presented.  This is not a small thing, either.  The Accountant gives us a lot of plot and a lot of characters yet manages bring all of these elements together in a clear, exciting manner, something any number of big films have botched.

So yes, The Accountant’s premise borders on, and gleefully slips on over, into preposterous but if you can get around that, you’re in for a surprisingly entertaining thriller which pleasantly evokes the better thrillers, both literary and film, of yesteryear.

Recommended.

Movies

“Lost” movie by silent film pioneer unearthed…

Fascinating article found on the Guardian notes that George Melies’ Match de Prestidigitation, a film he created in 1904 and thought lost, has been found in the Czech Film Archive…

“Lost” Movie by Silent Film Pioneer Unearthed at Czech Film Archive

Those who are unfamiliar with George Melies, at least by name, likely know him for Le Voyage Dans La Lune, a 1902 (!) short which is considered the very first science fiction film ever made…