Category Archives: Movies

Movies, TV

George Kennedy, RIP

While growing up, there were plenty of actors out there that had my attention.  Some were “stars” and carried whatever movie/TV show they were in.  Sometimes, like in the case of Humphrey Bogart or James Dean they took over the feature they were in, sometimes to the detriment of others around them, so charismatic were they.

There is one actor, though, that seemed to always appear here and there, both in movies and television, and always seemed to be good in whatever role he was playing.  At first, these roles were predominantly the “heavy”…and he brought a growling menace to whatever bad-guy role he played.

And then something changed, most likely his bad-guy turned good role in Cool Hand Luke (a role that won him an Oscar) and, suddenly, he became equally good -perhaps even better!- in roles in which he played an at times exasperated good-guy.  He would go on to play the same role in all four Airport movies, that of Joe Patroni, mechanic and trouble solver.

And then, when you think you have him pegged, he broke out as Ed Hocken in the hilarious -and supremely silly- Naked Gun movies.

Of course I’m talking about George Kennedy.  Today’s audiences, especially those without much knowledge of movies or tv shows from ten years before, may not recognize him, but here he is in Cool Hand Luke:

And here he is in, I’m guessing, Airport 79, the last -and silliest- of the Airport films:

And of course, here he is in one of may favorite clips from The Naked Gun films, this one from the second feature.  The clip is a little long because it first sets up the George Kennedy joke to come.  Though Mr. Kennedy arrives at the 1:30 mark, its worth seeing the entire clip:

When I told my wife yesterday Mr. Kennedy had died and even though she doesn’t have the same trivia-filled mind like mine, she nonetheless instantly said: “I’m just John Q. Public now,” the line Mr. Kennedy states in the clip above, and we both laughed at the memory.

George Kennedy may not have ever risen to the ranks of a Humphrey Bogart or James Dean or Marlon Brando, but he always seemed to give it his all and, even when the film around him might have been complete shit (I’m looking at you, Airport 79), you could count on his professionalism.

Rest in peace, big fellow.  You’ve given me countless hours of wonderful entertainment.

Movies

Now that the Oscars have been handed out…

…time to reflect on who was robbed!

First up, Katherine Trendacosta offers her opinion that…

Mad Max: Fury Road Won All The Oscars, Except the Ones It Really Deserved

I’m the last person in the world to go to with regard to opinions about the Oscars.

These were the films nominated for Best Picture:

Spotlight
The Martian
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Big Short
The Revenant
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Room

Of these, I saw a grand total of…wait…let me recount to make sure…just a second… aaaaand…

I saw exactly one of them: Mad Max: Fury Road (I have The Martian sitting next to my BluRay player and will get to that film, hopefully, tonight).

In my review of Mad Max: Fury Road (you can read it here) I overall liked the film but I have to say I didn’t come away as enraptured by the experience as so many others, including Ms. Trendacosta, did.

Understand, I’m a Mad Max fanatic.  If pressed, I’d say 1981’s The Road Warrior, the second Mad Max film made, is my all time favorite action/adventure film ever made.  I still recall the chills I felt in the theater when I went to see it.  The film was rated “R” and I was in High School and too young to go into the film “unattended” yet managed to sneak in not once but twice to see it, a rarity for me to see films multiple times while they’re still in theaters.  (The third time I tried, alas, I was turned away).

I was absolutely blown away by it each time.

I’ve seen the film so many times since and so much of it resonates still.  It’s very difficult for me to watch the concluding/climactic car chase sequence because, dammit, I wound up caring so much for so many of the characters who SPOILERS FOR A THIRTY FIVE YEAR OLD FILM met their end (especially the noble Warrior Woman).

The Road Warrior was a film that was relentless and could be mean, but that was because the world it was depicting was mean.  Good people were preyed upon and the focus of the story was on a once noble person (Max) and his journey back to nobility after losing his way.

God, I love that film.

Mad Max: Fury Road, while a good film, also confounded me.  The main element of my confusion -and the thing that wound up irking me the most- was the fact that Max wasn’t the main character.  But it was even more than that.  Not only was he not the main character (despite the movie’s title) but the more I thought about it the more I realized the film would probably have been better if it had done away with the Max character entirely and focused exclusively on Furiosa’s journey.

She’s a great character and deserved to be front and center instead of having to make room for Max.

Thought I’m going to engage in a little “mind reading” here, I can’t help but think Director/Co-Writer George Miller started this project as a full fledged Mad Max film but, over time and as the screenplay was worked on, realized there was more meat to Furiosa’s story and therefore shifted the focus more and more towards her story.

As an author, I know how this goes: You begin a project thinking you’ll go a certain way but somewhere along the line realize there are more interesting paths to follow than you originally considered.

If I’m clever enough, I spot the movement and realize I have to make the changes necessary to improve the overall work.  In my latest novel, for example, I spent some 30,000 words (quite a bit considering my novels usually clock in around 90,000-110,000 words) on elements I ultimately discarded.

Unfortunately, Director George Miller and company were clearly committed to making another “Mad Max” film and even as their story moved away from the character of Max they kept him in.  Even as his purpose within the work proved minimal, they nonetheless kept him in.

Even when the film might have been better without him, as I stated above, they nonetheless kept him in.

Anyway, here’s another article, this time by Germain Lussier and (back for seconds!) Katherine Trendacosta first posted in January following the initial listing of Oscar nominees.  In this posting, the authors discuss…

The Biggest Oscar Snubs of 2016

Can’t disagree with many of the choices listed.

Now, getting to the meat of the matter: Was this song really worthy of winning the Oscar?

I thought the song the producers of Spectre commissioned but ultimately rejected, Radiohead’s Spectre, was better!

Ah well.

Movies

Mean Guns (1997) a (very) belated review

Found this movie on cable last night, watched the opening minutes and, next thing I knew, I was in for the whole ride.  And an interesting one it was!

Vincent Moon (Ice-T) summons a very large group of criminals, killers, and general no-good-nicks to a just built -but until these criminals arrive deserted- prison on the verge of being opened and tells them the place has been locked down and, before the day is done, they must fight their way through each other until only 3 are left.  The prize for survival?  10 million dollars.

Following telling the group this, boxes filled with all manner of guns/weapons are thrown at the group’s feet.  Then, boxes full of bullets.

Let the games…begin!

Mean Guns proved a fascinating watch.  Pre-dating the film version of Battle Royale (a film which, in turn, one could argue “inspired” The Hunger Games) by three years, it is a stylish (!) “B” action film.  There is plenty of death but nothing I would consider terribly graphic.  There’s also great use of music and clever direction, along with at times very humorous dialogue, which keeps you into the film despite its obvious low budget.

What I also liked is the film doesn’t really have a single “protagonist”.  For much of the film we’re essentially following two groups of combatants.  The first, primary group, consists of -eventually- four people, two men and two women, led by Christopher Lambert’s on the edge Lou.  Mr. Lambert, as usual, brings it to the table.  He’s one of those actors who, even in terrible films, is always worth watching.  While his presence may suggest he’s the “hero” of the piece, the filmmakers wisely keep his motivations closely guarded until the end.

Within that group is also Cam (Deborah Van Valkenburgh), the one woman who doesn’t appear to fit into the scenario at all.  She isn’t a killer and, it would also appear, isn’t much of a criminal either.

The secondary group we follow consists of two hitmen whose banter is quite humorous and who, in time, link up to a female criminal…one who is very wily even if she spends most of the film without a weapon.

I don’t want to give away too much more but I will say this much: The film’s conclusion provides a good reason for why this whole exercise was initiated by the seemingly deranged Vincent Moon and, further, gives us an ending that makes a twisted kind of sense.

Unlike Battle Royale or The Hunger Games, these group of “contestants” are far from an innocent bunch so we are not shocked or horrified when they fall…and yet there is no denying we also -perversely- root for one or the other’s “success” even if we know they are ultimately almost all very, very bad people.

Considering this is an almost forgotten film, I was surprised by Mean Guns.  It ain’t Citizen Kane but it is an enjoyable action flick.

Recommended.

Movies

Sicario (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Stop me if you heard this before: I found out about Sicario shortly before its release and was eager to see it in theaters but couldn’t find the time until–

What’s that?

Oh.  Ok, moving right along…

So I finally got to see Sicario via the magic of home video.  I was very eager to do so and heard plenty of good things about the film.  In fact, as of this writing it has an astonishing 93% positive among critics and an equally impressive 86% positive among audiences according to Rotten Tomatoes.

While watching the film, I was impressed with many things, from Emily Blunt’s Kate Macer (the film’s protagonist), Benecio Del Toro’s mysterious -and deadly- Alejandro, and Josh Brolin’s Matt Graver, a good ol’ boy spook.

I was engaged with the film but as it played out and, especially when it reached the end, I found myself curiously unimpressed with the totality of the venture despite so many reasons to recommend it.

To begin there are at least four action/suspense set pieces within Sicario that are nothing short of terrific.  One occurs at the beginning of the movie (and quite a bit of it can be seen in the trailer below), a second at a border crossing, a third involving a tunnel chase eventually leading to a high level drug lord, and the fourth at the movie’s end.

Really great stuff.  And yet…

As good as those elements were and as I said above, when all was said and done I felt the movie could have been so much better.

So I wondered what was it that made the film not quite work for me.

I think a part of the problem was the use of such familiar and well-established actors in so many roles.  In some ways their appearances (and I’m not even mentioning the likes of Jeffrey Donovan, Victor Garber, and Jon Bernthal) proved somewhat distracting and took me away from viewing this film as “real”.  The established actors in the lead roles, too, had me anticipating the film would never get too terribly “dark”.  Sometimes established actors are loathe to go too far out of a certain comfort zone.

Perhaps I’m not explaining myself very clearly so I’ll use the following example:

A number of years ago I saw the Swedish film Insomnia (originally released in 1997).  At the time I didn’t recognize any of the actors, though since the movie’s release Stellan Skarsgard has made inroads in American films and is now a more familiar face.

The film, which involved a corrupt police officer that either accidentally or very much on purpose killed his partner while lost in a fog and on the hunt for a serial killer.  Our protagonist’s partner’s death was not insignificant: The partner, it was revealed, was about to turn our protagonist in to the Police Internal Review Board because of the many shady and illegal things he had done.  After his partner’s killing, the film follows our could be/might be evil cop as he continues his hunt for the serial killer.  He does this while facing the inevitable Internal Review Board hammer that’s about to come down, the serial killer whose victims keep popping up, and the Northern town they’re in.  In that town and during this time of the year a day lasts weeks and the sun shines near constantly and our increasingly fragile lead cannot get any sleep.

As I watched Insomnia, I didn’t know where it was going or whether our protagonist was truly evil or regretted his action(s) or some wild combination of the two.  This great unknowing added to the movie’s tension and made us wonder just where we were going.

Five years later and in 2002 director Christopher Nolan remade Insomnia.  In the remake, he cast Al Pacino as the protagonist and Robin Williams as the serial killer.  Though all the elements of the originally movie were used and the American film version was an almost scene for scene remake, lost in the translation was all that delightful tension of not knowing what our protagonist was up to.

Because we had Al Pacino in the lead, I somehow knew he would eventually be shown as rising above and, if not excusing, at least making amends for his many sins.  I knew this almost instinctually from the very moment we first saw Al Pacino on the screen and therefore much of the original film’s tension was effectively gone.

With Sicario’s use of familiar, established actors, I kinda/sorta knew the film would not get too dark and, sure enough, it never did. Had the film used less well known/established actors, I suspect we would have a different dynamic and audiences would wonder what would happen when Alejandro and Kate finally confronted each other…instead of knowing there was simply no chance the director and actors involved would stray too far down a very dark hole.

I know it sounds like I’m blaming the actors for the film’s failing to totally turn me on and, further, it comes across as a disservice considering they played their roles quite well.  Emily Blunt was very good in the role of an innocent who faces ultimate evil.  Benecio Del Toro was equally great as a wolf in sheep’s clothing (loved the fact that he was in a white suit at the very start of the film, then in a later scene is shown removing it and revealing the black clothing below).

But facts are facts and, as I said, I simply could not see these well established actors veering wildly off the path and into a potentially pitch black conclusion.

So in the end, despite some very good scenes and overall good work by all involved, I can only give Sicaro a mild recommendation.  You most certainly will not walk away hating the film, but you might, like me, wish it could have been more.

Movies

Coen Brothers…

Gabriel Roth at Slate magazine offers this intriguing posting:

What Is It About The Coen Brothers Movies That Makes Everyone Want to Rank Them?

Gotta admit: I found the posting hilarious and when he linked to so many people/critics who have done just that, I couldn’t help but scratch my head.

Steven Spielberg has made many films, yet I never see people offering a “ranking” of his best films.  Similarly, so too has Alfred Hitchcock and Ridley Scott and (the Gods help us) Michael Bay.

Yet with these directors we often simply get a quick listing of the “best” films they’ve made yet never an attempt to list them all as is the case with the Coen Brothers.

I tend to agree with Mr. Roth as to the why: The Coen Brothers have made just enough films to offer a listing but no so many that such a list is pondersome.  Further, their films tend to follow the same general storylines (the Coens write their own scripts) and use roughly the same budget with each film.  Thus, they do not have a “small” film followed by a huge “blockbuster” film.

I think there’s another factor: They make so many really great films that touch people in unique ways.  Mr. Roth notes that many people have “favorite” Coen Brothers films but they may be different for each person.  You may like Fargo best while your friend may find Miller’s Crossing the Brothers’ cinematic peak.

As for me?  (Come on, you don’t talk about ranking Coen Brothers films without offering your own ranking, right?!)

While I haven’t seen all their films, of those I have seen my favorite is probably Fargo.  Truly there has never been anything like it, an absolutely hilarious comedy whose subject matter/plot would have in any other reality been made into a terrifying, bloody crime drama!

I also enjoyed No Country For Old Men but found the ending really bizarre (to be fair, they followed the novel it was based on).  I really liked Miller’s Crossing but was uncomfortable with the fact the Coen Brothers were essentially lifting without attribution the plot of Dashiell Hammet’s The Glass Key.  I had great fun with Burn After Reading, Raising Arizona, and Blood Simple.

After that…

Well, I liked The Big Lebowski until it got to that bizarre dream sequence and I felt the film kinda fell apart (though I will admit it finished very strong).  O Brother Where Art Thou was ok but not my particular cup of tea.  Same with True Grit.  While I saw both Barton Fink and The Hudsucker Proxy, I remember very little of either and therefore they obviously didn’t make much of an impression on me.  The only other film of theirs I saw that’s left is The Man Who Wasn’t There.  I left that film for last because to me this was easily the worst Coen Brothers film I’ve seen.  It was, IMHO, a stupid, pointless reworking/mash up of The Postman Always Rings Twice and Lolita (I guess!).  Boring, to boot.

Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

(For the completist out there, the Coen Brother Films I have not seen are:

Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Lewis, and the just released Hail, Ceasar!)

Movies

4 Movie Heroes Who Would Be Villains Today…

Amusing video, if you have about 8 or so minutes to spare, in which Tom Reimann explores the above, movies which, over the course of time, have made us re-evaluate the “heroes” of said features…

I find the notion fascinating and the examples he gives quite accurate.

Well, with one sorta/kinda exception: Dirty Harry.

While the character of Harry Callahan, introduced in the original Dirty Harry film, became a “hero” in subsequent releases, I’m not so sure his presentation in the original film was quite what it seemed.

Don’t get me wrong: There is clearly a glorification of this character who is exactly what the narrator above describes him as: A racist, nasty individual whose worldview problem solving involves using a gun…or fists…or whathaveyou.

The opening sequence involving the bank robbery is the first clue.  We should be horrified by the mayhem Harry creates in that opening scene, yet the movie plays to our bloodlust.

In effect, I always felt the film wanted to push audiences to root for a fascist cop.  I believe we were supposed to feel uncomfortable in his presence and uncomfortable with the things he did.  Further, his methods don’t always work.  He has the killer captured but because he goes above and beyond what is allowed by the law, the killer is released.

I’ll grant you the film stacks the deck in Harry’s favor but as a work it nonetheless, at least to me, is an interesting curio which presents deeper questions about our need for law and order and our feelings regarding the world being out of control…and the way a fascist longing plays to those fears.

While I enjoyed a couple of the sequels, none of those subsequent films were anywhere near as interesting as the first.

Having said that, I did think back to which films I felt my opinion of them changed over time.

I would have to say the earlier Sean Connery Bond films have aged especially poorly, in particular regarding his character’s “handling” of women.  In the third Bond film, Goldfinger, which many people consider the best of the Bond films and the one that established the blueprint for subsequent films, Bond is particularly vulgar when it comes to women…

Yikes.  And this wasn’t even the worst scene showing Bond’s uh… dated way of dealing with women.  That would probably be this one…

The scene is, in a modern context, especially cringe worthy as Pussy Galore (yep, that was the female character’s name) is presented subtly as being a lesbian and what Bond does, effectively force himself on her -or if you prefer, rape her- he makes a “real” woman out of her.

And the way its presented in the film itself!  Almost comically!  Look, they flip each other while having some clever banter!  Great foreplay!

As I said, it makes me cringe more than a little seeing it now.  Then again, there are those who feel the character of James Bond should be looked at as a villain but, not unlike Harry Callahan, one who happens to be working on our side.

Movies

American Ultra (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Neither fish nor fowl…

The above expression was exactly what I thought of when I finished watching the 2015 box-office flop American Ultra.  Did the film deserve such a cruel fate?  Was it as good as its trailer (at least to me) suggested it could be?

The answer to the above questions isn’t quite as black and white as one would think.

To begin, the above trailer does a good job telling you American Ultra’s basic plot.  You have a stoner named Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg, pretty good in the role) and his girlfriend Phoebe Larson (Kristen Stewart, also quite good) who live in a small, dead-end town and smoke pot and work in their dead end jobs.  When we first meet them, Mike wants to take Phoebe to Hawaii and surprise her with a marriage proposal.  But at the airport he has a panic attack and is unable to leave the town.  It turns out he’s had many of these panic attacks before and they keep him in this town.

Meanwhile, over in Washington D.C., an agent named Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton, yet another actor doing good work) is tipped off that her subject, Mike Howell (natch) and the entire operation he was a part of is about to be shut down.  And by shut down we mean “killed”.

Lasseter confronts a fellow agent, the young and obnoxious Adrian Yates (Topher Grace, providing another great acting turn), and he admits he has initiated the shut down of Lasseter’s old project and that Mike Howell will be dead before the day is out.  Lasseter, however, does an end around the obnoxious agent and shows up at Howell’s small town and, shown partially in the clip above, tries to “active” him so that he will be able to defend himself.

What follows is plenty of action, blood, and, especially with Mike Howell’s character, confusion as this mellow stoner finds he is suddenly a killing machine.  The body count rises as Yates seals the town off, intent on killing not only Howell but also Lasseter, whom he instantly knows has activated this agent.

Sounds good, right?

Well…

Ok, I started this review by posting the “neither fish nor fowl” quote.  The quote refers to something that either isn’t easily categorized or something that does not rightly belong or fit well in a given group or situation.

That later definition, in a nutshell, is what keeps American Ultra from rising up from a “good” film to being a truly “great” film.

Mind you, I like the four main actors.  I like the situation/story created by screenwriter Max Landis.  Further, I can understand his twitter expressed frustration when the film was released and didn’t make much money at the box office.  Clearly there was great thought placed in this screenplay and, frankly, the movie should have done better than it did and one hopes it can do so in the video market.

Having said that, the film unfortunately does have flaws.  To begin, there are plot elements that make you scratch your head.  I don’t want to give away SPOILERS, so I’ll leave some of those elements from this discussion, but suffice to say when you learn of certain characters’ identities you think maybe there was an easier way of giving Howell a head’s up and/or sprinting him to safety.  Also, agent Lasseter makes it to Howell’s town in record time, no?

Worse, unfortunately, is that as humorous as the film is at times, it is never really a “laugh out loud” funny-type work.  It felt as thought the movie’s creators were trying hard to clean things up and they did this a little too well.  These stoners -and their friends- are never as grubby as they could have been (see Cheech and Chong).  Also, the action/killings presented are never as graphic as they could have been.  Rather than bouncing between extremes -laughs versus gore- the film tries to create an even keel and sometimes being middle of the road is not where you want to be with comedy or action.

Having said all that, American Ultra is, nonetheless, an at times clever and humorous film with good to great acting, sympathetic leads and hissable villains.  Perhaps its box office problems were more a result of when it was released, the competition it faced, and how it was marketed more than anything else.

In the end, I would recommend the film but note that while a decent bit of entertainment, I left feeling it could -and should- have been even better.

*****

POSTSCRIPT: Getting back to screenwriter Max Landis, he also received quite a bit of negative attention, again because of his twitter writings, regarding his view that the character of Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a “Mary Sue”.

Not having seen The Force Awakens, I can’t comment on that particular opinion, but I will say this: Mr. Landis created a very interesting character in Phoebe Larson (the Kristen Stewart character) in American Ultra but then he just went and made her a typical “damsel in distress” with the movie’s climax.

Mr. Landis: You may well be right regarding the character of Rey in The Force Awakens, and it appears to me you have passion regarding storytelling and an awareness of cliches.  Unfortunately, you fell for one here and, in a movie that could have been better in many ways, the damsel in distress role the character of Phoebe eventually takes is one of the film’s most egregious errors.

Had you recognized that cliche, I’m certain you could have turned it on its ear and made something more with her.

Hell, not only could you have, you should have!

Books/Literature, Movies

A little bit more on writing…

Some of the stuff that goes through my mind:

Last night my wife and I watched the Amy Schumer film Trainwreck.  Actually, I sorta watched it, getting halfway through it before taking a shower. I returned to see the rest of the film (probably missed only ten or so minutes as my wife had to pause it for some phone calls that happened to come while I was showering).

The reason I’m not writing a (mildly) belated review on the film, however, is because I didn’t see the film all the way through and feel it isn’t right to give an in depth review of something you didn’t see completely, even if you did wind up seeing close to 90% of it.

I will say this, however: What I saw was a fun, though at times gleefully vulgar (I didn’t mind!) romantic-comedy featuring an appealing turn by Amy Schumer as the titular character (in other people’s hands she might have come across as a terrible person.  Such was not the case here) and a very charismatic performance by Bill Hader as the romantic interest.  Also worth pointing out is Tilda Swinton, completely unrecognizable yet hilarious as “Amy’s” boss.  Even though I didn’t see the entire film, I recommend it to anyone who likes romantic comedies and doesn’t mind if the comedy is at times quite crude.

Having said that, what I found most fascinating while watching the film was that despite certain differences, the film nonetheless hewed closely to the tried and true “romantic comedy” formula.

To my mind the formula roughly goes like this:

  1. Usually your romantic comedy starts with a woman/man who are either in a loveless relationship or single and (possibly) looking.  In the case of Trainwreck, “Amy” is dating a muscular jock but hooks up with many, many others on the side.  She’s promiscuous and this is explained as the influence her father’s life has on her.
  2. The next step is to introduce the woman to the man.  Romantic comedies will vary this step depending on the story being told.  Sometimes the man/woman hate each other for any number of reasons.  Equally often, the woman and man seem to have absolutely nothing in common.  In Trainwreck, though they don’t “hate” each other upon first meeting, the concept opposites attract is employed.  Promiscuous, “trainwreck” Amy falls for much more conservative/down to earth Doctor.
  3. This third part of your romantic comedy film finds the main characters falling in love with each other.  There are cute/romantic/humorous scenarios sprinkled about along and all seems so very well.  However, a good romantic comedy sprinkles the seeds of discontent within this part, hinting things may fall apart because…
  4. Things fall apart.  The woman/man break up over any number of circumstances.  There may be a misunderstanding, there may be a “screwball” situation (ie s/he sees him/her with another wo/man and misinterprets what s/he sees and thinks the worst, etc. etc.).  In Trainwreck’s case, the pull of so many years of “bad choices” by “Amy” makes her think there is no way the relationship with her sweet companion can last.  A family tragedy causes her to disintegrate and self-destruct.  But fear not, romantic comedy fans, because after the fall comes the inevitable…
  5. …rousing climax, wherein our character(s) realize they are made for each other and one/both of them create a situation where they show their love and reconnect.  The better the movie, the more funny/touching this re-connection climax is.  In the case of Trainwreck, it was indeed clever and touching and tied in to some disparaging comments “Amy” made earlier in the film regarding women involved in a certain career.

Now, I’ve stated this before and I’ll say it again: I’m not a particularly big fan of Romantic Comedies.  So you may be wondering: Why have I devoted so much thought into the elements that make up a Romantic Comedy?

Because as a writer, I feel that in order to create works that you feel are as unique as possible, you should have an understanding of the various genres out there and the beats they follow.

Western films, for example, often carry certain elements beyond the obvious visual ones (ie, horses, trains, Indians, small towns, Sheriffs, gunplay, etc.).  More often than not westerns are morality tales which involve a good guy confronting a bad guy while dealing with a love interest.  This is why so many people note that movies in other genres are essentially “westerns” as well.

Dirty Harry, set in then modern San Francisco, was essentially a pseudo western with your Sheriff (Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan) dealing with a dangerous psychopath while also dealing with regulations and bureaucracy.  Similarly, Die Hard could be viewed as a typical “siege” story, wherein the evil Indians have taken over a military fort and it is up to our resourceful hero to outwit and defeat them as the cavalry approaches.  Star Wars (the original film) is likewise essentially a sci-fi western.  It features a “green” gunslinger meeting up with a veteran, though over the hill, gunslinger and along with his friends going up against the evil railroad company (ie, the Empire) which is determined to ravage his homestead.

What should be clear about these examples (and my more elaborate rundown of the romantic film) is that while you can create something very entertaining in your writings, there is little chance you’re going to create a story that is soooo totally unique and original as to be unrecognizable from anything that came beforehand.  But if you do, it’ll probably be so alien as to be hard for others to appreciate.

And it is here that the sliding scale regarding originality comes in.

While I may admire a Dirty Harry and Die Hard and, yes, Trainwreck even though many of the tropes present in these features can be found in other genre works, it is in how the people who made each film tell their story where a work succeeds…or not.

I’ve talked before about hating Guardians of the Galaxy.  To me, the film felt a little to much, again in my opinion, like a beat for beat remake of the original Star Wars.  (I haven’t seen The Force Awakens but, based on some of the criticism some have expressed that the film was essentially a remake of the original Star Wars, I suspect I won’t like that film either)  I also felt disappointed with Kill Bill 1 and 2 because, to my mind, it felt like Quentin Tarantino was trying to do a Kung Fu version of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Why would I want to watch either films when I can just go watch the far better originals?

The ultimate point is this: As a writer, it pays to develop a strong grasp of the underlying tropes found in various genres, whether they be comedy, action, western, science fiction, etc. etc. etc.

If nothing else, it gives you a firm foundation upon which you can write your own works.  But beware…Using common foundations is one thing.

Ripping off a story is quite another.

Comic Books/Graphic Novels, Movies

Na-na-na-na-na-na-Na…Batman!

Over on Empireonline.com Batman v. Superman is the subject of scrutiny and some new photographs of the movie are presented along with some choice lines from the people behind the production…

Exclusive new Batman v Superman Pics Debut in Empire

Found within the article is this comment by producer Charles Roven regarding our beloved Bat-Crusader:

“[Batman] is not giving people a chance,  He is more than a vigilante. He has become not only the cop, if you will, he has also become the jury and executioner.”

Over on io9.com this quote produced the following alarmed reaction:

Waitaminute, Is Batman a Murderer in Batman v Superman?

James Whitbrook, the author of that piece, does note “this could just be a turn of phrase from Roven rather than something to be taken literally” while also noting “it’s a rare occasion indeed that you could describe Batman, a character known for a strict code of no killing that has been fostered for years in the comics and in other adaptations, as an “executioner”.”

I’m rather amused by the many and varied reactions people have towards the still a couple of months away release of Batman v Superman.

There is of course a very vocal contingent of people who have already thrown their hands in the air and declared the movie to be a complete disaster…even though like me they’ve seen only a few minutes at most of the film via the various previews/trailers.

To some degree I understand the sentiment.  There are those who feel they’ve sampled enough of director Zach Snyder’s work -and especially the movie this one is a sequel to, Man of Steel– and therefore feel whatever he produces will fall along the same “terrible” (in their opinion) lines.  At least with Mr. Snyder you have a track record to consider and, therefore, it is understandable one feels based on it the next film might fall along the same lines.

However, I also feel those criticizing the not-yet-released movie are also echoing many decades’ worth of Marvel vs. DC talk.  Just as people have their favorite sports teams -and “favorite” rivals whom they cannot stand- there has been a Marvel vs. DC competition going on for nearly as long as I can remember following comic books.

I know people, for example, who don’t care for and wouldn’t buy any comic books featuring DC characters.  The product, they would argue, is inferior to that of Marvel.  Likewise there were those who never could get into the Marvel characters and therefore would only follow DC comic books.

When the Richard Donner directed Superman film came out in 1978, it essentially showed the studios that a superhero film could be made successfully.  Unfortunately, the roadmap wasn’t followed very well and a slew of inferior superhero movies (many of them Marvel heroes, both on TV and in theaters) appeared.  Worse, Richard Donner was fired before completing Superman II and the hybrid Lester Dent co-directed film that made it to theaters, while a success, was nonetheless viewed over time as an inferior product.  The less said about the terrible Superman III and IV the better.

So that first “wave” of Superhero films died, in my opinion, with the 1987 release of Superman IV.  In 1989, a mere two years later, Tim Burton would hit solid gold with the release of the Michael Keaton/Jack Nicholson Batman film.  It was a wild, though in my opinion not altogether successful, merging of superhero concepts into film.  We had darkness, we had a “serious” take on the genre, but we also, especially in the film’s second half, had the camp.  In many ways Batman was a darker (natch) version of Richard Donner’s Superman in that it took many disparate elements from the Batman mythos and crammed them all together in one feature film.

The film’s wild success meant sequels, and Tim Burton, unlike Richard Donner, returned for the, IMHO, inferior Batman Returns.  While retaining the same visual delight, the film was alive, again IMHO, only in the parts featuring Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman.  Otherwise, it was a confused dud.

Subsequent Batman films, 1995’s Batman Forever and 1997’s Batman and Robin, were directed by Joel Schumacher and leaned much heavier on camp.  While I felt both films were essentially on par with each other (ie one wasn’t significantly worse or better than the other), by the time Batman and Robin appeared in theaters, movie and comic book fans had enough of this type of Batman.  As with the first wave of superhero films, the second wave ended with a movie audiences -those that actually saw the product- hated.

So we had a period of time with relatively few superhero films.  The genre appeared shot.

And then came what I consider the third major superhero wave.  It started with two successes, the 2000 feature X-Men (which Richard Donner executive produced) and the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man (2002), along with a misfire in 2003’s Ang Lee directed Hulk. (And I haven’t even gotten into the Blade movies!)

The ball, however, was rolling.

In 2005 appeared the Christopher Nolan directed Batman Begins followed by 2008’s Robert Downey Jr. starring Iron Man.  Each of these films shared more subtle (not quite as campy) humor and were remarkably down to earth, excepting when the superheroic stuff happened, versus some of the films that came beforehand.  They nonetheless delivered spectacle while trying to place their heroes in a “real” earth setting (or as “real” as one can get considering).

While DC movies did relatively well, the Warner Brother’s focus turned almost exclusively toward Batman in films (there would be plenty of TV shows in and around these times, something DC has mined much more successfully, so far, than Marvel) while the Marvel films, cleverly, began building an intricate weave of tidbits pointing to future stories.  Marvel films (I’m not including the Fox produced films here) got audiences excited for the possibility of seeing more Marvel heroes appear, and boy oh boy did they deliver on that promise.

So here we are, deep into this third superhero age, and Marvel films are arguably more successful than DC films while DC TV shows are arguably more successful than the Marvel produced ones.  In each case, however, competition is building.  Marvel is trying mightily (ahem) to build up their TV presence, both on the networks and on Netflix.  Similarly, DC is expanding their TV presence while with the impending release of both Batman v Superman and the upcoming Suicide Squad looking to take on Marvel in the theaters.

Which leads me, after a fashion, all the way back to the criticism of Batman v Superman and specifically the line attributed to the movie’s producer.

I don’t know if BvS will be a good movie but based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m optimistic.  I say that even though I’m not a particularly big fan of director Zach Snyder nor screenwriter David S. Goyer.  David S. Goyer, in particular and to my mind, has been involved in too damn many DC hero films and I’d like to see others producing the screenplays.  As much as I love Richard Donner’s Superman, I suspect if he had directed every DC related film from that point on I’d be clamoring for other directors’ visions as well.

Having said all that, will the Batman of BvS be the character all audiences want to see?

I doubt it.

Batman’s first appearance was in Detective Comics #27 published waaaaay back in 1939.  Superman’s first appearance was in Action Comics #1 published waaaaay back in 1938.

Since then we’ve had literally hundreds if not thousands of individual authors and artists takes on the characters.  Some have been consistent, others have been very different.  In the end, I suspect it is impossible to distill either character into something that makes sense to everyone, given each of them have a 75 plus year history.

Is Batman a murderer in this new BvS movie?  I suspect the line uttered by the movie’s producer didn’t literally mean Batman was “executing” bad guys but rather he was pointing out this Batman is hard as nails and doesn’t tolerate crime/criminals.

And if that’s the case, it is in keeping with one of the myriad versions of Batman which has appeared on screen since shortly after the character’s first comic book appearance in 1939.

Of course, I’m only guessing here, as are all those who are bemoaning what a complete piece of shit this film will undoubtedly be…once its released in two months time and they finally get a chance to, you know, actually see it.

For all I know, they might be right and my optimism might be misplaced.

We’ll find out in March, won’t we?

Movies

Bone Tomahawk (2015) a (mildly) belated review

When word came that veteran actor/full-time bad-ass Kurt Russell was starring in the latest Quentin Tarantino film, a western called The Hateful Eight, I was soooo eager to see it.  Alas, the movie’s runtime (over three hours) and my inability (as usual) to find the free time to go see it meant I’d have to wait for the movie to hit the home video market.

But as that movie neared release, seemingly out of nowhere I saw a listing for Bone Tomahawk, another western starring Kurt Russell.  Intrigued, I read up on the movie and found, to my delight, that it was not only a western, but a horror film as well.  Two very intriguing genres mixed together.

Naturally, I put the movie on my Netflix cue but it popped up for free viewing for Amazon prime members so, last night, I watched it.

With some caveats which I’ll get into later, for the most part I really liked what I saw.

As eager as I was to see the film, going into it I was also a little worried.  With Bone Tomahawk we have yet another of those low budget direct-to-video type movies and, unfortunately, my last experience with one, the horrid Killing Season (read all about it), wasn’t a ringing endorsement for these types of films.

Bone Tomahawk starts with a pair of bloody “bush-whackers” (David Arquette and Sid Haig in what amount to cameo roles) attack and kill a group of three campers, their intent being to rob them of whatever possessions they carry.  However, in the course of the robbery a gunshot is fired and that brings someone on horses (the law?) their way.

Fearing being discovered and arrested, the duo head deep into the bushes and, while they lose their would be captors, hear eerie shrieks in the wind.  They eventually stumble upon a strange rock formation surrounded by the skulls of animals and…humans.  Once past that formation they are attacked by strange, shadowy figures.  One of the bushwhackers is killed while the other, younger bushwhacker stumbles away.

Eleven days later, that younger bushwhacker makes his way to a town and raises the suspicions of Chicory, the town’s deputy sheriff (Richard Jenkins).  He and Sheriff Hunt (Kurt Russell) confront the man in the town’s bar and rapidly determine he is a criminal.  The Sheriff shoots the man in the leg as he tries to flee and takes him to jail.

To treat his injury, the Sheriff asks dandily-dressed Brooder (Matthew Fox) to get the town’s doctor.  It turns out the doctor is Samantha (Lili Simmons) who is married to Arthur (Patrick Wilson), a man currently recovering from a broken leg sustained while trying to fix their home’s roof during a storm.

Samantha tends to the bushwhacker and is left with a third deputy to care for the man overnight.  It is during that night, however, that those eerie howls are once again heard.  The shadowy creatures that attacked the bushwhackers have followed the surviving man to the town.  In the morning, the Sheriff finds a stableboy viciously murdered and the bushwhacker, the third deputy, and Samantha are gone.

The Sheriff finds an arrow left behind by the kidnappers and determines they were Indians.  Not just any Indians, though, but “troglodytes”, a cannibalistic, animalistic group that is as far removed from civilization as can be.  Sheriff Hunt, Deputy Chicory, Brooder, and the injured Arthur ride out toward where the troglodytes are supposed to live, intent on rescuing Samantha from their clutches.

The remainder of the movie involves the trip to the troglodyte’s home and what happens there.

Though the film is touted as a horror/western, the movie’s structure mostly recalls the classic John Wayne film The Searchers married, toward the end, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

As with The Searchers, our heroes set out to find and rescue a kidnapped woman.  The trip involves diverse characters whose interactions form the backbone of the story.  We feel for these characters which makes the dangers they face toward the end all the more terrifying.  The concluding act of the film, as mentioned, plays out like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and we’re given one particularly gruesome killing (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about) along with a really bizarre human subculture.

As I said above, I generally enjoyed the film but I can see why the studios were hesitant to release it to theaters and spend the large amount needed to advertise the product.

At a runtime of two hours and twelve minutes, Bone Tomahawk is an awfully long film to sit through and I’ll be very blunt here: It is at least twenty minutes or so too long.  There are some scenes here and there (including a love-making scene between Arthur and Samantha and a somewhat humorous appearance by the town’s Mayor and his domineering wife) that could easily been trimmed from the feature without audiences missing them.

Further, though the film is touted as a horror/western, the reality is that other than the opening and climax the film plays out more like a semi-comic (there are some very funny lines) and slow moving walk through the woods to get to the bad guys and rescue the damsel in distress rather than an actual horror film.

According to IMDB, “the final movie represents the first draft of the script”.  Though I don’t know how many times the author went over that script before delivering this “first draft” and while I really enjoy the way the characters talk (the dialogue in the movie is a highlight), I’ll repeat what I said above: This movie maybe could have used a couple of more drafts to trim some of the fat and tighten the story’s focus.

Ultimately, Bone Tomahawk is an odd, but certainly not unpleasant bird of a film.  An at times very laid back comic slice of life western which features a genuinely gruesome horror movie climax.  I don’t think Bone Tomahawk is for everyone but if what you’ve read above intrigues you, you’ll want to give the film a look.