While still looking to finish up my review of the latest entry in The Fast & The Furious franchise I thought it best to just put up the song which has led to many a-filmgoer trapped in a box of their emotions and feels.
Everyone by now knows how the release of Furious 7 has a tinge of both sentimentality and bittersweet emotions as this was the final film filmed by Paul Walker before his untimely death in late 2013. The shadow of Walker’s death had cast a shadow over the film. Whether people thought the film was good or not became a sidenote as the filmmakers, actors and everyone involved gave Paul Walker a moving final tribute by film’s end.
“See You Again” brings back Wiz Khalifa who also contributed what would become the theme song for Fast and Furious 6 with “Ride or Die.” This time Wiz has Charlie Puth doing the chorus. The combination of Puth’s heartfelt vocals and Khalifa’s rhymes made for a moving musical tribute to one of the founders of the The Fast & The Furious franchise and to a close friend to all involved in it.
See You Again
Charlie Puth)
It’s been a long day without you my friend
And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
We’ve come a long way from where we began
Oh I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
When I see you again
(Wiz Khalifa)
Damn who knew all the planes we flew
Good things we’ve been through
That I’ll be standing right here
Talking to you about another path I
Know we loved to hit the road and laugh
But something told me that it wouldn’t last
Had to switch up look at things different see the bigger picture
Those were the days hard work forever pays now I see you in a better place
How could we not talk about family when family’s all that we got?
Everything I went through you were standing there by my side
And now you gonna be with me for the last ride
(Charlie Puth)
It’s been a long day without you my friend
And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
We’ve come a long way from where we began
Oh I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
when I see you again
(Wiz Khalifa)
First you both go out your way
And the vibe is feeling strong and what’s
Small turn to a friendship a friendship
Turn into a bond and that bond will never Be broke and the love will never get lost
And when brotherhood come first then the line
Will never be crossed established it on our own
When that line had to be drawn and that line is what
We reach so remember me when I’m gone
How could we not talk about family when family’s all that we got?
Everything I went through you were standing there by my side
And now you gonna be with me for the last ride
(Charlie Puth)
So let the light guide your way hold every memory
As you go and every road you take will always lead you home
It’s been a long day without you my friend
And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
We’ve come a long way from where we began
Oh I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
When I see you again
*** Wait! Before starting this, leonth3duke has a wonderful review of It Follows. Read that and then double back here, if you want. . 🙂 ***
I had a jump scare happen to me two hours after seeing David Robert Mitchell’s “It Follows”. As I was relaying the story to my cousin, I heard a loud crash behind me. This caused me to whirl around and jump backwards. Of course, it was just a pair of cats chasing each other around the house, but I guess the movie kind of escalated things for me, mentally. My cousin laughed and said “Okay, this sounds like it’s worth seeing.” It feels good to carry a film around you like that.
It Follows is a subtle horror movie that reminds me of so many other ones – Halloween, Night of the Creeps, Ginger Snaps, The Thing, Under the Skin, The Cabin the Woods, The Babadook, Attack the Block, The Hidden and even Count Yorga: Vampire. It also brought to mind the Slenderman video game, where the player is constantly pursued by a figure that gets closer to them as they look over their shoulder. Perhaps this is where the source of the scares come from, but I’d easily come back to It Follows just for the atmosphere and the music. This movie feels like an 70’s or 80’s film – the kind of movie you’d find tucked away on a low shelf in the back of a mom and pop video store.
It Follows deals with a girl named Jay (Maika Monroe), who finds herself in some serious danger. After sleeping with a guy, Jay is told she’s the recipient of some kind of curse (I can’t think of a better way to describe it, really). The creature can take any form to get close enough to kill her, but is limited in that it can only walk. The only way she can keep it from coming after her is to “pass it on” sexually to someone else. The concept sounds really simple, but it’s actually complex as story plays out. The bulk of the film is made up of Jay and her friends / family wondering what’s after her and where it’s at. The movie makes great use of the camera. Very slow zooms and pans, coupled with long stationary shots force the audience to constantly scan the horizon for threats. There’s even a slow 360 scene that helps paint a picture yet suggest that everyone involved is still kept on their toes regarding the Follower. I had.a number of moments where I either looked away or whispered “Oh crap, behind you!”. The film’s score, created by Rich Vreeland (a.k.a. Disasterpeace) fits so well with the movie, I wondered if he and Mitchell didn’t just pull an E.T. and write the music before the film. It’s a classic, creepy series of selections that feels similar to the Drive soundtrack, but is as strange as Mica Levi’s work on Under the Skin. The score, as of this writing, is available on iTunes. There’s one scene in particular that only uses two high pitched notes back and forth really well. The acting is pretty simple. Monroe is the stand out, playing the lead, but the supporting cast was neither here or there. I can’t say that I’d remember them, but I also can’t say they were bad at all. Is It Follows the scariest film of the year? I couldn’t really tell you. Half of the time, when announcements like that are made, everyone runs to the theatre and then they proclaim the movie did nothing for them. People are impressed by different things. If you are a fan of blood and gore, It Follows might not be for you. There’s very little. Are you looking to be unnerved? Perhaps the film will work better for audiences searching for that. Paranoia is the key to everything here, and It Follows serves it up in heaps on oversized platters. The idea of a slow moving entity that walks while you run has terrified me since Pepe Le Pew and Halloween. For me, it was effective. If audience reaction is any indication, the movie had moments, but not many. When the film ended, there were quiet murmurs yet no real applause (unlike The Raid 2, which had people howling & clapping). The most I can tell you is that I enjoyed it, and will probably revisit it on Friday to see how it holds up with a larger audience. I’ll definitely do the VOD when it appears.
“Because you can tell the good guys from the bad guys.” — Aaron
[spoilers within]
Tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead saw Rick and his people continue to try and assimilate themselves within the safe confines of the Alexandria Safe-Zone. It’s a situation they’ve been hoping to find on their way to Washington, D.C., but also one that seems to have unnerved a good portion of the group when it falls into their lap.
“Forget” is a tough episode to sit through because it highlights both the show’s strength and also one of it’s recurring weaknesses. It’s a well-written episode by series writer Corey Reed with some fine direction from series director David Boyd, but at times the story-arc for certain characters landed with a thud instead of expanding on that character or moving the story forward.
Let’s go with the lowlights before moving onto the highlight of tonight’s episode.
We’ve known that the Alexandria Safe-Zone had time to build itself when the zombie outbreak began. We learn this from Deanna herself during her introduction in last week’s episode. Yet, something about how the writers have done to build-up ASZ (what I shall call Alexandria) as this well-protected haven from Aaron don’t seem to mesh with what they’ve shown on the show, so far. Maybe it’s a slow burn the writers are going for. Maybe we’ll find out how ASZ ultimately survived the lean years since civilization broke down. For now, there’s less a hidden, sinister agenda of how the ASZ has survived this long and more of it’s surprising and lucky they’ve lasted this long.
The next thud would be the story-line for Sasha herself. We see her during the episode’s cold opening unable to sleep in the house Rick had claimed as his. Pictures of it’s previous owners seem to gaze down at her. We later see her venture outside the walls of the ASZ to practice some shooting with those same family portraits as targets. Her behaviors borders on reckless and suicidal. It’s hard to judge the character for this considering she’s lost both her lover and her older brother right after each other. Traumatic experiences will do that to a person, yet when it happens to Sasha it’s hard to sympathize with her. It’s not that she’s a bad person. She just seems to be a badly-written character who doesn’t have her own voice with Bob and Tyreese now gone from the group.
We get description of what sort of character she is from other’s describing her to strangers. Tonight we find out from Maggie that she’s the group’s best shot, but we never really see this skill develop. The rest of the group we find in some way or another how they got to where they are in regards to their skills. With Sasha one day she’s someone who leaned on her older brother for protection then next she’s suddenly the next reincarnation of Annie Oakley.
It’s a weakness in the show’s way of handling such a huge cast of characters. They get rid of characters who were interesting or becoming one, but keeping characters who remain relatively unknowns to the audience. It’s as if the writers can’t find a way to make Sasha become an interesting character without having to repeat themselves in turning her into one (Carol, Maggie and Beth being three who improved over time).
So, while Sasha’s suicidal tendencies could be chalked up to her growing PTSD due to the experiences she has had to deal with recently it’s impact on the story seems to be minimal. It’s not that we as an audience don’t care it’s just that we don’t know Sasha well enough to bother to even care.
That’s not the same when it comes to Rick, Carol and Daryl. These three have begun to form a new sort of triumvirate leadership group. Everyone who has come this far with Rick are survivors in their own right, but it’s these three who have come farthest within the group. They’ve grown from who they’ve were when we first met them. We first met them as the lawman, the housewife and the rebel. They’ve outgrown those initial labels and become complex characters who harbor both positive and negative qualities. They’re not black and white in their behaviors anymore. It’s because of their character growth (most seems to be once Scott M. Gimple took over as headwriter and showrunner) that we’ve come to care what happens to them.
With Carol we see nothing left of the mousy and battered housewife who couldn’t defend herself until pretty much everything had been taken from her. She had gone from victim to survivor in order to never be dependent on others and to protect her new found family. While she has employed a cold logic to how she must survive and protect her people she does seem to be the one in the group who has adjusted best in this new world. She’s able to be the one willing to do the dirty work if it means keeping her group alive another day. Her threat towards Jessie’s young son, Sam, was both hilarious and chilling. Never could we have seen Carol from season 1 through 3 threaten a young boy of death by being zombie bait in order to keep her duplicitous behavior from being outed to the rest of the ASZ community.
There’s Daryl, the rebel loner we first me in season 1, whose lone wolf behavior has become tempered by his realization that he needs Rick and the others to keep himself human and sane. He doesn’t need them as a crutch, but instead sees in them the family he never had growing up and for being the redemption for his past failings. Yes, he still remains sort of an outsider maneuvering his way through the new dynamics that ASZ opened up, but his interaction with Aaron (another one who feels like an outsider despite being a longstanding member of the ASZ community) shows that he’s grown away from his intolerant beginnings in the show and sees in Aaron a kindred spirit. The fact that he’s aired some doubts about their original plan to takeover the ASZ community if they deem it necessary shows that Daryl may still be a badass but he also understands that making something like ASZ work in the end would be to the group’s benefit in the long run.
Then we have Rick. The lawman and father whose personal beliefs and principles have become the fulcrum by which the show has explored varying themes throughout it’s five season on the air. We’ve seen Rick the reluctant leader in the first two season. Finding and protecting his family had been his only concern during those initial seasons, but betrayal and the knowledge that there was no cure for the zombie pandemic unleashed the Ricktatorship which led the group to becoming the hardcore survivalist they’ve become. Yet, even this version of Rick made mistakes that cost him those closest to him. He’s tried to be less a leader and more a provider. We call this Farmer Rick, but we knew it was going to be a temporary reprieve from what we’ve wanted Rick to become and that’s accept his role as leader and take ownership of that role with all the good it brings and all the bad it brings out.
We see Rick take to this role with such a focus that he teeters on the brink of becoming the very thing he despised when he saw the Governor. This Rick is willing to depose those in the ASZ community leadership group if he thought they couldn’t hack it when times got rough. This Rick sees danger everywhere and plans several steps ahead even when we as an audience sees it as a sort of madness creeping to latch onto Rick’s psyche. This Rick seems willing to take what he wants when he wants it even if it means contemplating murder. This is a Rick that seems to be exhibiting the worst qualities of the leaders of three groups who have fallen into the abyss: the Governor, Joe of the Claimers and Gareth of Terminus.
While Rick has learned to become a better leader of the group from having Hershel and Tyreese as his moral compass, they seem to have been pushed to the back of Rick’s mind by the ghosts of the Governor, Joe and Gareth. These three showed Rick that surviving at any cost was the only currency left in this new world. It was all about protecting what was his and that was Carl, Judith and the rest of his group. The people of the ASZ community were strangers to him who he felt were ill-equipped to survive in this new world. He even mentions to Carol and Daryl that this community was lucky to have them as new member because only they could protect them from the bad people beyond the walls. It doesn’t dawn on Rick that he was now acting and behaving in some fashion like those very bad people he warned Deanna about.
“Forget” could easily have become one of the best episodes of the season if it concentrated more on this triumvirate of Rick, Carol and Daryl and just jettisoned the Sasha plotline. Yet, despite Sasha’s role in tonight’s episode we still got a strong foundation on what could be the role of the Power Three for the final three episodes of season 5. Will Carol and Daryl follow Rick if he ever goes too far? We have three more episodes left to find out.
Notes
Tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead, “Forget”, was directed by David Boyd and written by series writer Corey Reed.
Carol had herself some a breaking Bad moment when she confronted Sam, Jessie’s youngest boy, after he saw her taking guns from the armory. Some have said that her “speech” to Sam was reminiscent of Walt’s “I’m the one who knocks” speech.
Deanna’s husband is named Reg. In the comics, Douglas (Deanna in the show) has a wife named Reggie. The show also added Aiden as a second son. We met the other son, Spencer, in tonight’s episode.
Interesting choice of a song to end the episode on…Spicks and Specks by the Bee Gees.
The shippers of Rick and Michonne seem to have gone insane since they’ve gone on a social media rampage against the actor Alexandra Breckinridge who plays Rick’s potential paramour Jessie in the show.
Talking Dead guests tonight are Kevin Smith (writer/director), Ross Marquand (Aaron from The Walking Dead) and Alexandra Breckinridge (Jessie from The Walking Dead)
You’d think that any character that’s been around since 1940 would be at least a marginal “fan-favorite” — after all, it takes a certain level of popularity just to stick around that long — but in the case of The Black Hood, a super-vigilante from Archie Comics, you’d be wrong.
Not that I’m sure ol’ Hoodie doesn’t have some sort of fan following, mind you — any character that’s been around for over 70 years is bound to pick up at least a few adherents even if it’s entirely by accident — but there aren’t many, and whenever he’s come back to the printed page (most recently in the early ’90s for a 12-issue run as part of DC’s failed !mpact Comics imprint aimed at younger readers, which licensed a good number of Archie-owned properties) it hasn’t been for long. Could that be about to change? I’m sincerely hoping so.
If there’s one thing that sucked most about growing up in the 1980s — among many worthy contenders from that culturally blighted decade — it was the rampant anti-drug hysteria that started with our figurehead “leaders” at the top, Ron n’ Nancy, and filtered its way down until it permeated pretty much every corner of society. Drugs — even essentially risk-free recreational stuff like pot — were considered “bad,” and their users were “bad people.” This stuf’ll kill ya, kids — why, if you don’t believe us, just turn on the TV, because that’s what every single cop show is all about.
Never mind, I suppose, that TV is the most prevalent and most harmful drug of all, or that most of the pseudo-righteous political figures profiting from drug hysteria were either being funded to the tune of millions by Wall Street cokeheads or, in the case of Bush…
Kingsman: The Secret Service was a no brainer for me. I’ve been following Matthew Vaughn since Stardust, and a friend pointed me towards Layer Cake, which I love. Most audiences know Vaughn from his work on X-Men: First Class and Kick-Ass. That’s the main reason I ran towards this movie. I also found out writer Mark Millar (Wanted, Kick-Ass, Marvel’s Civil War) was involved and the story was originally a comic, so the flow of the film makes perfect sense. Overall, Kingsman is a triumph for everyone involved, easily a film I could see myself returning to see again, but it’s not without it’s quirks. If the movie were cut into four acts, the first three were great, but the last act comes close to falling into the clichés it tries so hard to avoid.
Short and Sweet:
If you liked Wanted’s and Kick-Ass’ action sequences and copious amounts of violence mixed with bloodletting, Kingsman has your name written all over it. Throats are cut, people are shot, and bones are broken. It doesn’t happen often throughout the film, but when it does, it can get messy. The movie may have you considering wanting to get yourself some good business attire. It isn’t for kids by a long shot, it’s rated R for a reason.
The Slightly Long Version:
Kingsman is the tale of Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), a young man who ends up being recruited for The Kingsman after a run in with the law. The Kingsman are a secret society of spies that at one time were tailors to great people. When a threat to the world rises in the form of a rich tech wiz named Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), the Kingsmen must find a way to stop him.
Eggsy’s recruiter is Harry Hart, played by Colin Firth, who does the best job out of all of the actors involved (in my opinion). Being the one who has to explain what all this is about, Firth manages to play the mentor role well. When it comes to fighting, he shows everyone who’s boss. Who knew Mark Darcy could fight (well, other than Daniel Cleaver, I guess)?
The casting for Kingsman really couldn’t offer any more surprises than it did. You have Jack Davenport (Pirates of the Caribbean), Mark Hamill (channeling his inner Joker here), Michael Caine, Mark Strong (a Vaughn favorite), Sofia Boutella (whose dance techniques work well for her blade wielding character) and Sophie Cookson. There’s really no one out of place here, save for maybe Jackson, who’s villain hates violence yet sees when it needs to be done. I do like that the movie kept me guessing about the Valentine’s intentions.As for Egerton, though I’ve never seen Egerton in anything before this, he’s good enough to warrant seeing him in a sequel. I can see him becoming a Vaughn regular in another film – maybe as an X-Men member?
As if the crew spent some time watching John Wick, the action in Kingsman moves pretty fast and fierce at times, and there’ll undoubtedly be a few scenes that will have you abusing the slo-mo feature when it arrives on digital download. The film moves through scenes with few cuts involved. You’ll have someone staring into a monitor at a fight that travels to the fight itself, and then flow into another moment. It’s Vaughn at his best, and at times, it’s all beautiful. I guarantee you that at least one scene in particular will probably have people talking. By far, one of the most unique uses of a Lynyrd Skynyrd track since The Devil’s Rejects. On a side note, it’s wonderful to see every advertised gadget get some use.
So, with all that praise, what’s the problem? Well, the last part of the film felt a little flat for me. If you’ve ever watched Batman Begins and it’s repetitious “stop the train before it hits the Wayne Tower” sequence, Kingsman feels similar. What bothered me was how some of the events were kind of caught in a bubble. Given the stakes involved (especially near the end), you’re never really told or shown the outcome of the actions. It’s really hard to explain without giving anything away, but I could put it like this. If you fired a gun in the middle of a street in broad daylight, someone would react and call the cops, no? So, if you escalate that action, shouldn’t the reaction / after effects be big? Between this and an annoying bit of product placement, I suppose it couldn’t be avoided. Still, it may be something that stands out for some audiences. It’s by no means a deal breaker, though.
To quote the Man In Black himself — “I sense something, a presence I’ve not felt since —” oh yeah, since the last horeshit Star Wars comic I read, Jason Aaron and John Cassaday’s Star Wars #1. Marvel cranked out the second issue (which I didn’t buy) of that series a mere two weeks after the first, and now here we are a week on from that with the debut installment of their first “spin-off” book, Star Wars : Darth Vader, which comes our way courtesy of respected creators Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larocca.
Given the thorough dressing-down I gave of Aaron and Cassaday’s comic (a view not shared by many, as most write-ups online have been positively effusive in their praise for it) , some readers might be surprised that I forked over five bucks for this one, but I was determined to give it a shot simply…
We may as well be clear about one thing right off the bat — director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s 2014 film The Town That Dreaded Sundown (now available via instant streaming on both Netflix and Amazon Prime — before it’s even out on Blu-ray or DVD!) isn’t so much a remake of Charles B. Pierce’s 1976 “true-crime slasher” of the same name as it is an updated take on more or less the same material (to such an extent that original screenwriter Earl E. Smith is even given a story credit here) that semi-cleverly incorporates its cinematic progenitor into the proceedings as a “metafictional” trope in a way that almost makes the new flick closer to a sequel than anything else — but not quite.
For the sake of those who absolutely must categorize this in some way, shape, or form, let’s just call it an “extension” of Pierce’s movie and leave…
Arleigh has in the past taken time to congratulate the San Francisco Giants upon winning the World Series, so as a long time New England Patriots fan, I can only say congratulations to the Patriots for winning the Super Bowl, and here’s to hoping that he’ll win a record fifth championship next year! Yes, this is a short post, but that’s all that’s needed right now.
Universal is up again during the Super Bowl with this trailer for Fast & Furious 7, which has Vin Diesel’s Dominick Toretto and his family facing off against Jason Statham, who plays the brother of Luke Evans’ character in the last film. As usual, it looks like there will be some crazy car stunts, and there seems to be more in-air acrobatics (which is weird, for cars). We still don’t know how the story will deal with the passing of Paul Walker, but they appear to have their action scenes all set.
Fast & Furious 7 (or Fast 7) opens in cinemas on April 3rd.
Through the Shattered Lens