Here are six mini-reviews of six films that I saw in 2016!
Alice Through The Looking Glass (dir by James Bobin)
In a word — BORING!
Personally, I’ve always thought that, as a work of literature, Through The Looking Glass is actually superior to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. That’s largely because Through The Looking Glass is a lot darker than Wonderland and the satire is a lot more fierce. You wouldn’t know that from watching the latest film adaptation, though. Alice Through The Looking Glass doesn’t really seem to care much about the source material. Instead, it’s all about making money and if that means ignoring everything that made the story a classic and instead turning it into a rip-off of every other recent blockbuster, so be it. At times, I wondered if I was watching a film based on Lewis Carroll or a film based on Suicide Squad. Well, regardless, the whole enterprise is way too cynical to really enjoy.
(On the plus side, the CGI is fairly well-done. If you listen, you’ll hear the voice of Alan Rickman.)
Gods of Egypt (dir by Alex Proyas)
I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to describing the plot of Gods of Egypt. This was one of the most confusing films that I’ve ever seen but then again, I’m also not exactly an expert when it comes to Egyptian mythology. As far as I could tell, it was about Egyptian Gods fighting some sort of war with each other but I was never quite sure who was who or why they were fighting or anything else. My ADHD went crazy while I was watching Gods of Egypt. There were so much plot and so many superfluous distractions that I couldn’t really concentrate on what the Hell was actually going on.
But you know what? With all that in mind, Gods of Egypt is still not as bad as you’ve heard. It’s a big and ludicrous film but ultimately, it’s so big and so ludicrous that it becomes oddly charming. Director Alex Proyas had a definite vision in mind when he made this film and that alone makes Gods of Egypt better than some of the other films that I’m reviewing in this post.
Is Gods of Egypt so bad that its good? I wouldn’t necessarily say that. Instead, I would say that it’s so ludicrous that it’s unexpectedly watchable.
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (dir by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan)
Bleh. Who cares? I mean, I hate to put it like that but The Huntsman: Winter’s War felt pretty much like every other wannabe blockbuster that was released in April of last year. Big battles, big cast, big visuals, big production but the movie itself was way too predictable to be interesting.
Did we really need a follow-up to Snow White and The Huntsman? Judging by this film, we did not.
Me Before You (dir by Thea Sharrock)
Me Before You was assisted suicide propaganda, disguised as a Nicolas Sparks-style love story. Emilia Clarke is hired to serve as a caregiver to a paralyzed and bitter former banker played by Sam Claflin. At first they hate each other but then they love each other but it may be too late because Claflin is determined to end his life in Switzerland. Trying to change his mind, Clarke tries to prove to him that it’s a big beautiful world out there. Claflin appreciates the effort but it turns out that he really, really wants to die. It helps, of course, that Switzerland is a really beautiful and romantic country. I mean, if you’re going to end your life, Switzerland is the place to do it. Take that, Sea of Trees.
Anyway, Me Before You makes its points with all the subtlety and nuance of a sledge-hammer that’s been borrowed from the Final Exit Network. It doesn’t help that Clarke and Claflin have next to no chemistry. Even without all the propaganda, Me Before You would have been forgettable. The propaganda just pushes the movie over the line that separates mediocre from terrible.
Mother’s Day (dir by Garry Marshall)
Y’know, the only reason that I’ve put off writing about how much I hated this film is because Garry Marshall died shortly after it was released and I read so many tweets and interviews from people talking about what a nice and sincere guy he was that I actually started to feel guilty for hating his final movie.
But seriously, Mother’s Day was really bad. This was the third of Marshall’s holiday films. All three of them were ensemble pieces that ascribed a ludicrous amount of importance to one particular holiday. None of them were any good, largely because they all felt like cynical cash-ins. If you didn’t see Valentine’s Day, you hated love. If you didn’t see New Year’s Eve, you didn’t care about the future of the world. And if you didn’t see Mother’s Day … well, let’s just not go there, okay?
Mother’s Day takes place in Atlanta and it deals with a group of people who are all either mothers or dealing with a mother. The ensemble is made up of familiar faces — Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, and others! — but nobody really seems to be making much of an effort to act. Instead, they simple show up, recite a few lines in whatever their trademark style may be, and then cash their paycheck. The whole thing feels so incredibly manipulative and shallow and fake that it leaves you wondering if maybe all future holidays should be canceled.
I know Garry Marshall was a great guy but seriously, Mother’s Day is just the worst.
As far as recent Biblical films go, Risen is not that bad. It takes place shortly after the Crucifixion and stars Joseph Fiennes as a Roman centurion who is assigned to discover why the body of Jesus has disappeared from its tomb. You can probably guess what happens next. The film may be a little bit heavy-handed but the Roman Empire is convincingly recreated, Joseph Fiennes gives a pretty good performance, and Kevin Reynolds keeps the action moving quickly. As a faith-based film that never becomes preachy, Risen is far superior to something like God’s Not Dead 2.
Oscar season continued today as the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics announced their picks for the best of 2016! What films and performers were honored in America’s capitol?
Here are 6 more reviews of 6 other films that I watched this year. Why six? Because Lisa doesn’t do odd numbers, that’s why.
The Big Game (dir by Jalmari Helander)
In The Big Game, Samuel L. Jackson plays the President of the United States and you would think that fact alone would make this film an instant classic. Unfortunately, this film never really takes advantage of the inherent coolness of Samuel L. Jackson playing the leader of the free world. When Air Force One is sabotaged and crashes in the wilderness of Finland, President Jackson has to rely on a young hunter (Onni Tommila) from a group of CIA agents disguised as terrorists. Tommila does a pretty good job and the scenery looks great but at no point does Samuel L. Jackson says, “Check out this executive action, motherfucker,” and that’s a huge missed opportunity. As for the rest of the film, it takes itself a bit too seriously and if you can’t figure out the big twist from the minute the movie starts, you obviously haven’t seen enough movies.
The Connection (dir by Cedric Jiminez)
Taking place over the 1970s, the French crime thriller tells the largely true story of the efforts of a French judge (played by Jean Dujardin) to take down a ruthless gangster (Gilles Lellouche) who is the head of one of the biggest drug cartels in the world. The Connection run for a bit too long but, ultimately, it’s a stylish thriller that does a very good job of creating a world where literally no one can be trusted. Dujardin, best known here in the States for his Oscar-winning role in The Artist, does a great job playing an honest man who is nearly driven to the point of insanity by the corruption all around him.
Graduation Day (dir by Chris Stokes)
Hey, it’s another found footage horror film! Bleh! Now, I should admit that this horror film — which is NOT a remake of that classic 1980s slasher — does have a fairly clever twist towards the end, that goes a long way towards explaining a lot of the inconsistencies that, up until that point, had pretty much dominated the film. But, even with that in mind and admitting that Unfriended and Devil’s Due worked wonders with the concept, it’s still hard to feel any enthusiasm about yet another found footage horror film.
McFarland USA (dir by Niki Caro)
McFarland USA is an extremely predictable but likable movie. Kevin Costner plays a former football coach who, while teaching at a mostly Latino high school, organizes a cross country team that goes on to win the state championship. It’s based on a true story and, at the end of the film, all of the real people appear alongside the actors who played them. There’s nothing about this film that will surprise you but it’s still fairly well-done. Even Kevin Costner, who usually gets on my last nerve, gives a good performance.
Taken 3 (dir by Olivier Megaton)
Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is back and he’s killing even more people! Fortunately, they’re all bad people but you really do have to wonder what type of dreams Bryan has whenever he goes to sleep. In Taken 3, Bryan’s wife (Famke Janssen) has been murdered and Bryan has been framed. He has to solve the case and kill the bad guys while staying one step ahead of the police (represented by a bored-looking Forest Whitaker). Neeson does all of his usual Taken stuff — the intense phone conversation, the steely glare, and all the rest — but at this point, it has literally been parodied to death. If you’re into watching Liam Neeson kill ugly people, Taken 3 will provide you with adequate entertainment but, for the most part, it’s but a shadow of the first Taken.
War Room (dir by Alex Kendrick)
I saw the War Room in Oklahoma. It was being shown as part of a double feature with The Martian, of all things! Anyway, this film is about an upper middle class family that hits rock bottom but they’re saved by the power of prayer! Lots and lots of prayer! Seriously, this film almost qualifies as “prayer porn.” Anyway, the film was badly acted, badly written, incredibly heavy-handed, and ran on way too long but, on the plus side, it did eventually end.
The time was May of 1999. The place was a movie theater in Baltimore, Maryland. The theater was packed with people waiting to see the most anticipated film of their lifetime. The film was The Phantom Menace, the first prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy. For two years, the people in the audience had followed every detail of the film’s production. Some of them had gone to showings of Meet Joe Black and Wing Commander, just so they could see the first trailers for the film.
Sitting out in that audience was one 16 year-old boy who, a few nights earlier, had been standing outside a Target at midnight so that he could be one of the first to buy Phantom Menace merchandise. He bought two Jar Jar Binks action figures because, even before Phantom Menace opened, he suspected Jar Jar would be the most controversial character.
When the lights went down, the audience cheered. At the start of every trailer, someone in the dark theater shouted, “I bent my Wookie!” The audience laughed the first two times. By the fifth time, there were only a few pity titters.
Finally, it was time! The first few notes of John Williams’s Star Wars theme echoed through the theater. Again, the audience cheered as the familiar title crawl appeared on-screen.
The 16 year-old read the opening crawl and he started to get worried. What was all this talk about taxation? Trade routes? Trade Federation? Blockades? It seemed more appropriate for Star Trek or even Dune. Except for the mention of Jedis at the end of the crawl, it did not sound much like Star Wars.
Things started to look up as soon as Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor made their first appearance as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan’s first line was, “I have a bad feeling about this.” A few people in the audience clapped. “I bent my Wookie!” a familiar voice shouted. Nobody laughed.
When a hologram of Darth Sidious appeared and told the Trade Federation goons to kill Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, everyone in the audience knew that Darth Sidious was Palaptine, the future Emperor, and the excitement was palpable. When Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan fought off the battle droids and escaped to the besieged planet of Naboo, the audience started to relax. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as the critics were saying.
Then Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan met Jar Jar Binks and the whole movie went to shit.
In the months leading up to the release of The Phantom Menace, everyone had heard about Jar Jar Binks and how he was a totally computer-generated character. Jar Jar Binks was the future of movie technology and, from the minute he first appeared, the future was fucking terrifying. Jar Jar was a Gungun, an amphibious creature who was characterized as being clumsy and cowardly. He shrieked in a high-pitched voice and spoke in an indescribable dialect. As much as the audience tried, there was no way to avoid or ignore Jar Jar Binks. He was not in the entire movie but he was at the center of every scene in which he did appear.
As Jar Jar led Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to the underwater city of the Gunguns, a voice in the dark theater shouted out, “I bent my Wookie!”
“Shut the fuck up!” the 16 year-old snapped back.
The 16 year-old was not sure if anyone heard him but the voice was silent for the rest of the movie.
Sorry, Ralph.
No sooner had the audience recovered from their introduction to Jar Jar then they met young Anakin Skywalker. Anakin’s story was the whole reason that The Phantom Menace had been made. The audience knew that the prequels would show how Anakin Skywalker would grow up to the greatest and most evil badass in the universe, Darth Vader. But in Phantom Menace, he was just a 9 year-old slave on the planet of Tatooine, conceived by immaculate conception. Even before Phantom Menace was released, the word was out that Jake Lloyd, the child cast as young Anakin, was not exactly the best actor in the world. But even though they had been forewarned, the audience was not prepared for just how terrible little Jake Lloyd was in the role. There was no darkness to Jake Lloyd’s cutesy performance. There was no sadness or toughness. Jake Lloyd came across like the type of hyperactive child who would end up in the ensemble of a Christmas play, breaking character and waving to his parents during the Crucifixion. Not only could the audience not see him growing up to be Darth Vader but they could not imagine him as a slave living on an inhospitable desert planet.
Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Jar Jar, Queen Padme (Keira Knightley), and Padme’s handmaid, Amidala (Natalie Portman) were stranded on Tatooine when they first met Anakin. Qui-Gon felt that Anakin was “the chosen one,” who would bring balance to the force. It was hard for the audience to believe him when they heard Anakin shout, “Yippe!”
For that 16 year-old who had stayed up past midnight to buy two Jar Jar Binks action figures, that “yippe” was the final straw. He had watched the original Star Wars trilogy on VHS tapes. He had gone to the re-releases. He loved Star Wars and he wanted to love The Phantom Menace. Instead, he felt so let down by the film that he could barely look at the screen.
The 16 year-old wondered why C3PO and R2D2 were in the film. Phantom Menace revealed that they were built by the future Darth Vader. R2D2 would even help Anakin in the film’s final battle. It made no sense. The 16 year-old wondered if anyone else in the audience was as confused as he was. He wondered why, if he could see that this made no sense, George Lucas could not understand the same thing.
Anakin won a pod race and was allowed to leave Tatooine. The film’s action was moved to the Coruscant, a planet that was covered with one huge city. Samuel L. Jackson appeared as Mace Windu and, when he stared out at the audience, he seemed to be saying, “I fucking dare you to yell anything about bending your motherfucking Wookie!” There were scenes set in the galactic senate, presumably to appease everyone who wanted a meticulously detailed portrait of how a galactic Republic would be governed. Padme turned out to be a fake and Amidala was revealed as the real queen. There was a final battle between the forces of the Republic and the Trade Federation. Qui-Gon was killed in a duel with the evil Darth Maul (Ray Park) but Obi-Wan promised to train Anakin in the ways of the Jedi. Palpatine promised that he would be watching Anakin’s development.
For many in the audience who truly loved the original trilogy and who had spent the past two years scouring every corner of the Internet in search of news about The Phantom Menace, the midi-chlorians was the point that they give up on the movie. The Force added a hint of mysticism to the original trilogy. Because it was so mysterious and its origins so deliberately obscure, fans of Star Wars could imagine that The Force was inside of them as well as Luke and Darth Vader. “May the force be with you,” was more than just a catch phrase to those fans. It was a reminder that, even in a galaxy far far away, there was still mystery and faith. When Qui-Gon talked about midi-chlorians, fans realized that not only did they understand the appeal of Star Wars better than George Lucas but George Lucas did not even care why they loved his film. For those fans, the midi-chlorians not only ruined The Phantom Menace but cheapened the original trilogy as well. The Force was no longer special or mystical. Anakin might as well have just been bitten by a radioactive spider.
For the 16 year-old, it was somehow even worse that, before asking about the Force, Anakin apologized to Qui-Gon for causing so much trouble. Sitting out in the theater, he knew that the boy who would grow up to be Darth Vader would never yell “yippie!” and he would never apologize for causing any trouble.
At the end of the movie, the audience did not know how to react. The 16 year-old talked to his friends as they filed out of the theater. Everyone was in a state of denial. They knew that they had seen something very disappointing but, after all the excitement leading up to the release of The Phantom Menace, they did not want to admit how disappointed they really were with the actual movie. They talked about what did work. They talked about the pod race, which had been fun. They talked about the exciting light saber duel between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Darth Maul. Being teenage boys, they also talked about Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley.
They tried not to talk about Jar Jar Binks, beyond agreeing that he sucked. They tried not to talk about Jake Lloyd as Anakin. It was too painful to know that Star Wars had been reduced to Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd. They did make fun of the “I bent my Wookie” guy. In the face of grave disillusionment, it was all that the 16 year-old and his friends could do.
Today, enough time has passed that it is easier to laugh about Jar Jar Binks and The Phantom Menace. Though the initial trauma may have faded into memory, it all came rushing back to me as soon as Lisa asked me if I would be willing to review The Phantom Menace for this site. I cautiously agreed and hoped that, since I already knew what I was getting myself into, The Phantom Menace would not be as disappointing the second time around.
It was a strange experience rewatching The Phantom Menace. While I remembered how bad the movie was, I’d forgotten how equally boring it was. Jar Jar Binks was even more annoying than I remembered and Jake Lloyd was even worse. Of the film’s best scenes, the pod race went on too long and the duel with Darth Maul was too short. For such a badass villain, Darth Maul was underused for much of the film, as if George Lucas did not understand that the kids he claimed to have made the film for would be far more interested in the dynamic Darth Maul than the histrionic Jar Jar Binks.
Emphasizing Jar Jar Binks over Darth Maul made as much sense as emphasizing the Ewoks at the expense of Boba Fett.
Worst of all, the entire movie felt even more pointless the second time around. When the prequels were first released, George Lucas always said that all three of them should be viewed in the context of the larger story that they were telling. But what do we really learn from The Phantom Menace or any of the prequels? Did anyone really want to know about how trade was regulated before the Empire? Did we really need to know the exact details of how Anakin became a Jedi? Watching The Phantom Menace, the answer is no.
I was especially surprised by how bad the CGI looked. When The Phantom Menace was first released, the CGI was often the only thing that was critically praised. Critics may have hated Jar Jar Binks as a character but they all agreed that it was impressive that a major character had been created by a computer. It is easy to forget just how big a deal was made about The Phantom Menace‘s special effects. At the time, we had yet to take it for granted that an entire movie could be made on a computer.
But seen today, the CGI not only seems cartoonish but, like the midi-chlorians, it feels like a betrayal of everything that made the original Star Wars special. The universe of New Hope and Empire Strikes Back felt lived in. It was imperfect and real. It was a universe where even the most fearsome storm trooper could accidentally bump his head on a doorway.
But the CGI-created universe of The Phantom Menace was too slick and too perfect. There was no chance for spontaneity or anything unexpected. The universe of the original Star Wars trilogy was one in which you could imagine living but the universe of The Phantom Menace seemed only to exist in the computers at Lucasfilm. With The Phantom Menace, George Lucas seemed to be reminding those who loved his films that the Star Wars universe belonged to him and him alone. Our imagination was no longer necessary.
As for that 16 year-old who first saw The Phantom Menace in that Baltimore theater, I still have those Jar Jar Binks action figures. I keep one of them on my desk at work and I enjoy the strange looks that it gets. If you push down its arms, Jar Jar sticks out his tongue.
Well, I think the title of this review pretty succinctly sums up my reaction to Seth McFarlane’s latest film, Ted 2. Thanks for reading and have a good…
Oh, really?
Okay, I’ve been told that I have to try to think up at least 300 words to say about Ted 2. Otherwise, in the eyes of Rotten Tomatoes, we’re not a legitimate film blog.
*sigh*
Okay.
Anyway, Ted 2 is the story of a talking teddy bear (voice by Seth McFarlane) who likes to smoke weed and … well, that’s about it. He’s just gotten married to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) and they’re having trouble because Tami-Lynn wants a baby but Ted, being a teddy bear, doesn’t have any reproductive organs. So, he and his friend John (Mark Wahlberg) decide to give Tom Brady a handjob so they can still his sperm. But, it turns out, none of that was important because the state of Massachusetts claims that Ted is not even a person. Instead, he’s just “property.” So, now, John and Ted and their lawyer, Sam (Amanda Seyfried), are fighting the courts to win Ted his civil rights. And then Giovanni Ribisi wants to kidnap Ted and Morgan Freeman shows up and says a few words. And the film is narrated by Patrick Stewart because it’s funny to hear Patrick Stewart curse and…
Oh! And Liam Neeson shows up. He’s a customer at the store where Ted works as a cashier. Liam wants to know if Trix are only for kids. The joke here is that it’s Liam Neeson and he’s asking about cereal. Ha ha.
Oh! And there’s two guys who shows up at New York Comic Con so that they can beat up “nerds.” During every scene set at Comic Con, they’re in the background beating people up and insulting them. And the two guys are gay! See, they’re bullies and they’re gay! And they’re beating up random people at Comic Con, just because they can! Hilarious, right?
Ted 2 spends a lot of time trying to convince us that Ted’s struggle to be recognized as a person is actually meant to be a metaphor for the American civil rights movement. But, honestly, I get the feeling that McFarlane relates more to the bullies than he does to any oppressed minority. As he previously proved with his TV shows and A Million Ways To Die In The West, McFarlane is only interested in going after easy targets. He’s your typical white male hipster who thinks that, because he voted for Obama, he can get away with telling racist jokes.
And, before anyone misunderstands, I wouldn’t mind McFarlane’s humor if it was at least funny or original. But instead, it’s the same stupid jokes that he always tells. Seth McFarlane’s comedic technique is to basically drag things out until viewers laugh from pure exhaustion. Is it effective? Well, there are people who continue to praise and defend him and Seth certainly has made a lot of money off of his act. So, obviously, there are people who respond to this. But to me, Seth McFarlane’s humor just feels lazy.
Ted 2 lasts 128 minutes. That’s over two hours devoted to a concept that feels more appropriate for a five-minute skit. Interesting enough, the first Tedwas tolerable because it focused on Mark Wahlberg’s Johnny. Ted was just a supporting character and he worked as a metaphor for Johnny’s struggle to choose between growing up or being a happy slacker. (The first Ted was all about Johnny falling in love with Mila Kunis, whose character is rather cruelly dismissed at the start of Ted 2.) In Ted 2, Ted is the central character and once you get over the fact that he’s a teddy bear who drops multiple F bombs, there’s really not much to the character. It helps, of course, that we only have to listen to McFarlane. We don’t have to look at his imminently punchable, oddly lineless face. But, to be honest, even McFarlane’s voice has become grating. It’s just so self-satisfied and smug.
I saw Ted 2 with the blogger also known as Jedadiah Leland. Over the course of 128 hours minutes (it just felt like hours), we each laughed once. Not surprisingly, both laughs were inspired by Wahlberg’s dumb-but-sweet performance. Now, I will admit that the rest of the audience laughed a bit more than we did. But still, there was a definite atmosphere of resignation in the theater. You could literally hear the people thinking, “Oh, Ted just made a joke about black people. Better laugh now so everyone knows that I get whatever the Hell this is supposed to be. After all, those tickets weren’t free…”
Despite the fact that it was nominated for best picture and marked the start of his fantastically successful collaboration with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film Gangs of New York does not have the best reputation. It always seems to be regarded as one of Scorsese’s lesser films and, often times, both The Aviator and The Departedare described as representing a comeback of sorts from Gangs.
To a certain extent, I have to agree. Gangs of New York is a lesser Scorsese movie but then again, a lesser Scorsese film is still a hundred times better than the greatest films from Brett Ratner or Michael Bay.
The flaws of Gangs of New York are many. The film, which tells the epic story of how an Irish gang led by Leonard DiCaprio battled a nativist gang led by Daniel Day-Lewis in Civil War-era New York City, runs for nearly 3 hours and yet it somehow still feels rushed and incomplete. Cameron Diaz is far too contemporary of an actress to be truly believable as a 19th century pickpocket. For that matter, Leonardo DiCaprio gives one of the worst performances of his career, coming across as being one-note and shrill. If you only knew DiCaprio from his work in Gangs of New York, you would have a hard time believing that he was capable of doing the type of work that he did in Inception or The Wolf of Wall Street.
And yet, Gangs of New York is one of those flawed films that I can’t help but enjoy.
First off, on a purely personal level, how can I not love a film about how terribly the Irish were treated in the 19th Century? Seriously, the Irish were regarded as if they were somehow subhuman. They were attacked for being Catholic. They were viewed as being criminals. An entire freaking political party — the American party — was formed specifically to keep the Irish out. But you know what? We Irish kept coming, we kept fighting for our rights, and now everyone wishes they could be one of us!
Secondly, and this should not a shock when you consider that the film was directed by Martin Scorsese, the film looks absolutely gorgeous! Despite the fact that it’s takes place in a 19th century slum and most of the characters are poor, Gangs of New York is a visual feast. I loved the ornate sets and all the colorful clothes. I loved the attention to detail that was put into everything.
(My favorite visual from the film: Daniel Day-Lewis and his entourage walking down a street while fireworks explode directly over Day-Lewis’s shoulder.)
Third, there’s Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as Bill “The Butcher” Cutting. One reason why DiCaprio’s performance is so noticeably bad is because he’s acting opposite Day-Lewis. Sporting a handle-bar mustache and speaking in an almost satirically exaggerated New York accent, Day-Lewis turns Bill into one cinema’s greatest villains.
Add to that, the great Italian actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice show up for a few minutes, playing Simon Legree in a theatrical production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin! Scorsese should make more films with Radice.
But, perhaps the main reason why I enjoy Gangs of New York is because, as I’ve mentioned so many times in the past, I really am a big history nerd. And Gangs of New York deals with a period in American history that really doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves. While we all know that the Civil War started when the South seceded from the union, what is often forgotten is that the North was not united in their support of Abraham Lincoln and the Union. In fact, the Mayor of New York, Fernando Wood, was such a strong supporter of the Confederacy that he, at one point, suggested that New York City should secede from the union as well. And when Lincoln instituted the draft, NYC — and several other cities in the north — exploded into riots.
Of course, Gangs of New York is not a 100% historically accurate. For one thing, it compresses the time frame of the draft riots and — as films often do — it downplays the culture of Northern racism and instead portrays racists like Bill Cutting as being the exception to the rule. But, even with that in mind, Gangs of New York still serves as a good starting point for those who want to learn more about American history than what they’ve been told in school.
My favorite parts of Gangs of New York dealt not with how the gangs fought each other but instead how the gangs were used as political foot soldiers. One of the major supporting characters in Gangs of New York is William “Boss” Tweed (Jim Broadbent), a real-life politician who was at the center of one of America’s first major political scandals. When we first meet Tweed, he is using Bill Cutting’s gang to fix elections. However, as the film progresses, Tweed comes to realize that the political future of New York rests with the Irish. So, Tweed starts using the Irish gang to fix elections. For those of us who are into political history, the Boss Tweed scenes are a lot of fun.
Gangs of New York has its flaws. It’s the type of project that, if it were made today, it would probably be a series on HBO and it would win all sorts of awards. (Actually, it did kinda. It was called Boardwalk Empire.) It’s not perfect, but I like it.
While I did watch the Super Bowl tonight, I have to admit that I only watched it for the commercials. Back in 2013, I did a post on my favorite super bowl commercials and I meant to do the same thing for 2014 but, for whatever reason, I never got around to doing so. So, I was definitely not going to miss out this year!
Unfortunately, the commercials really weren’t that great this year. Perhaps if I was looking for a new car, the constant barrage of car commercials would have been more interesting. I found a lot of the so-called “empowering” commercials to be condescending. (To be honest, I always resent the idea that I need a commercial to make me feel good about myself. I’m stronger than that.) The McDonald’s commercial where people got free food for telling their mom that they loved them upset me because my mom’s not here for me to tell her how much I love her. And then there were all the commercials about fathers bonding with their sons (never their daughters, interestingly enough) and those made me want to throw stuff as well.
In fact, when all is said and done, my favorite part of the Super Bowl was not watching that commercials. Instead, it was watching the dancing sharks.
Dance, Shark, dance!
But there were a few commercials that stood out. For example, there was the Nationwide dead kid commercial, which made me feel like a terrible person because I started giggling as soon as I saw that the TV had fallen over. And then there was that GoDaddy commercial that was so offensive that it didn’t even make it to air. (The commercial featured a lost puppy who, upon finally making his way back home, discovers that he’s being sold online. Dear GoDaddy, I hate you and your asinine commercials. Stop trying to be edgy, ‘kay? Okay.)
Oh! And don’t forget the Nissan commercial about the NASCAR driver who is a crappy father but then makes up for it by showing up at his son’s school in a new car.
My boyfriend actually paid more attention to the game than the commercials, which is like totally the wrong way to do the Super Bowl if you ask me. But, for the record, his favorite ad was the Victoria’s Secret Super Bowl commercial. I’m just happy that he got something out of the game.
Anyway, here are my 6 top Super Bowl commercials.
6) Liam Neeson for Clash of Clans
I really don’t know much about Clash of Clans but this commercial made me laugh because this is how I’ve always imagined Liam Neeson passes the time between Taken movies.
This is actually one of the few car commercials that I actually enjoyed. Pierce is aging well and appears to have a pretty good sense of humor about how his career will always be defined by James Bond.
Everyone was so traumatized by the Nationwide Dead Kid commercial that the Invisible Mindy commercial kinda got lost in the shuffle. That’s a shame because it’s actually pretty clever. What really made the commercial, for me, was the Matt Damon cameo at the end. It was appropriate because Mindy first came to prominence when she and a friend wrote and performed a play called “Ben and Matt,” which told the story of Matt’s bromance with Ben Affleck.
Have you ever rewatched a film that you remembered as being pretty great just to then be totally shocked to discover that it really wasn’t even that good?
It’s happened to me more times than I care to count. Often times, it seems like the films that have the most immediate impact on us are the same films that, in a matter of weeks, we often end up forgetting. My personal theory is that these films are so designed to make an immediate impact that there’s often little room for the subtext that would be necessary for a movie to actually linger in the mind. These are the type of films that we remember enjoying but it’s often a struggle for us to explain why we thought it was great. (“Oh my God,” we say, “it was such a great movie!” and then we leave it at that.) When we do get around to watching the film for a second time, we’re often left slightly disappointed. Now that we know what’s coming, the film no longer has as much of an impact.
It happens all the time and I hate it. That is why, often times, I find myself dreading the second viewing. Will the film still work the second time or will it turn out that the film only truly works when viewed with virgin eyes?
That’s one reason why I was feeling a bit of trepidation about rewatching The Lego Movie when it showed up on HBO this month. After all, I loved the Lego Movie when it was originally released earlier this year. As soon as I got home from seeing it at the Alamo Drafthouse, I jumped on twitter and tweeted out, “EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!” For the past few months, I’ve been telling everyone that the Lego Movie was great.
But was it really?
Of course, everyone knows what The Lego Movie was about. President Business (Will Ferrell) is seen by the residents of the Lego Universe as being a benevolent ruler but actually, he’s an insecure control freak who enforces strict conformity and who is planning to use a mysterious weapon known as the Kragle to rob everyone of free will and imagination. A group of rebels — known as the Master Builders and led by Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) — hope to stop him. According to Vitruvius, a chosen one will defeat President Business and, to everyone’s surprise, the Chosen One turns out to be a cheerfully ordinary construction worker named Emmett (Chris Pratt).
There were so many things that I remembered loving about the Lego Movie.
I loved the voice work done by the film’s talented cast. Along with the perfectly selected Ferrell, Freeman, and Pratt, the cast also includes: Will Arnett as a hilariously pretentious Lego Batman, Elizabeth Banks as the rebellious Wyldstyle, Liam Neeson as Bad Cop, the always brilliant Nick Offerman as a pirate called Metal Beard, Charlie Day as a “space guy,” and Alison Brie as my favorite character, Unikitty (a unicorn/kitty hybrid, and who wouldn’t want to own one of those?). And, of course, there were also cameos from Channing Tatum as Superman and Jonah Hill as a hilariously obsequious Green Lantern. I remembered that all of these actors had done great work, bringing very vivid life to their characters.
And I remembered that all of the actors were aided by a script that was full of funny lines and clever bits of satire. I remembered loving the enthusiastic way that Charlie Day talked about making a spaceship. I loved Will Arnett’s pretentious hipster posturing. I loved the way that Chris Pratt could deliver a line like, “I understand what you’re saying but could you repeat it again because I wasn’t listening?” I loved Liam Neeson switching back and forth from being the ruthless Bad Cop and the painfully nice Good Cop. And most of all, I loved Morgan Freeman. Freeman, of course, is known for having the most God-like voice in the movies and, in this movie, he delivers even the most over-the-top dialogue with a calm and soothing authority.
And I loved the song Everything Is Awesome, an earworm if there ever was one!
And finally, I remembered that — as funny as The Lego Movie was — it also made me cry. The theme of being yourself and going your own way is a common one but the Lego Movie expressed it with such sincerity that it was impossible for me not to be moved as if I was hearing it for the very first time.
So, as I lay down to rewatch the Lego Movie, I asked myself if the movie would live up to my memories.
Well, guess what?
EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!
The Lego Movie is just as good on subsequent viewings than on the first! So, if you somehow haven’t watched it, then watch it now. And if you have watched it, watch it again!
With 2014 rapidly coming to a close, I am currently trying to get caught up on some of the movies that I either missed seeing or did not get a chance to review earlier this year. After all, in just another month and a half, it’ll be time for me to make out my “Best Of the Year List” and I want to have as many options as possible.
With that in mind, I just finished watching Liam Neeson in Non-Stop, an action-suspense film that came out way back in February.
In Non-Stop, Liam Neeson plays Bill Marks. It’s interesting to note that Bill Marks has the same initials as Bryan Mills, the very specifically trained CIA agent that Neeson plays in the Taken films. And really, Bill Marks might as well Bryan Mills because Neeson pretty much gives the exact same performance in Non-Stop that he previously gave in Taken. That’s not necessarily a criticism. There’s a reason why Liam keeps getting cast in these type of roles. He’s good at them.
In fact, I would say that Liam Neeson is one of the few action stars who I can imagine actually killing someone in real life (though only if he had to). He has a rugged, world-weary cynicism about him. You look into the eyes of a character played by Liam Neeson and you realize that he’s had to do things that you probably don’t want to know anything about. At the same time, Neeson also projects a certain old-fashioned decency as well. He’s the epitome of a decent man forced to use bad methods for the good of us all.
As for Non-Stop, I imagine it was probably pitched as being “Taken on a plane.” Bill Marks is an air marshal who is on board a non-stop flight from New York to London. Shortly after the plane takes off, he starts to receive mysterious text messages telling him that, unless he arranges for a 150 million dollar ransom to be paid into a specific bank account, someone on the plane will die every 20 minutes. While Bill tries to discover who is sending him the text messages and various people on the plane die, the authorities on the ground are convinced that Bill is hijacking the plane. Why? Well, mostly because the bank account is in Bill’s name…
That’s right! Somebody’s trying to frame Bill Marks! Can Bill — with the help of a passenger played by Julianne Moore — figure out who is trying to frame him and why? I have to admit that there was a part of me that was hoping that it would turn out that Bill really was the mastermind behind the whole scheme but instead, the movie offers up a solution that is even more ludicrous and illogical. Naturally, there’s a twist. The hijacking is not what it originally appears to be. Perhaps if Non-Stop itself was more fun, the total implausibility of the twist wouldn’t bother me.
Director Juame Collet-Serra (who previously directed Neeson in Unknown) manages a few good action sequence but, ultimately, Non-Stop is really saved only be the presence of Liam Neeson. Regardless of how implausible or silly the film may get, Neeson always brings a lot of authority to his role. He’s never more convincing than when he’s walking up and down the aisles, glaring at the passengers and barking out orders.
It’s the type of performance that leaves us assured that the world will be safe as long as Liam Neeson is around to kill people.
Why are bad guys still messing with Liam Neeson…I mean Bryan Mills. He literally took on an Albanian gang in Paris (of all places) who were kidnapping young, female tourists to sell to Parisian sex-slave auctioneer who only did business with a very exclusive clientele. Then the hometown relatives of said Albanian gangsters tried to take him out. That didn’t work out so well.
Now, this coming January just when Bryan thought his life as a retired government worker with a unique set of skills can finally enjoy retirement with his lovely daughter and rekindle his relationship with his ex-wife people are out to be quite the killjoy once again.
Taken 3 will see Liam Neeson back as Bryan Mills, Maggie Grace as his daughter Kimmy and joined by Forest Whitaker as an LAPD inspector tasked with taking him down for a murder he didn’t commit. Once again this sequel will be helmed by that French director with the awesome name: Olivier Megaton.
Some people say Taken 3 (will not call it Tak3n) is just a rehash of The Fugitive, but I disagree. Richard Kimble never broke people’s throats and shot many people in their heads to find those responsible. The throat breaking alone puts Bryan Mills heads above Richard Kimble.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Through the Shattered Lens 