Suicide Squad

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

Somewhere there's an alternate universe where alternate me didn't previously know about Suicide Squad's last minute re-shoots. Or that, for a time, there were two competing cuts of the film that stemmed from WB's anxiety over the critical response to BvS. One cut was of director David Ayer's grimmer original vision, the other was a lighter and more colorful ode to the well-received (and outstanding) trailers from earlier this year. But once I knew about them, it was hard not to see it. A victim of the struggle between the grimdark that WB had initially embraced for the DCCU and the lighter fun that moviegoers turned out to actually want, Suicide Squad is a confused and conflicted offering whose back-and-forth tonal disparities hurt an otherwise engaging flick.

The final cut is a mix of the two that were screened for test audiences, plus bits from the re-shoots, and that shows in choices that might not have been so odd if not for their placement together. In one moment, Enchantress is darkly conjuring her doomsday weapon while ominous music swells, in another she's shimmying her shoulders while monologuing for Amanda Waller. Meanwhile, El Diablo, a metahuman with pyrokinesis, states at various points that his powers came "from the Devil," but it's still jarring when he turns into an enormous literal fire demon in the climax. And a few members of the Squad get two different introductions, one loving and indulgent with lots of neon highlights, the other grimmer and stingier on time.

I don't know which cut deserves credit for the soundtrack. We should probably just thank Guardians of the Galaxy.

Despite the tonal problems, Squad soars with some excellent character work. Ayer and the actors push through limited screen time to outline some decent motivations and the film allows just enough space to showcase some strong personalities (it's almost like they're out of a comic book). Please excuse the bullet points.

• Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was a worry for me going in because Harley is one of my favorite characters in comics and I recommend Amanda Conner's run on her book to anyone who will listen, but Robbie brings all of Harley's charm to the screen without making us sick of her. Actually, Squad could've used more of her. I had also worried, based on the marketing (and Hollywood's preoccupations) that Harley's ass would be at least as prominent a character as the rest of her. Her ass is certainly present, but not as much as I had anticipated. Still, it could take a backseat (I see what I did there) in her solo movie... or her team-up movie with Poison Ivy.
• I have personal problems with Jared Leto. I might explain those problems in writing one day. Until then, I will remember that he had the fearlessness to follow Ledger. And that the Joker's aesthetic probably wasn't entirely up to him (I don't see Joker sitting still long enough to get tattoos, do you?). And though he seemed to try too hard to put his own spin on the character, somewhere around the Ace Chemicals flashback, he had me buying in. The Joker-Harley relationship is horrifying and tragic. The romanticization of it is creepy and a bad-read and diminishes Harley. The spirit of that weirdly engrossing relationship is here, poking up through the rushed backstory. It's a highlight of the film. But then I recall Leto's moronic pranks during filming and I'm back to rolling my eyes. People will like you more if you stop trying so hard, Jared Leto. 
• Will Smith is impressive as Deadshot. 
• I didn't know much about Jay Hernandez or El Diablo going in, but his emotional trauma provided a nice touchstone, while also grounding a character that would've been crazy overpowered for this team. 
• Joel Kinnaman had a tough act following Tom Hardy's departure, but he holds up well in a role that could've been little more than hard-ass military dude trying to boss around a bunch of comic book villains. However, I wonder if either cut of the film had June Moone stay dead following Rick Flag's killing of Enchantress, adding meaning to that sacrifice. Still, I'll look on the bright side: Moone wasn't fridged. 
• Finally, holy shit Viola Davis. A movie that's not trying would depict Amanda Waller as a stoic government agent with access to a lot of important secrets. But Waller requires presence. She requires unspoken authority. She requires awe-inspiring dread and a Machiavellian will to play anyone and everyone like a fiddle until she doesn't need them to play anymore. Batman should be a little afraid of Waller. So I shouldn't need to tell you how gratifying it is to see that Davis nails the Wall. I know that Bruce Wayne/Batman is supposed to be the connective tissue for the DCCU, but that role could just as easily fall to Waller. And I kind of want it to.

Not all characters get the lingering lamp shade treatment. It's a very large cast. And I'd like to spend more time with each of them. The ones who are still alive, anyway.

I liked this movie. But I wanted to really, really, really like this movie. And that, I believe, is the DCCU's primary hurdle right now. The bulk of the audience for these movies was given grandiose adventures by the DCAU of the 90's and early 00's. Add in what Marvel's done with their properties in recent years and it's easy to see how an underwhelming movie becomes OMG TEH WORST MOVIE EVAR!!!1!!

If this sounds a lot like my thoughts following BvS, it's because I feel the same now as I did then: this is going to be a process and I'm willing to stomach some growing pains if the larger universe can grow in the right direction. There are some great elements here. In addition to Batman and Wonder Woman, we now have Harley, Waller, Deadshot, and the Flash. Meanwhile, Squad largely ditches BvS's cynicism. And while the tonal problems keep the movie from achieving more, the fact that WB is shifting its direction so openly, if also awkwardly, is a good sign.

Grade: B-

The Returned

This is the state I find the country in upon my return? Trump. Jon Stewart retired. Lemmy, Bowie, and Prince dead. Trump.

What were you guys doing while I was gone? Come on, I go away for just... fifty-nine weeks? Wow. That's a long time. Okay, maybe we've all been letting each other down a little.

There's a lot to catch up on, most of it stupid. But in the interest of being excellent to each other, I'm going to try for a quick wrap-up of some of the easier to digest bits from the last several months. (Not the election, though--not yet. I still can't manage to keep that down.)

Batman v Superman/DC on Film  
I gave most of my thoughts on this on the podcast. But just to sum up: Affleck was fantastic (cautious optimism pays off!), Gadot was damn-near a revelation, while Superman (and most everything else) was... Snyder-ific. I don't know how Zack Snyder got that job. More importantly, I still don't know how DC/WB subs him out for Affleck, who can bring more to a film than interesting action choreography. Your ambition to be the smarter Marvel is a perfectly fine one, DC--if you can pull it off. But thirty minutes of interesting thematic building cannot give way to a punch-fest that is pointless, devoid of character, and unjustified even within the scope of a thin story.

Zack Snyder as a child. Also as an adult.

The up-shot is that DC/WB has too much invested to pull out now, so they'll get a couple of shots to do it right. Suicide Squad later this year and Wonder Woman next year, followed by Aquaman. You can read a lot of negatives into the reshoots and the insistences that future movies will be more fun: desperation, for example. But the first step toward fixing a problem is admitting there is one. And I choose to believe that, somewhere, a tiny voice is shouting at DC/WB execs, urging them to right their ship.

Keep listening to those voices, guys. They'll serve you well. As Silby said on the podcast, Harley Quinn, you're our only hope. Luckily, she's a damn good character to hang your hopes on.

The Cubs
Last year was so much simpler. It was one of the most exciting seasons Wrigley has seen in a long, long, long time: 97 wins, the third best record in baseball, a drive to the NLCS behind a young team with a super-chill manager in his first year with the club. It didn't even matter that they didn't pull it out in the end because they weren't even supposed to have gotten that far. Not that soon, anyway. Then they had that so-unbelievable-it-became-funny winter. And now this year...

Yes, it's exciting as hell, I know. But I could do without the talk of how historic the 2016 Cubs have been to this point. I could do without the expectations. And the heart palpitations. It's only May. I know this franchise. I know that if any team could win 120 games with a run differential of +400 and then get swept in the NLDS, it's this one. It's only May. There's a lot of baseball left to play... too much.

I still have hope, of course. Always will. And this team has more than earned that hope (that they've struggled the last few weeks against bad teams while beating up on the good ones helps remind me that underneath it all, they're still the Cubbies). But I've been on this ride before--and I'm not sure that I've ever seen it go this fast. Because their ticket for October might already be punched...

And it's only May.

America Beer
Okay, now we need to talk about something that is deeply stupid. Something that is deeply insulting. Something that will be with us at least until November. You think I'm going to make a joke about the election here, don't you? I'm not. There'll be time for that later. Anyway, this is probably worse.

What the hell, Anheuser-Busch In-Bev?! No, shut up a minute. I don't actually care--that was rhetorical. Stop it. Just stop... everything. Ideally, everything you do would just stop but I'll settle for you not wrapping your iced stormwater runoff in a flag that's already had too much done to it in the last few months.

Used to be, they'd settle for slapping some stars and stripes to the can or bottle some time between Memorial Day and the Fourth (a lot of breweries have long done this, even some very good ones). That was fine, it was subtle. It didn't have to mean anything. But this country doesn't do subtle anymore. This time, they've dragged the very name into the slop, affixing the word right on the can: America. It can't be ignored anymore.

If a person walks into a bar and orders "an America," a thoughtful bartender will slide a ridiculously large glass of bourbon their way and all would be well. If the thought occurred to make the request a beer, I don't know, maybe something that's still American-owned, that takes chances and doesn't try to please everybody? Isn't that how we like to see ourselves? There are a lot of good options in that direction. But if the person orders "an America" and is expecting a Budweiser (he (and it'll be a he) will be wearing some combination of a visor, aviators, a polo shirt, and a smirk that says he knows what he's doing is pissing people off, but otherwise why get up in the morning?), a thoughtful bartender will shut the establishment down until the bar patrons and wider community can overcome the douche-chill shockwave.

There's an easy line here about me loving America more than In-Bev does. I mean, I do. Most everybody does; it's a low bar. That a Belgian company would use the name "America" to enhance the already-bloated brand of a watered-down slap in the face to Bavarian/Czech tradition probably says more about early 21st Century geopolitics than I'm capable of parsing. But, like Trump, it's not the fountainhead that concerns me: it's the people who will lap it up, ensuring we'll be dealing with this again next year. And the year after. Until "America" replaces "Budweiser" entirely and we'll all look at ourselves, not quite sure when we hitched our star to the wrong wagon, but picking up on the unshakable sense that alcohol had something to do with it.

It's good to be back, everybody.

Revisiting The Dark Knight Rises

Two years ago, I watched and reviewed The Dark Knight Rises. Now, removed from the hype and most of the emotion, I look at it again.

Even if the rest of this movie sucked, it earns points for Tommy Carcetti/Littlefinger being the CIA agent at the beginning of the movie. The fact the neither of them could charm/connive their way past Bane is enough to make him worthy as a villain.

People, for whatever reason, don't like Anne Hathaway and I truly don't get that. Because she trades on affectations and haughtiness, I guess? Have these people never met actors before? Is Hathaway supposed to hide her true self? Not everyone can be Jennifer Lawrence. And, frankly, Lawrence is far too relatable and endearing for me not to be suspicious. Anyway, the only thing wrong with Hathaway's Catwoman is the heels, and that wasn't really her call. People who aren't won over by the information-trading scene in the bar were never going to cotton to this character.

John Blake knows who Batman is from the beginning (he even has a suspicion that Bats was involved in the death of Harvey Dent). In a movie where every other character gets nine minutes of exposition, we're just supposed to accept that Blake recognizes another orphan and correctly pegs him as Batman. You know what would've been amazing? An honest, effective cop like John Blake hunting down the Batman. The Dark Knight sets that story up and it's completely abandoned here. Yeah, he's been retired for eight years, but what if Blake is on the heels of Bruce Wayne, heightening the drama of his decision to put the cowl back on? You can keep Bane and most everything else, but what if Batman actually had to face the music? It's hard not to feel like the first two movies pointed that way, before the third opted for a standard super-villain plot.

Thomas Lennon plays the doctor who examines Bruce. He was also the doctor in Memento. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to imagine that he's the same character and that all of Christopher Nolan's movies take place in the same universe. Lennon does, anyway, and that's good enough for me.

Did this need to be another city-wide hostage movie? I get that you need a big threat for the final act, but note that the strongest movie of the trilogy is the one that doesn't threaten to blow up Gotham. And I also get the desire to bring this back around to the beginning with the League of Shadows, which wants Gotham reduced to rubble. But somewhere in here, there's a smaller, more intimate story to be told about the breakdown of the victorious--if compromised--Batman, against whom a shattered, weakened organization seeks to enact its swan song revenge. If you're thinking that's too bleak and too small scale for a summer blockbuster, I'd counter that it's also too bleak and too small scale for an Oscar bait stab-all-hope-to-death movie. It's not that I don't love the gritty reboot of the "some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" sequence (because I do), but Batman almost works best on the margins, without hype and without earth-shattering spectacle. In the dark, if you will.

Revisiting Bane's voice: the real problem is the inconsistency. In scenes like the plane heist or the speech out front of Blackgate, he's fine. But during the hit at the stock exchange, for example, it's like Sean Connery hepped up on painkillers. And it's especially a shame because Tom Hardy comes off genuinely imposing throughout his performance.

As long as we're talking about incoherence: Gordon's speech about institutions becoming shackles is almost entirely incomprehensible to me. Which is too bad because it sounds nice. But he whispers most of it over Hans Zimmer's characteristically bombastic soundtrack before transitioning into a yell at the end of it. It's an odd transition. And it seems so unlike Gary Oldman to make weird choices with his words.

Lastly, Bruce should've died. I mean, obviously, he can't hide anywhere in the world and his means for escaping are pretty meagerly defined. But even apart from that, there's an indulgent aspect of his surviving the blast. It worked for me at the time, but two years later, it just feels like the filmmakers are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Once again, there seem to be few real consequences to Bruce's decision to be Batman, a thematic decision that might work for some superhero stories, but this series has gone out of its way to underline that vigilantism casts some very dark shadows.

This dichotomy extends to Blake's inheritance of the cowl. While Robin's Blake's fate relies on the imagination of the viewer, a trilogy that took pains to outline the downsides of vigilantism can hardly expect to be able to promote any excitement around a potential new Batman. I wonder if Nolan & Co. were aiming for fan indulgence, rather than trying to make a lasting statement. At the end of a popularly received trilogy, it's hard not to take the bait of rewarding one's fans, but when you've made your bones on gritty realism plausibility, this ending is just too easy. I don't know what the answer is. Kill Batman outright? We could completely upend most of the story as I slip into fan fiction mode, but neither you or I want to go through that (short version: Bruce doesn't rehabilitate after his fight with Bane, but is found by Blake, who helps him strategize from the cave to help the cops fight the League of Shadows; maybe Batman shows up in an exoskeleton suit, ala Kingdom Come). As a broad arc, it fits the character nicely--take everything away from him, give him the worst possible situation, and he still Batmans his way out of it--but it almost belongs to another, less self-serious take on the character.

Previous grade: A
New grade: B

I still like it. And though it's the weakest of the three, I can watch the full trilogy without feeling like it goes out on a sour note (Rises was never going to top its predecessor). But without needing to love it like I did in 2012, an ending that seemed like it had struck a perfect balance before plays a little muddled to me now. A few flat notes among some strong, undeniably Batmany work hurt the film but don't drag it down entirely. Overall, it's a strong enough series that I don't need another Batman film ever again.

Not that I would refuse one...

Snowpiercer

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Snowpiercer is the closest thing the world will ever see to a Bioshock movie. And in all likelihood, it works even better than a straight adaptation ever would. Director Joon-ho Bong presents forth a fairly straightforward journey from the tail of a train to the head of it that's never less than visually fascinating. Meanwhile, the simplicity of that forward momentum provides plenty of room for a story that is at turns gruesome, darkly funny, infuriating, and heart-wrenching.

Seventeen years after the world's botched attempt to reverse climate change, the last of our species is stuck aboard a perpetual momentum train, traveling across a dead and frozen Earth. A long, steel box houses a few drops of human decency struggling against the most corrupted, degraded tendencies of our species. The difference between the two factions doesn't even have the courtesy to be distinguishable by class, which, while clearly demarcated, does not necessarily confer morality or decency on one side or the other (the citizens of the tail come off slightly better, if only because they have the misfortune to be aware of their miserable lives while the well-off citizens of the head thrive in ignorance of those consigned to the rear cars). These would be somewhat less bleak equations, if the occupants of the train didn't also happen to be the last of humankind.

Chris Evans' Curtis leads a team of rebels to take the engine of the train. Car by car, they fight for the dignity of their comrades in the tail and the children that are, now and again, taken to help run the engine. They bloodily force their way out of the slums of the tail, through the kitchen (where they learn what their food is made from), and into the opulent digs of the upper class, which includes a terrifying indoctrination center for the children of the head, where Curtis guns down a delightfully repugnant Tilda Swinton.

I'm not sure when exactly I started thinking that Joon-ho Bong was perfect for a theoretical Bioshock adaptation, but by the time Curtis and his surviving rebels are making their way through the upper class cars at the front of the train--decadent, beautifully-appointed, totally at odds with the way people in an enclosed and delicate ecosystem should be able to live--I realized this was that adaptation. And it's not too long before Ed Harris' Andrew Ryan Wilford shows up, completing the parallel. Snowpiercer, happily, chooses to end not long after killing its mad god-king.

Instead, it turns out that Curtis' revolution is just the most recent in a long line of orchestrated uprisings to maintain the delicate balance of population and resources. Curtis, at least for a time, was being led by the very forces he was trying to undermine (would you kindly...). Realizing that there is no future for the people in the tail, or any hope for any interruption to the rotten status quo, Curtis opts for the last best hope. And instead of a scavenger hunt and a disappointing boss battle, we get an uplifting sequence in which the train crashes and a couple of surviving children stumble out into the cold, spying a polar bear in the distance (which I think symbolizes good eatin').

There's a balancing act to a story that relies on humankind being its worst. In particular, it's difficult to stick the landing in a satisfying way. It can be all too easy to close out on a hopelessly bleak note or go for the contrived and improbable hopeful ending. Bioshock gave players a choice between the two. Snowpiercer wisely opts for the least crushing finale possible. Yona and Tim (seventeen and five, respectively, with little-to-know working knowledge of the planet they've never set foot on) are not set up very well. And it's only a few lines of dialogue spoken twenty minutes before the end that gives the audience any hope for the Earth itself having any hope for survival. But they've survived the train--no great environment for a kid--and, if Curtis' uprising represents anything, it's that a chance of a hope is better than giving in. At least there's some humanity in that.

Grade: A

Read This And Get a Free Thing

A few quick items, while they're on my brain.

• I reviewed Doorman's pilot a while back. I said at the time that I hoped you could watch it one day. Well, now you can. It's here and it's good and it's ten minutes long. Come on, you don't have ten minutes? You have ten minutes. 
• In my bookmarks tab, I have a subfolder marked "Blog material." I've touched that subfolder probably twice since last April. On my more recent visit, I rediscovered the (increasingly popular) webcomic Strong Female Protagonist. It's one of the more interesting takes on superherodom going anywhere in fiction right now. The dialogue gets a little heavy-handed and moralizing, but I'm not in a position to criticize someone else on that point, am I? 
• Oh right, this is where I tell you to get your copy of Nos Populus. And then you can like it on Facebook. You know, if you want. No pressure.
• Back in September, I predicted a Denver-Seattle Super Bowl. I probably shouldn't get to brag about that, but this is the first time to my memory that I've successfully predicted both Super Bowl teams. Basically, I'm now qualified to be a sportsball expert guy. I should learn how to get paid for this. Anyway, most would stick with their guns, but I have no faith in my guns. Adjusting my previous pick, I'm calling: Seattle over Denver, 28-20.

So, that's it for now. Your free thing? I just gave you several. Were you expecting a car? That was never realistic. Part of you knew that, didn't it? But you had stuck with your fanciful dream. And now we're both unhappy.

The Disaster Artist

"I'll do my own project and it will be better than everybody else. You think this movie we just saw was tragedy? No. Not even close. I will make tragedy. People will see my project and... you know what? They will not sleep for two weeks. They will be completely shocked. You watch."
-- Tommy Wiseau, per The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made, by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell 

I'm not going to try to explain The Room. Because I can't. Anyone who claims they can adequately explain the film in less time than it takes to watch it is lying. But as a psychological case study meets film-making how-not-to crash course, The Disaster Artist is worthwhile. At the very least, it's entertaining.

Greg Sestero is a struggling actor and much-too loyal and forgiving friend, which, combined, help to explain how a good-hearted guy with potential and a wild dream fell into the orbit of Tommy Wiseau and thenceforth into The Room. First brought on as a line producer, Sestero eventually inherits the role of "the Mark," best friend and cuckold-maker to Wiseau's protagonist "Johnny." With ghostwriter Tom Bissell, Sestero spins a yarn of the inept production of a bad movie and a decade-long friendship with the incomprehensible Wiseau. 

Alternating chapters are dedicated to Sestero's stop-start acting career. These chapters make for a decent story and the reader feels for his frustrations, but they are fraught with a burning question: Where's Tommy?

Luckily, Tommy is never more than a page or two away from calling Sestero, or showing up at the apartment he's let to Sestero, or moving in with Sestero. All the while, Wiseau manipulates the poor kid (at least twenty years his junior, though no one's totally sure of Wiseau's true age, likely not even Wiseau himself) into hanging out with him--and no one else, ever--or indulging him in his self-evidently awful "feature movie" project. These traits--the manipulation, the neediness, the pitiable misconceptions about himself and the world around him--veer from funny to sad to terrifying at a pace that leaves the reader marveling at Sestero's hardiness.

The world has plenty of people who exhibit these behaviors, of course, but few of them have a bank account that an uncircumspect teller would describe as "a bottomless pit." However and whenever he attained his fortune (Half-Drunken theory: Tommy Wiseau is an exiled heir to the Habsburg throne, allowed to keep his money in exchange for never returning to Austria), he has been insulated from ever having to embrace anything like reality. Sestero calls The Room a testament to "unrelenting drive and determination," proof that a dream--however ill-concieved--can be made real. But it helps a lot when you're able to put up six million dollars of your own money to ensure that that dream is realized.

And by all appearances, Wiseau believed that The Room would be a genuine masterpiece, a modern day Sunset Boulevard, a comparison Sestero makes in regard to his relationship with Wiseau, except that Norma Desmond's pretensions to talent and fame weren't entirely delusional. It's hard to know what he'd make of this book. Or the title. But when his film continues to make money hand over fist, it's hard to tell him otherwise. It's not Avatar, but people on multiple continents continue to line up to see The Room--and convince their friends to join them--in a way they don't for films that they think are well-made. Blame my generation's love affair with irony (though I'd argue that many people's love for The Room punches straight through irony, passing into total sincerity), but Tommy Wiseau has done very well for himself, if not for the reasons he might think.

There's a lost chance toward the end of Disaster Artist, when the world premiere of The Room brings Wiseau's dream to life, to explain how that first small, cobbled together audience interpreted the film and how it shifted from that into the cult hit acknowledged in the introduction. All we get is a beaming, tearful Wiseau and a dashed-off "proud of you, buddy" from a guy who's spent the previous 300 pages catering to everything that the cult is dying know. But maybe that's not Sestero's story to tell. As he observes, "The magic of The Room derives from one thing: no one interprets the world the way Tommy Wiseau does."

Wiseau is a perfect little mystery: an indeterminate origin, an unfounded self-confidence, a palpable disconnect with human experience; the money might help explain those last two things but where did that come from? Sestero takes a stab at unpacking the mystery, outfitting Wiseau with a thin biography informed by vague, sparse, and largely unverifiable facts. This biography does provide an plausible source for The Room's funding, but the explanation for how that money was generated is not a tidy one, by Sestero's admission.

The Room should be some kind of Kaufman-esque hoax (Half-Drunken theory: Tommy Wiseau is Andy Kaufman), but if it were a hoax, we'd know. Wouldn't we? No parody could be this perfect; we'd see the strings. There'd have to be some kind of wink to the audience. But there isn't. The Disaster Artist seals it--this movie really, somehow, was allowed to happen. Real human beings experienced and endured Tommy Wiseau in all his paranoia, poor judgment, and financial schizophrenia (sometimes a miser, sometimes spending lavishly and nonsensically).

Tommy Wiseau exists and the way he interacts with the world is every bit as bizarre as fans would suspect, while simultaneously so disappointingly benign. He wears his insecurities on his sleeve, making for an awkward obsessive whose every short coming is telegraphed. And his failure to assimilate is not through a lack of trying; at heart, he's more American than you or I. Wiseau is not a mad villain, just mad. And if The Room brings joy to audiences, he can't be a totally awful filmmaker. Just kind of an awful filmmaker.

The Room is still a terrible movie, after all.

Grade: B+

Bat-Affleck (at least it's not Nic Cage)

(via Modern Myth Media)

Okay, to be as fair as possible about this, shut up. Everyone just... shut up and let me think.

Deep breath... here we go. 

Ben Affleck really should've been behind the camera for Batman. We were denied that chance already. But by taking a promising if flawed Man of Steel franchise and throwing Batman into the mix immediately--all because Marvel has them chasing ghosts--DC/WB is already risking one unforced error. Might as well follow through.

Argo. The Town. State of Play. As stated, he's a better director than actor, but we decided that he had redeemed himself. We agreed to that as a society, didn't we? We let Matt Damon off the hook years ago. Scroll down Affleck's IMDb and realize how long its been since he deserved our derision. And by the way, Affleck is not what was wrong with Daredevil. Not that you or anyone has ever given a shit about Daredevil. He's a poor man's Batman who somehow got a movie in an era when studios still didn't know what they were doing with superhero movies. It was 2003--they were just throwing whatever they had at the screen, not really caring if it would stick. 

Maybe I'm hedging, fooling myself into believing that this won't fall flat on its face. Maybe it will, in which case, we still have the Nolan trilogy, unharmed. And here I remind myself of my reaction when Heath Ledger got Joker. Yes, it was a different (better) director who made that call, but we can't always see how these things play out.

All I know is that I'd really like to hear Affleck's Batman voice before I rule on this one.

Doorman review

Full disclosure: I donated $20 to the Indiegogo for this project. I also stand to gain nothing from it's potential success, save some measure of pride. So take this review as you will. 

A person toiling much below the upper-middle class strata assumes a sponge-like experience, absorbing abuse and humiliation as an understood aspect of earning room and board on this cosmic rock of ours. Some among us use that fodder to fuel outside projects that, at bottom, provide a catharsis and a bonding point with our fellow drones. At the other end, a select few create something like art. Doorman is closer to the latter.

It's hard to do a spoiler-free review of a ten minute film. So if this seems short, there's the reason. The Doorman project is best understood as a pilot, introducing the world to the filmic version of Doorman's truly excellent blog, with more to follow, should the festival scene prove fair. The pilot is funny, stuffed with pathos, and even features a touch of redemption toward the end--the kind of minor, fleeting victory that provides working slobs with just enough energy to keep us coming back for more. Minor nitpick: that redemption comes a bit too easily. But within the time constraints, Doorman gives the story all the breathing room he can. The blog has too much material for a feature length, so one must temper expectations (and I would watch a three-hour epic of this).

In a world stocked with Sharknadoes and Adam Sandler's Fuck It, They're Paying Us Anyway 2, it's beyond refreshing to get a project that has a more than a few sprigs of heart thrown in. You can't watch it yet. But I hope one day you can.

Grade: A-

Man of Steel

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Man of Steel: in which Hollywood continues to insist on re-telling origin stories. I don't want to lean too hard on this point, as the temptation to re-tell Superman's iconic origin story must be strong, if only because it's the most obvious way to get the audience to identify with a character, something that's hard for Superman generally. And MOS handles Superman's origin reasonably well, but as with The Amazing Spider-Man before it, even when done well (and this is the most thorough film adaptation of the end of Krypton and Clark's youth in Kansas, narrowly beating out Superman: The Movie), there's a distinct feeling of deja-vu that brings the pacing to a crawl.

This origin has been told a thousand times. Grant Morrison told it in one surprisingly poignant page in All-Star Superman. Mark Waid's excellent Superman: Birthright tells the whole story with pathos, managing to fit the brunt of Superman mythology into a psychologically-realistic package. Some small examples: MOS ends with Clark getting hired at the Daily Planet, with no mention of a journalism background; S:B has Clark working as a reporter before becoming Superman is ever a thought in his head. S:B also features Clark fleshing out his identities (Superman and bumbling Clark Kent) with John and Martha, the Kents studying acting and costume design and working out all the kinks of Clark's plan before he goes and does it; MOS has Clark receive his costume whole cloth from the ghost of his dead Kryptonian father.

Side note: I wasn't a fan of them killing off Jonathan Kent again, and especially not a fan of Clark accepting that that was how it was supposed to be because he "trusted" his father; a personal thing, just rang false to me.

Now, are these metrics not fair because I've read the source materials? Yeah, probably.

But as though to apologize for treading old water, director Zack Snyder does what he was hired to do--the action in MOS much improved from the deeply disappointing Superman Returns. Especially worth highlighting is Superman's battle with Zod's lieutenants in Smallville, which earns special attention as perhaps the most exciting fight scene in recent superhero history. Many reviewers have focused on the relative lack of heart of the second half of MOS, and that's fair, because even viscerally exciting action will lose its soul if it goes on too long--something that Snyder can and will do unapologetically; he levels Metropolis with surprisingly little pathos. But at least this action is something new for the character on film. This is what we wanted after SR and Snyder doesn't disappoint.

But when the action is done, we're left with the character we were introduced to and kind of like (he is saving our asses, that helps) but, like the people he protects, we still don't really know him. He's not as accessible as Iron Man, not as fantasy-worthy as Batman. The focus on his Kryptonian backstory comes at the expense of Clark the human being (Ghost Jor-El tells him that he is equally from Earth and Krypton, which gives short stick to the place he was raised in and planet he identifies with); the Kryptonian aspect should be largely superficial not just because that makes the most sense psychologically, but because it's what makes us like him. We Superman fans revere Clark, not Kal-El. Warner Bros. is almost certainly going to expect sequels and the "who" of Superman has time to be fleshed out, but that needed to be done here, especially given a worldwide audience that has no innate reverence for the character. Henry Cavill mines a few moments of likability, despite a grin that often looks too much like a smirk; I'd love to see what he can do with a deeper script.

A related point: We know Superman wants to protect us, not dominate us; motivation is what makes him the hero and Zod the villain (quick word: Michael Shannon is a lot of fun in the villain role). And that's important because that knowledge is the difference between Superman and Nietzschean Superman for the viewer (that goes for superheroes in general, actually). But it's easy to identify with General Swanwick at the end of the film; this guy is asking us to trust him, when we don't know him. In light of the news out of the NSA these past weeks, could we trust him? Should we? MOS never gets into that, save a cameo from a Predator drone (funny: Gen. Swanwick complains about it costing $11 million dollars days after a major city is reduced to rubble). Again, probably a good basis for the sequel and that's what a character like Lex Luthor is meant to do. But a large problem for Superman the last few decades has been relative tone-deafness and I wonder how much longer his stories can afford to ignore present conditions.

Despite largely mediocre reviews, MOS is almost certainly going to warrant that sequel, if only because Warner Bros. really wants to get a jump on that Justice League project. And MOS may prove a decent base for a larger DC Universe. It's not hard, at this stage, to imagine some of the other heroes coexisting with Superman--Wonder Woman and Green Lantern in particular (watching Metropolis get flattened gives me some pause about Batman, but they're not going to attempt JL without him). However, we need a further look at this Superman first. Because for all the pretty, pretty fireworks, we've only just absorbed the first rays of yellow sunlight of why the hell we should care.

Grade: B

Iron Man 3

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

A note of praise to start, because the Iron Man franchise still earns this much: Robert Downey, Jr. is playing himself and that's a very good thing. His Tony Stark remains as endearing as he was the first time around. Iron Man 3 is funny and whimsical and comic book-y, as all the best Marvel films have been (which is to say, most of them). I'm on the record as an abiding fan of Christopher Nolan's Batman, but nobody with their head on straight wants to see that in every superhero movie. There's a bit of gloom to go around, but there's humor, too, and things end well enough for Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow. I can honestly say I didn't see willing, happy retirement in Stark's future. Sure, there will be some threat to bring Stark out of retirement (no Nolan trilogy, this), but for now, we're happy for him.

That last bit is saying something because, from my perspective, it's sometimes too hard to like Tony Stark. The quips as defense mechanisms ring too close to home for me and his ego seems often seems overly flippant for something that manifests as uncharacteristically stupid. Iron Man 2's biggest failing (aside from too much time dedicated to setting up The Avengers) was that Stark had clearly not retained any of the hard-earned lessons of the first film; he was still prone to proving his detractors right, alienating friends, and generally being a dick. We're supposed to like this guy. This time around, those lessons finally seem learned for good. Stark's voluntary retirement is a nod to a thoughtful, considerate, non-sociopathic hero who knows his limits. If When he puts the suit back on, it'll be for the world at large and not his ego; maybe a little for his ego, but the ratio will be respectable.

IM3 is also our first glimpse of a post-Avengers continuity and while I'm happy to see that all is well, I couldn't help but notice a small hangnail. Stark is experiencing panic attacks following the events of last year's team-up. And that makes sense: he nearly died and his world is now a lot bigger, which means (from Stark's perspective) that he's suddenly a lot smaller. The attacks are there briefly and then conveniently forgotten; vague enough that the filmmakers could ignore the details of a movie they probably hadn't seen by the time IM3 went into production. The attacks are referenced for a chunk of the runtime but never get bogged down in specifics, as though they were late draft callbacks. Meanwhile, IM3 gets to remind the audience that The Avengers happened and that if enough of us see this movie, we might get another (mission accomplished, I suppose). It's all... messy and unsatisfying; hopefully just an awkward step in this ongoing, ambitious project. It's hardly a devastating blow to the shared universe, but it's a fault line Marvel will have to watch for in the future.

I'm very happy to see Guy Pearce getting substantive work. The twist is ballsy (more in a minute), and requires the Aldrich Killian role to step up and fill in for what could be an irritating fake out. As usual, Pearce brought just the right level of smarmy unlikability and menace to a villain position that's been lacking thus far in the series. Despite the formidable talents of Jeff Bridges and Mickey Rourke, Iron Man's villains have remained either underwhelming (Bridges) or tacked on and under-utilized (Rourke). I don't count Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer as a villain, because he was just too damn charming. The chronic weakness in that department was good enough excuse to bring in Iron Man's one iconic villain.

The filmmakers (plus Ben Kingsley) provided a clever and probably necessary new take on the Mandarin. We were never going to get the traditional Fu Manchu-style Mandarin--it's embarrassing enough on the comics page, not to mention the risk of alienating the Chinese market--but it's hard to leave him out of the franchise. So they first make him ethnically ambiguous, and then reveal him as a false face, a flimsy lackey to a character that was effectively a non-entity in the comics. Most of the time, such a shafting of a superhero's number one antagonist would be cause for fan outrage (and it probably is getting some--I don't care enough to look), but the reveal was wisely played and, given the options the Mandarin provides, much more interesting. Though, while "Trevor" was entertaining in his own right, it was a shame to see Kingsley's menace disappear so quickly.

One question: what exactly were the rules for killing the superhuman, regenerating Extremi? Electrocution seemed to do it. Severe enough injury, as well, I guess; Killian was done in by a blow from an Extremis'd Gwyenth Paltrow, after surviving an explosion. Killing Wolverine seems less complicated.

Anyway, I hope Iron Man 4 will have the stones to use MODOK. All I want is for Tony Stark's next existential threat to be a large-headed, tiny-limbed weirdo. Is that asking so much?

Grade: B+

Video Games and Story-Telling

L.A. Noire came out a couple of years ago to well-deserved good reviews. After running out of Uncanny Valley jokes, the player discovers that the graphics of L.A. Noire are as mesmerizing as they are groundbreaking (how many games can produce gag reels?). And the experience of roaming through post-war Los Angeles is intoxicating--almost enough to guise the fact that the driving seems interminable. And the tone; my God, the tone. Unhelpful though this phrase often is, L.A. Noire is a unique experience.

I like Raymond Chandler novels and a host of other noir-related and -inspired works, so it may seem as though I'm gushing about something I was bound to love (that co-developer Rockstar Games was then coming off Red Dead Redemption was just sweet, sweet frosting). Except... I didn't love it. The above praise runs right alongside my apprehensions about the game, the things that make me hesitant to pop the disk back into my X-Box (and then the second disk... and then the third).

L.A.P.D. Detective Cole Phelps is a miserably dull antagonist, easily out-shown by insurance fraud investigator Jack Kelso. The cases, particularly on the homicide desk, quickly prove frustrating as it becomes obvious that Phelps is being strong-armed by his superiors against the player's will (more on that later). I also don't care for procedurals, which L.A. Noire unapologetically is; this is partly a personal thing, but the best noir-ish pulp fiction is as much about quirky character moments and shaggy dog yarns as it is about the mystery.

This is not a review of L.A. Noire. No one's interested in that in 2013, including me (though I'd probably give it a B/B+). My point is that every so often I play or remember a game that gets me thinking: what makes video games work, from a storytelling perspective? More importantly, what makes the cinematic ambitions of the medium fall flat? And I'm talking specifically about the story-driven games. The Angry Birds and the Fruit Ninjas, for all their addictive properties, can't be properly judged on the same metric.

Literature (novels, short stories... you know what literature is) excels at intimate character-building: motivation, psychology, thoughts. The best novels dig deep into an idea and use slowly-developed details to create a textured whole. Other storytelling mediums can do this, but not as comprehensively. Where a story on the page may relatively lack for immediacy and clear character dynamics, it still reigns as the best medium for case study-type stories.

Television, at its best, takes the long-form format of the novel and uses it to deliver detailed character relationships and paced, intricate plotting. The really good ones explore characters and themes at length and in depth over one or more seasons (Game of Thrones comes to mind, of course, but remember that David Simon conceived The Wire as a kind of "novel for television").

Film combines all of these into a condensed run-time and go to work with rarely subtle manipulation. It rewards spectacle and sweeping scope. Some will moan about the bullying nature of the medium, but when done successfully, it's hard to complain. If the first ten minutes of Up don't devastate you, I'm not totally sure you're human. And while the last 45 minutes of Argo seemed to count off every suspense cliche in the book (yes, there is a book of suspense cliches), damned if it wasn't effective.

Video games can perform elements of all of these but they tend to lack the strong narrative thrust. There is no Dickens or Kubrick to take the player from point A to point B exactly when and how he wants to.

Roger Ebert suffered a rare lapse into ill-informed shooting off at the hip a few years back when he said that video games could never be art. To his credit, he walked the statement back (kind of). And though the original statement was short-sighted, there's some truth there. Games require a certain degree of player agency. Too little agency and the player might as well be watching a movie. Too much and there's little to no room for the developer to tell the story he wants. The developer can add music, but has little guarantee that the cues will sync up as perfectly as they do in film. He can add interior monologue, but the player may choose to skip it (and will complain if she doesn't have that option). He can create a complex, engaging lead character, but at some point the player must be allowed to put her own stamp on that character.

And he can try to force a story in a given direction, but as games have evolved into sandboxes and as they've engineered morality systems, it becomes harder and harder to tell a story honestly. If the developer's desired story needs a character to be a good, upstanding person, it falls apart if the player decides to be an immoral monster, whose only aim was to "dominate the game." To end a story in this fashion, you have to supply a series of potential good-evil-medium alternate endings and every player can tell that that was all you did.

Take the aforementioned frustration in L.A. Noire: when a developer tries to take a gamer for a ride--the sort of emotional rollercoaster ride that might be praised in a good film or book--the gamer may resent it. Not least because she expects to be able to win the game. As far as we've come, we're still limited in our ability to explore the human experience in video games the way we do with other art forms.

Red Dead Redemption gets that compromise mostly right, by killing the main character in a cut scene mere seconds after the player is forced into an ambush (yes, L.A. Noire pulls a similar character sacrifice, and if Cole Phelps were as interesting as John Marston, I'd be talking about that). While we're on the subject of genuinely artful games, Bioshock, another personal favorite, is renowned for it's eye-sexingly gorgeous environments, a surprisingly deep examination of philosophy and human nature, and a creepy atmosphere that relies on the player's imagination to fully reveal itself. It's a refreshing example of show-don't-tell that neatly covers up the fact that 80% of the plot is killing objectivist zombies.

I'm sure every developer has Earth-shattering ideas for great, cinematic games. Hell, every gamer likely has, as well: this Cracked article showcases seven decent game ideas and explains, with an empathetic quivering infecting the prose, why those games can't happen for various reasons of mechanics and logistics. I also recommend Cracked's take on ominous trends in video games, which ends up focusing mostly on the economics of the industry. Turns out that when you expensively produce distraction-oriented entertainment that'll go to market at $60 a pop, you tend to get stingy about creativity in favor of more a stable model, helping further hinder the role of "art" in the development process.

This isn't to say there isn't art in modern gaming, but there is something eating away at me as I play games that come so close to real art and just miss it.

How You Do A Justice League Movie, Part III

You don't, apparently.

The best part of this semi-decision is that it leaves Man of Steel room to breathe. The second best part is that a JL film won't get rushed into theaters in 2015 to take on Avengers 2 and Star Wars VII, avoiding a humiliating face-plant that the other nerd-subspecies would never let us live down. If there was no chance of the project becoming something amazing (there wasn't), better nothing than another Green Lantern.

My only question is, if the script really was that bad, why did WB/DC run with production for over a year? Putting the project aside doesn't seem half so canny a move when you merely defaulted to this position because you realized the story was no good. Nine months after Avengers made you take this idea semi-seriously for the first time. I'd say this is a good time for the studio to focus on the individual characters for a while, but given this and other recent fumbles, we might as well watch WB/DC tease JL further. Because that'll restore our faith in them.

This is part of an irregular, ongoing series that may finally be over. See Part I and Part II.

(Image courtesy Uncyclopedia)

Man of Steel teaser, Take Two

 
I'm think I'm going through a reverse of that Statler and Waldorf bit. It's the same process I went through after the first Man of Steel trailer. And the recent poster, come to think of it.

I know that Zack Snyder movies and Superman movies have each had great trailers, only for the films to turn out passable at best. And I know that with Batman on the shelf and Justice League looking like more and more of a cluster-fuck of decent ideas and bad ideas, MOS is a hot target for a lot of frustrated expectations that I'm wont to temper.

But it's growing on me, this new Superman. 

Lincoln

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD (kind of... you know, if you fell asleep in history class, in which case you're probably not going to see the movie, anyway)

Lincoln was never going to match the expectations. The best it could hope for was to pull a King's Speech and not be quite as Oscar-baity as the trailers indicated. Spielberg accomplishes that. As a director, he's always excelled at taking in a lot of ideas, processing them down, and parceling them out without the audience gagging or getting bored. That sounds like a back-handed compliment, but the man deserves all the credit in the world for being able to create palatable dishes out of material girthy enough to choke an elephant. And even when that becomes a bit much, he can at least retain the verisimilitude, keeping us locked in the room of his choosing without suffocating us. In this case: Washington, DC, in early 1865. Lincoln does not suffer because of its director.

The acting is worthy of the material and then some. Just sorting through the central characters: Daniel Day-Lewis achieves a new method acting miracle by actually growing two inches for the lead role. Tommy Lee Jones' performance as Thaddeus Stevens steals the show through the noted advantage of having been right (his unrestrained distaste for pro-slavery pols is satisfying). Sally Field wisely does not go full tilt with Mary Todd and opts for frustratingly selfish (full Mary Todd crazy would've been immediately dismissed as campy and outlandish). And would it now be too weird to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt play John Wilkes Booth? Because I really don't think that guy's up for enough hypothetical roles. So the cast isn't the problem.

The issue, I'm tempted to say, is with the script. And that's not fair because the script is perfectly fine--the story is solid and the dialogue is generally engaging--but the trouble is in the bevy of source material that the script must draw upon. There is no way to tell the story of the Lincoln Administration through the passing of the 13th Amendment and do either any justice (Lincoln believes it can do both). We were never going to get a fifteen-hour epic spoon-feeding us every tidbit from Team of Rivals, so it's probably unfair to judge the movie based on what it decides to cut when cutting anything was near-criminal. Now watch while I judge it on that metric, anyway.

Criticisms of the film as a depiction of white superheroes saving blacks from a state those same superheroes had imposed are well-grounded. Black people in Lincoln are the object in a passive sentence. It's not as if President Lincoln wouldn't have come in to contact with freemen of the District. I mean, I don't expect a heartfelt speech from Lincoln's barber, but maybe a token appearance from Frederick Douglass? No. Something must give in historical dramas (which trend toward a bloated carriage, anyway), and so all we get is Mary Todd's confidant/dressmaker and Stevens' housemaid/lover, who only shows up after all is said and done. It's not that this is a particularly offensive omission (although it kind of is), but it is a gaping one. Lincoln, like Congressman Stevens, is served by historical advantage: it gets to ride its premise for so long because that premise is correct (slavery is bad). But no premise can be ridden forever and if Lincoln must go to Petersburg in order to comprehend the carnage he somehow hasn't comprehended until now, then we can at least be afforded a sit-down with a former slave. Or maybe a stand-up with a former slave: more scenes of Lincoln towering over everyone!

But if it must make these omissions, then at least it wrings all the drama it can out of what it keeps. Maybe it's because college zapped away enough of my soul, or maybe I just enjoyed watching James Spader being awesome, but I'll always love horse-trading scenes in smoke-filled back rooms, where sausage is being made. Lincoln's biggest success lies in not romanticizing the process. Until the end, when ratification seems assured (and I honestly can't recall whether that was a fair presumption at the time, or whether Lincoln is bluffing in order to change the subject with Confederate peace negotiators), the moral and political compromises are center stage and the film's drama is better for that acknowledgment. Yes, it makes for an incomplete dramatization, but you accept that sort of thing going in. The teary, elated celebration after the Amendment's passage through the House (spoiler number one) almost undercuts this, trading muddy politics for Spielberg's giving the audience what it wants, but as in real politics, the fact that something important got accomplished at all is worthy of celebration.

This disinclination toward romanticism mostly extends to it's its titular character. That is until the end, when Lincoln's assassination (that's the other spoiler) prompts a bleary-eyed flashback to his second inaugural address: the one that was supposed to lift our spirits and tell us what we could be, even while Lincoln's machinations sometimes involved everyone except the better angels. This is some of Spielberg's trademark manipulation, to be sure (see above), but it's not so different from our customary lionization of slain leaders, anyway. And while he's alive, we see every Lincoln action figure ever sold: tortured Lincoln; lawyer Lincoln; magnanimous Lincoln; shrewd politician Lincoln; happy family man Lincoln; reluctant family man Lincoln; backwoods, story-telling Lincoln (Secretary Stanton's reactions to the stories are a plus--that an actor has to wear that beard and play it straight is dichotomy at its finest). Day-Lewis plays them all wonderfully and these various versions ably highlight the man's many conflicting natures and his nimble, if over-wracked, brain. But they also remind us of just how difficult the man is to sum up in a 150-minute film. Surely, even after all that running time, there must be more here. And then we get thinking about all that could've, should've been. If we judge a film on what it's trying to do, then Lincoln has set the bar admirably high.

And we're back to the expectations thing. Like it's meta-textual subject (Lincoln is Obama, in case you missed it), we can't help but be underwhelmed when confronted with the real thing. And that feeling leads us to believe that the thing is less than it is, even if that thing isn't so bad in and of itself. Because truly, Lincoln is a fantastic piece of filmmaking whose only real flaw is being an impossible film to make.

Somebody should try for a James Polk biopic.

Grade: B

Skyfall

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Apprehension sets in when we arrive at the Bond family manor in rural Scotland, the name of which lends Skyfall its title. The Bond films of the last fifty years seem to have made a pointed effort to not delve too much into James Bond as a coherent person--all the easier to replace aging actors, a cynic may say--and all we've gotten is "007." This works fine, assuming the films are good, but they're not always (I will never fully understand anyone who claims that Roger Moore achieved better than one or two decent Bond films). If Casino Royale truly was a reboot, then maybe we now deserve to see everything that made Bond who he is. We previously knew that he was an orphan, but little more. Skyfall introduces the blood and flesh, brick and mortar of his youth, revealing there is a person inside the agent, rather than an agent inside a person. And though these revelations all but kill the intriguing theory of James Bond being more of a code name than a person, the film series will prove the better for it. 

Outside of the character and the mythology, Daniel Craig is the greatest beneficiary of this development. What was once (on his good days) a two-dimensional hired killer is now a fully fleshed character, who happens to be a hired killer. There is a psychology and a reasoning behind the action hero. And this, by the way, is what the best so-called "gritty reboots" have always done: pare down the gimmicky action and give us a reason for the stunts. Craig is in the driver's seat of one of the most interesting heroes in cinematic history, one who changes and grows, if usually for the more grim and haunted. The brash, sharp-edged rookie from CR has evolved into a hard, field-ravaged machine. This owes as much to Craig's vulnerable, not-so-clean-cut performance as it does to the careful writing. There's always a lot of hyperbole surrounding this discussion, but I find it fair to say that Craig is quickly approaching the top of the Bond heap, with Connery still in the lead only because he was first. 

Judi Dench--even during the earlier Brosnan films--has always been an inspired choice for M, finally bringing a few measures of depth to Bond's boss. Where once MI6's boss could sometimes seem little more than a careless, bemused old man, enjoying Bond's antics, Dench brought a severe professionalism to the character, and a patience for Bond that could occasionally run out. But it's perhaps not until Skyfall that Dench is used for all her acting talents, delivering an M that is defiant but faltering. She is old, outmoded and, her slow understanding of that fact is sad because we realize how attached we've become to her, how attached Bond has become to her. Her death is sudden--a minor quibble, as that might've been handled better--but it could not have ended at any other time; she was never going to retire. Dench's M gets shuffled out not because we need her to move on, but because Bond needs her to and because MI6 needs her to. And that the story has more to do with her than any world-in-peril super-plot is a welcome development in a series that has too often felt the need to top itself over and over, in an increasingly impersonal fashion. 

Perhaps the bigger news--even bigger than M's fate--is the return of the eccentric, theatrical Bond villain. Javier Bardem (once again proving that if you give him a funny haircut, he will make it terrifying) brings an ebullient energy to Raoul Silva's quest for vengeance. When Silva arrives at Skyfall for the climax on a helicopter blaring The Animals' "Boom Boom" over a megaphone--one of several scenes in which Bardem simultaneously inspires both terror and glee--we see the flip side of the gritty reboot's gift for grounded transcendence (yes, I'm sticking with that description): the song is an organic pairing for his mission, a spurned madman's way of announcing himself and his plan. There is reason and history to Silva's mad methods and even his home base gets a back-story. When you make the villain interesting on his own terms--more than just someone for the hero to fight--you elevate both. 

I don't have as much to say about Naomi Harris' Moneypenny, other than that I like her. A lot. That this Moneypenny has been in the field--and can hold her own there--gives her much more interesting possibilities than someone who just has an easy and fun rapport with Bond (which, yes, this Moneypenny also has). 

Same with the new Q: a high-tech whiz kid with both feet planted firmly in the 21st Century. Portions of MI6 might prefer someone with an equal grounding in the old ways, but that's what Bond is for, right? 

The Bond series has flirted with irrelevance more than once. Skyfall boldly makes that theme central to its story and comes out the better for it, injecting desperately needed humanity into a series that can still be about escalating action, exotic locales, dangerous women, and insane villains, as long as there's a beating heart at the center. 

Grade: A-

The Stark Knight Rises

Marvel Studios debuted the first Iron Man 3 trailer this past week. I liked it, though it's hard for me to say why. I mean, I'm seeing a grimmer tone, suggesting an emotional and tonal weight; indications that no character is safe from the stakes; a black and white/dark blue color palate; a wall-to-wall Zimmer-esque score; and a purposeful villian with a funny voice.

It seems so familiar but I just can't place where from.

While it's probably a good idea for the Iron Man franchise to return to its Nolan-aping routes after the underwhelming Iron Man 2. Marvel's carved out a very nice (and lucrative) niche for itself as the lighter, popcorn-y universe; I've written about this before. Suddenly shifting away from that--if that is what they're doing--seems unnecessary. But I applaud the ambition. Let's just hope something's not lost in the transition.

Lincoln trailer

"Hell. Yes."
--Abraham Lincoln

How You Do A Justice League Movie, Part II

A while back, I wrote an obscenely long post about how Warner Brothers/DC Entertainment could do a Justice League film. This was predicated upon the understanding that a JL movie is now inevitable (however ill-conceived) and that since it's going to happen, they might as well try to do the project, erm... justice. My plan at the time was to return to the topic to discuss how the solo films could be built up to lead into JL. But as the chalk-slated 2015-16 release and the interest in signing Ben Affleck demonstrate--and aided by the speculation in Modern Myth Media's recent podcast--WB/DC may be more interested pushing for a JL movie first, capitalizing sooner rather than later and letting that film open the doors for the solo projects that, until now, have either fallen flat or failed to launch (the ones without Christopher Nolan, anyway).

Man Of Steel is due next summer--that much we know. And WB/DC seems to ready to move ahead with Wonder Woman. They may also dust off that old Flash project that was quietly canned after the dull thud of Green Lantern, a property they could try to reinvigorate (until further notice, I'm sticking with my character outlines from the first post, so I'd be hoping for a Jordan-Stewart team-up there). And a Batman reboot is inevitable, anyway. But this is a lot to do in a relatively short window, with little real news about any of it. Even WB seems content to merely speculate. I said in the previous post that not every character needs a solo film first, but there should be at least one or two. However, that's going to be harder for DC than it has been for Marvel.

Marvel Studios has the advantage of existing for the sole purpose of producing Marvel films (doesn't hurt to have Disney money, either). WB, on the other hand, has a whole lot of different things they want to be able to do. Harry Potter might be done and they might be in need of new tentpoles, but at least Harry Potter was a guaranteed property that could bankroll other projects. So on that level, it makes as much sense to go straight for JL now and see how that unfolds, rather than throw a bunch of smaller titles at the wall and hope something sticks. This means that MOS--still an unknown entity at this stage--may be our only glimpse at the DC Universe before going full-bore with the team-up.

Upon reflection, I was hasty in my initial opinion on the MOS teaser. From an artistic standpoint, it's actually a very good trailer that holds some promise about where this Superman story could be headed. We may finally have a team that understands that Clark is every bit as important as Superman. And I like that there were two different trailers out there, featuring different (and opposing) voiceovers from Kal-El's dual father figures. But I stand by my criticism that, from a business perspective, there's little to get the casual fan excited about Supes. And the business side will impact the artistic side if no one is interested in MOS; Green Lantern's quality was only part of the reason it tanked. So we'd go into the theoretical JL film with just one (admittedly very important) element established. That leaves a lot of work to do for the others. 

Why not start with a World's Finest/Trinity film, featuring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman? Structure the film around Diana as the audience-identification figure; we explore and learn about the larger DC Universe as she does. You then throw in Henry Cavill's established Superman, building on MOS's themes of heroism, etc. And everyone already knows Batman (he's the one who's better than all the others combined); Trinity could demonstrate how and why Batman gets to hang with superhumans. These three are the core of the League and letting them battle together paves the way for JL. It also gives WB time to launch another hero--or possibly rehabilitate Green Lantern--before delving into the larger team-up. This should also help stagger the schedule so that a relatively un-tested JL isn't sharing the summer with the Avengers sequel.

Just a thought, DC Entertainment.

Man Of Steel teaser

The Man of Steel teaser debuted with The Dark Knight Rises this weekend.  In a word: underwhelming.  I'm not sure what makes WB/DC think that Superman is still regarded on the level of, say, Batman or Harry Potter. 

A Superman trailer needs to demonstrate why the movie and the character are still worth people's time.  Superman: The Movie demonstrated over thirty years ago that a man could fly--we're not impressed by that anymore.  We need mouth-watering action and something we know will be new and different; flashing Zach Snyder's name partially fixes the first half of that equation and Christopher Nolan's partially fixes the second.  But they're going to need more.  They can't just throw up the "S" logo and get people to excitedly bounce in their plush and fluffy theater seats the way they once would (when theater seats were a lot less plush and fluffy).  Comic-Con got a lengthier look at MOS and I can understand why you'd show it there first, but doesn't it seem easier to give us the same thing you gave them?  Especially since it apparently blew the roof off the place? 

Here's hoping the first full trailer gives us that kind of feeling and not the "again?" kind of feeling. 

The Dark Knight Rises

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

The best and worst part of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is the compulsory ending.  Rather than flaming-out, as film franchises often will, The Dark Knight Rises brings this Batman to an unambiguous close, leaving no room for another director to come in and foul it all up.  The trouble is that any definitive end risks ill-will.  With all arcs wrapped and all possibilities for future characters, storylines, speculations, and explanations finished, the finality can make some people feel abandoned, even betrayed.  Some who legitimately don't care for the ending will struggle to reconcile the ending the writer/director wanted for his story with the ending they'd have preferred.  This tendency is more pronounced among comic book fans, who can find a reason to hyperventilate over the slightest deviation from canon.  And they frequently forget that their preferred vision of Batman is always safe in old books or TV shows, or movies or, for many of us, in the individual versions of the character we've formed in our heads from the odds and ends of different source materials (my own ideal version is an amalgam of elements from the Nolan films, the 90's Animated Series, and a few others). 

Unfortunately, many will not countenance an end for Batman--it seems so un-Batman to "finish" his mission, after all.  But within the more plausible "Nolanverse," it takes a deranged mind to think that not only can Bruce Wayne continue doing his job, but that he must.  A character we ostensibly love must not be allowed to end his ordeal, cannot become happy.  And, admittedly, TDKR tows that line for much of the run time, doling out one gut-punch after another, to a degree that often seems unbearable, especially on a first viewing.  Such is the nature of viewing a psychologically-thrashed vigilante in a more "realistic" atmosphere; Batman may be mortal, yet what mortal can ever be Batman?  As Alfred points out, there was probably never anything for Bruce in Gotham except pain--and he finds it.  And this was always Bruce's arc, not Batman's.  But as we learned last time around, the night is darkest just before the dawn, and without Batman's (and Gotham's) greatest challenge beating him down again and again, it would be hard to buy the idea that Bruce has earned the right to overcome it, to settle down, unburdened by his past, enjoy a clean slate, and finally be happy.  "Why do we fall, Bruce?" 

But where would the fun be if our imaginations weren't allowed to run wild?  After years of saying he would never bother with Robin, Nolan threw us for one final loop.  After building up to the reveal with an intriguing, understated performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, police officer John Blake avoids the nasty pitfall of such a reveal: seeming cheap.  By quietly throwing in elements from comic book Robins (Dick's police background/years of experience, Jason's angry orphan, and Tim's straight-up reverence for Batman), it allows Nolan and Gordon-Levitt to make the slow-burn, giving us something we may not necessarily have expected, but that we can instantly accept.  And because they didn't take the even cheaper route of giving us Blake in the Robin costume fighting along side the Dark Knight, it never takes away from what is fundamentally Bruce/Batman's story.  We'll never get a movie with Gordon-Levitt as Robin/Nightwing/Batman II/Azrael.  While that idea might be fun, I think it would be bound to disappoint in the long-run.  But it always works in our dreams. 

Given about sixty seconds' more screen time, Anne Hathaway might have stolen the show entirely.  Catwoman (referred to in TDKR only as Selina Kyle) probably shouldn't be a tough character to pull off.  But because of comics' (and comics films') trouble with women, she sometimes is.  Once again though, the Nolan crew's adept handling of the Batman mythos gives us something true to the source while also giving us a genuinely good character.  Take note, comic filmmakers: understanding a character's psychology and worldview is infinitely more important than getting the costume right.  TDKR showcases the banter with Batman (and Bruce) that--done well--is always entertaining, as well as the visceral fanboy thrill of watching the two fight side-by-side.  It never disappoints on those more superficial levels, but always keeps higher purposes in mind.  A quasi-Occupy-esque Robin Hood, Kyle is a force for--forgive me--chaotic good.  She sees through the elites' obsession with order and takes the piss out of a system designed--intentionally or not--to domineer those who aren't born/luck into the upper echelons of society, here meaning people like Bruce Wayne who, while doing genuine good, sometimes misses the forest for the trees in his crusade to end crime.  But upon seeing the effects of Bane's gross and manipulated populism, she understands that this, too, is wrong.  And while this might reek of some vacillating on class stratification, the trilogy has never totally sided even with its hero on right vs. wrong.  Mistakes can be and often are made even by those with the most noble of intentions.  Would that we could all have a device to wipe the slate clean. 

Tom Hardy takes on the hardest job in the film, trying to live up to Heath Ledger's lighting-in-a-bottle turn as Joker.  It's to Hardy's credit that he never attempts to top Batman's greatest villain, instead handing in a new rogue on his own terms.  Half-reprising his performance from Bronson, he delivers a terrifying and strangely charismatic Bane.  With most of his face obscured, Hardy communicates volumes through very expressive eyes, conveying a pain and tenderness that's easy to miss for the device on his head and his harsh, cold voice.  Oh yes, the voice.  Nolan clearly acquiesced to studio demands at least a little, adjusting Bane's voice where and when the film needed it; in a few scenes (the plane-hijacking, the first fight with Batman, and the storming of the Bastille Blackgate), where Bane has exposition to parcel out, the voice becomes clearer, taking on a sing-song quality--a bold choice on Hardy's part.  Regardless, concerns over the voice neglect who and what the character is: a victory of function over form, a utilitarian monster who may not be easily understood but whose blunt brutality and driving force of will is unmistakable.  Not unlike another masked man who rose from hell to free Gotham from its torment, each in his own way. 

Among other praiseworthy elements: Hans Zimmer's finest work of the Batman movies ("Imagine the Fire" is my new go-to track at the gym).  Talia's death mimicking that of her father (Marion Cotilard lies to us so as not to hurt us).  The whole concept of that prison in the pit.  A really good (small) story for Alfred; the life of the stoic is not always a rewarding one and I've always loved the the idea of Alfred as a tragically loyal enabler to Bruce's psychoses.  And Jonathan Crane returns! 

The last few minutes of the movie are nothing short of spectacular and though I haven't shied away from spoilers here, I can't do them any justice by describing them.  Those minutes, more than any other part of the trilogy, will--and probably already have in come corners of the internet--prove divisive among fans for several years to come.  But, as previously discussed, no ending could possibly have satisfied the entirety of the Bat-fanbase.  And Nolan should never have been forced to do so.  What he demonstrated with this trilogy was that nothing trumps a solid vision and a willingness to tinker with the letter of the material, but never the spirit.  Not all Gothamites embrace Batman as their savior and not all Bat-fans are through-and-through admirers of Nolan.  That's okay.  Nonetheless: when a man with a mission is given the tools to see it through, he creates his own mandate.  When allowed to do his job the way he sees fit, he'll work wonders never thought possible.  And despite all the mistakes that came before, a man shows what can be done when he make the concerted effort to pull himself--and others--up, out of the pit.  Sometimes, a man rises. 

Grade: A