Amazon warrior babes! Evil Germans! The best female superhero ever!
BQB here with a review of Wonder Woman.
Let me just say it right off the bat, 3.5 readers. This is a great movie – a really great movie.
It was a high stakes film for DC and Warner Brothers, a make or break film in their quest to create a Justice League franchise that would rival the success of Marvel’s Avengers.
The first attempt, last year’s Batman vs. Superman was an economy sized stink burger with extra poop cheese. The second attempt, Suicide Squad, was not a critical success, though I liked it personally.
Luckily, WB/DC not only avoided a third strike with Wonder Woman – they knocked it out of the park.
Princess Diana (Gal Gadot) lives an idyllic, peaceful life on a secret island filled with super hot, boner-inducing Amazon warrior babes. For years, she’s been told a tale by her mother, Queen Hippolyta and aunt, Antiope (Robin Wright) of how men were once kind and noble but alas, their minds were poisoned by Aries, the God of War, to fight one another.
The Amazons found safety on an island paradise but that is disturbed when WWI pilot Steve Trevor crash lands on their territory. When Steve informs the super hot warrior babes that World War One (or just, the World War at that time) has broken out, Diana is convinced that this is the handiwork of Aries and teams of with Steve to save the day.
Great action, amazing special effects and plenty of humor as Diana adjusts to life in the early 1900s, a time when women were expected to be obedient to men and only speak when spoken to. (Ah, those were the days! Wait, who said that? Surely, not me. Crap. I’m going to get complaint letters now.)
Gal Gadot was the perfect choice for this role and she can wrap me up in her lasso of truth anytime. Alas, I just wish I had more interesting stories to tell her.
The story is great, a real blend of history and fiction to come up with something unique on its own.
Frankly, I wish this film had been the start of WB/DC’s foray into Justice League territory. Marvel has been making bank for nearly a decade with a tried and true formula, namely, give each hero their own movie, then put all the heroes into one movie, then give each hero their follow up movies, then do another movie where all the heroes get together and repeat.
Admittedly, DC had a higher mountain to climb. Batman and Superman are so well known that no one needed another movie where little Bruce Wayne sees his parents get shot or another movie where baby Kal-El crash lands in an Iowa cornfield.
Still, there could have been some standalone films where we are introduced to the latest incarnations of Batman and Superman. True, we did get that with Man of Steel, but otherwise, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were all tossed into a big crap sandwich in the super sucky Batman vs. Superman before we ever got to learn what makes any of them tick.
And really, Wonder Woman was the only part of B vs. S that did not suck the super big one.
This is the first critical success for the Justice League franchise and what I hope will be the beginning of a winning streak. Unfortunately, from the trailer of this November’s Justice League, I fear the winning streak won’t last long, as characters like Cyborg, Aqua Man and the Flash are all lumped together before we get movies that tell us who these characters are and what they are all about.
At least, no matter what, we can say we know what makes Wonder Woman tick, thanks to this film.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Best film of the year thus far. Get off your butts and see it in the theater, 3.5. You’ll be glad you did.
Behold! In no particular order, the list of babes I was tossing the old pickle around to while Bill Clinton was president:
#1 – Sarah Michelle Gellar – Buffy fap.
#2 – Britney Spears – Hit me baby one more fap.
#3 – Christina Applegate – Kelly Bundy fap.
#4 – Alicia Silverstone – Clueless Batgirl fap.
#5 – Jenna Jameson – First porn superstar fap.
#6 – Pamela Andersen – Baywatch fap.
#7 – Anna Nicole Smith – Ridiculously big bazongas. RIP fap. Too soon, too soon.
#8 – Britney Murphy – Another fap gone too soon. Why, God, why?
#9 – Tia Carerre – Wayne’s World. Deserved a longer career fap. Should still be in movies now far.
#10 – Asia Carerre – Tia Carerre knockoff porn star fap. Tia should have sued.
#11 – Jennifer Love Hewitt – Or as we called her in the 90s, “Jennifer Love Huge Tits.” Ha! Now that’s good satire, fap.
#12 – Sandra Bullock – Speed fap. Don’t let the bus slow down fap. Hot chick but still approachable fap.
#13 – Drew Barrymore – Hollywood royalty fap.
#14 – Sharon Stone – First vagina in a major film fap. Scares police detectives with her vagina fap.
#15 – Uma Thurman – Pulp Faption.
#16 – Kate Winslet – Killed Jack by hogging the board, got old, threw the necklace off the boat instead of selling it to help impoverished niece selfish bitch fap.
#17 – Jewel – Crooked teeth yet still hot fap.
#18 – Christina Aguilera – Hits the high notes fap.
#19 – Beyonce – I’m a survivor fap. (Add in Kelly and Michelle for a Destiny’s Fap.)
#20 – Gwen Stefani – I’m just a girl fap.
#21 – Whitney Houston – I’m every woman fap.
#22 – Shania Twain – That doesn’t impress my fap much.
#23 – Reese Witherspoon – Cruel Faptentions.
#24 – Claire Danes – Romeo and Juliet. “But soft, what light through yonder window faps?”
#25 – Michelle Williams – Town slut Jen Lindley fap.
#26 – The Spice Girls – “Oh, I’ll tell you what I fap, what I really, really fap!”
#27 – Winona Ryder – Goth fap.
#28 – Tiffani Amber Thiessen – Saved by the Fap Bell. (We would have also accepted “Kelly Fapowski.”)
#29 – Katie Holmes – Girl next door fap. Sigh, girl that got away fap. Double sigh, girl wasted on Tom Cruise fap.
#30 – Cindy Crawford – Supermodel fap.
#31 – Jennifer Aniston – The Rachel fap.
#32 – Neve Campbell – Scream fap.
#33 – Paul Abdul – “Straight up now tell me, do you really wanna fap to me forever?” SPOILER ALERT: Yes.
#34 – Julia Stiles – 10 Faps I Fap About You
#35 – Madonna – 1990s cone bra phase fap.
#36 – Julia Roberts – Steel Fapnolias
#37 – Fiona Apple – More like Fiona Fapple, am I right?
#38 – Monica Lewinsky – Brought down the leader of the free world with her fapworthiness.
#39 – Elizabeth Hurley – British fap
#40 – Yasmine Bleeth – Baywatch fap.
#41 – Lucy Lawless – Xena, Warrior Fap Princess
#42 – Jenny McCarthy – Singled Out fap.
#43 – Liv Tyler – Steve’s long lost daughter fap. Also, Fappageddon.
#44 – Kerri Russell – Faplicity.
#45 – Shannon Elizabeth – American Pie fap.
#46 – Elizabeth Berkley – Showgirls fap. (Seriously, like every 1990s boy including myself snuck out to the video store to rent that movie, secret it home under cover of darkness and slip it in the old VCR while Mom and Dad went to bed.)
#47 – Janet Jackson – Nasty boys, don’t even fap. Oh you nasty boys.
#48 – Carmen Electra – Invented being famous for no reason long before Kim Kardashian did fap.
#49 – Charlize Theron – Gets more fappable with age.
#50 – Michelle Pfeiffer – Catwoman fap.
#51 – Cameron Diaz – There’s Something Fappable About Mary.
#52 – Denise Richards – Starship Fappers
#53 – Rebecca Gayheart – Noxzema fap.
#54 – Heather Graham – Roller Girl fap.
#55 – Alyssa Milano – Who’s the Boss of My Fap? Charmed fap.
TO BE CONTINUED – Did I miss a fap worthy 1990s babe? Add your favorites to the comments.
I’m not going to write much of a review other than to say it was funny, a good time, and kinda short, which, hey, if you’re an adult, then that works for you.
Hey 3.5 readers. BQB here with another “Writing Choices” column.
We’re writers. We have to make choices, so make them already. No big whoop.
Today I want to talk to you about 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane starring John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. It’s been out for over a year but if you haven’t seen it yet, beware reading on for SPOILERS ABOUND.
Do you want to keep your audience in suspense? Cool. Try posing a question to them at the very beginning of the tale. Then, take them down different paths, throw out some red herrings and presto, your audience will have no choice but to keep watching (or reading) until the question is finally answered.
At the beginning of this movie, Michelle (Winstead) gets into a car accident. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a bunker owned by the incredibly disturbing Howard (John Goodman).
Howard informs Michelle that he found her on the road and brought her to his underground bunker. Oh and also, he did so just in time to avoid an alien invasion. That’s right. An alien invasion.
Sorry, Michelle, but you can’t leave the bunker now because if you go to the surface, you will become alien food. Sigh. I bet you ladies wish you had a nickel for every time a fella tried the ole, “You gotta stay in this bunker with me to avoid the alien invasion” routine.
Show, don’t tell, right? Here, the folks behind the film hope you’ll start asking questions. “Hmm…an alien invasion seems implausible. The more plausible explanation is that Howard is a pervert who kidnaps young women to bring to his pervert bunker. Then again, what if he’s right about the aliens?”
As the movie progresses, the audience is fed little bits and pieces of information, along with some red herrings.
We find out that Howard, through his government work, was in a position to know about incoming aliens.
We find out there’s another person in the bunker. Surely, a second person wouldn’t be putting up with this unless there really had been an alien invasion. Then again, the guy is easily duped and stupid, so maybe Howard tricked him.
Howard seems incredibly weird and a big conspiracy theorist. Perhaps he’s a weirdo who made a bunker and just lucked out when aliens came?
Howard seems to want to control everyone’s every little move. Maybe he really did just make up the stuff about aliens. Maybe he is just a perv who kidnaps people.
Howard may have done some evil shit regarding a previous bunker inhabitant – thus a new question – maybe Howard is right about the aliens but he’s still a psychopath that you don’t want to share a bunker with anyway?
That’s how to do it, 3.5 readers. Start with the question – “Are there aliens outside this bunker or is Howard a lying pervert?” Then, start throwing nuggets of info at your audience and soon, their brains will fill up with all kinds of theories and questions. It will soon be worth their while to stick with your work until the conclusion.
SIDENOTE: I think the Academy really dropped the ball here by not giving this movie some love. At the very least, John Goodman could have gotten a Best Supporting Oscar nomination. The screenplay deserved some recognition as well.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT: In the comments, tell me about a movie or a book you liked that kept you guessing.
Hey 3.5 readers. Welcome to the first ever Writing Choices column. Warning, spoilers abound! Oh wait, the title of this post is a spoiler. Avert your eyes!
But seriously. If you haven’t seen this movie, then read no further, unless you don’t care, then feel free.
Manchester by the Sea is by far the most depressing movie I’ve seen this year and quite possibly my lifetime. It’s a story of pain, suffering, and great loss. More specifically, the movie reveals a truth that movies often sugarcoat or brush to the side in the name of making the audience happy – when it comes to overcoming loss, people often lose the battle.
Casey Affleck stars as Lee Chandler, a blue collar family man who once had it all. Nice house, beautiful wife (Michelle Williams as Randi) and adorable little kids. One night, and remember, SPOILERS, he throws a wild, drug and booze fueled party in his garage until his wife breaks up the fun and tells everyone to get lost because she’s trying to sleep.
After his buddies go home, Lee is too wired too sleep. He starts a fire in the fireplace, then sits for a spell in a reclining chair, then gets up and goes for a walk to a package store, because even though it’s after three a.m., he decides that the one thing he needs after a night of drunken debauchery is more beer.
When he comes back (SPOILER) his home is ablaze. Firefighters managed to rescue Randi, but alas, his kids, including a newborn infant, are lost. He drops to the ground and displays a face of inconsolable loss and later, steals a police officer’s gun from its holster but is tackled before he can shoot himself.
If you’ve seen it, did you think about the “show, don’t tell” angle? A lot is said here without it being directly said. Here were two thoughts I had:
#1 – Dude, you’re kind of a shit bag for throwing that party with your wife and kids in the house in the first place. Second, what’s wrong with you? Why are you such an alcoholic that you needed to go out for more beer after drinking all night anyway? Who leaves their kids and wife alone with a fire going in the fireplace? Maybe if you weren’t so drunk and irresponsible you would have realized this was a bad idea. I know if I had a wife that looked like Michelle Williams, I’d be in bed next to her instead of walking to the liquor store.
#2 – How one mistake can ruin your life and the lives of others. OK. You’re a responsible person. You’d never throw a wild drinking/drug party. You’d never leave your family in the middle of the night with a fire in the fireplace going for more beer. Fine. Still, no one can be perfect a hundred percent of the time. I know that in the back of my mind, there’s always a fear I might screw up so badly that it ruins my life or the lives of others. There’s a voice like that in the heads of most people. If there isn’t one in yours, there should be? Maybe you wouldn’t have left for beer, but could you see yourself maybe, oh, I don’t know, falling asleep with the fireplace still lit and then the house goes up anyway? Are you a perfect driver? Do you ever worry that you might make one mistake and hit another car? See? You might not be a drunk but even so, it is entirely possible that one day you might make a single boneheaded move that destroys everything. Obviously, keep a watchful eye out to prevent that from happening. You don’t want to end up like Lee Chandler.
Where was I? Show don’t tell. Those two reactions above came to me and yet, they aren’t spelled out. Instead, we just see Lee living his life of sullen, depressed, lonesome ennui. Every minute of every day is clearly a nightmare for him. He obviously thinks about the terrible mistake he made every second of the day. There’s clearly a voice nagging him inside his mind, “Why did you have to go get beer, dumbass? Why did you have to light that fire. idiot?”
Had he just stayed in that recliner and fell asleep, he probably would have sniffed the embers that fell out of the fireplace and snuffed them before the house went up. But for that one decision, he lost his wife and accidentally killed his kids. He never comes out and says, “Oh I wish this and that…” but if you’re paying attention, you know he must be thinking that.
I have strayed too far from the main point though. Unhappy endings. We want to make our audiences happy. Their lives probably stink, to varying degrees. At any rate, no one wants more sadness in their lives. So often, a movie comes together in the end to deliver a happy ending.
Throughout this film, we wonder if that will happen for Lee. A couple of women express an interest in him. Will he be able to get over the loss of his ex-wife and find love again?
Moreover, Lee’s brother, Joe, the last family member he was able to rely on and confide in, who didn’t abandon him after he burned his family up accidentally, dies. Lee returns to Manchester by the Sea, his hometown, a place where he had once built a life but now he has a hard time being there due to bad memories.
Lee is charged with taking care of Joe’s son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Patrick is having a rough go of it. Not only did his father just die but his mother is, well, nuts, and so she’s out of the picture and not able to help.
Together, Lee and Patrick become a super depressing duo. Lee drinks and occasionally starts bar fights just to feel something. Patrick has two different girlfriends (unbeknownst to each other) and essentially uses girls at his high school for sex as a coping mechanism.
However, remember show and tell? We see what Patrick is up to. The people behind the movie depend upon us to make the connection. “Oh, this kid is messed up in the head and he’s trying to feel better by having lots of teenage, pre-marital sex, which if anything, will just ruin his life and the lives of the girls he’s getting busy with.”
Throughout the film, we wonder if Lee will see guardianship of his nephew as a second chance – a way to prove that he’s not a complete waste of space. He failed his children. Perhaps he will man up and not fail his nephew. After all, the kid only has a year or two of high school left. Surely, anyone can put up with something for that long.
At times, Lee shows a few sparks of adulthood. For the most part he turns a blind eye to Patrick’s shenanigans because he’s too exhausted to fight with the kid. However, there are times when he grows concerned for the kid’s welfare and does some actual, honest to God parenting, telling Patrick the tough love words he needs to hear.
Further, we wonder if Patrick will ever see the light. Yes, he lost his father and his mother isn’t much of a help. Could he maybe realize his uncle has his own demons and step up to the plate? Could he accept his Uncle as a father figure for the next year or so and not be a sneaky little shit to him?
Essentially, Lee and Patrick are two dudes down on their luck and all they have are each other. We keep waiting for the moment to come when they will realize this. We keep waiting for the happy ending…maybe one day, in the not so distant future, there will be a Christmas where a somber Patrick sits by the tree with a new lady friend and welcomes Patrick home from college and Patrick is in a stable, committed relationship with a nice girl.
Yeah. Don’t hold your breath. Lee gives up. It’s too hard to be in Manchester by the Sea. Rather than stay in the house his brother left him and raise his nephew, he talks a family friend and his wife into doing it, then returns to his life as a broken down, incredibly ennui laden janitor.
There might be hope for Patrick. He chooses the better of the two girls and at least he has a place to live with some kind of a stable adult and he’s going to go to college but for Lee? Lee is screwed.
We don’t see if but we can imagine Lee back at an apartment complex like the one he was working at when the movie started, plunging toilets, drinking, getting into bar fights and flagellating himself over his lost family until the end of time.
Were you disappointed with the ending? I was, for about a second. Then I realized the point. Life often does not have happy endings. Movie endings aren’t all that realistic. Sure, accidentally burning down your house with your family in it while you went out to get beer is the ultimate in psychological trauma that can’t be gotten over.
However, there are lesser traumas. People often say “get over it and move on” because they have no idea what else to say and they think they are helping. Truth be told, if you married someone and they divorce you, you may never get over that. Even if you weren’t married, maybe you’ll always think about that lost boyfriend or girlfriend forever.
Maybe there’s a friendship or a relationship with a family member you lost because of some unkind words you wish you could take back. Perhaps you made a foolish investment and lost a bundle and now you hate yourself. Maybe someone you loved died of natural causes and you miss them constantly.
Mental anguish can’t just be alleviated with the snap of a finger. I know, personally, I’ve been through some shit and after about the tenth time someone told me to, “Get over it and move on” I finally just stopped talking about it. I’m not over it. Time helps, not because it erases the bad memories but because the more time passes, the more you’ll forget about what troubles you and get a respite from it but even so…the pain is remembered. The pain remains. The sadness can’t be erased completely.
Some situations just don’t wrap up happily. There can be no happy ending for Lee. He can’t just go to a shrink and get a pill to help him forget this one. There will be no new girlfriend for him. There will be no redemption for him via raising his nephew. He simply cannot forgive himself for what he has done, and who can blame him?
It’s not a happy ending but it is a realistic one. Honestly, would a happy ending have come across as real here? I don’t think so.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT: In the comments, discuss the writing choices you saw in this movie or alternatively, if you’re a writer, would you ever consider an unhappy ending for one of your stories? Is it better to provide readers with a realistic yet sad ending instead of an unlikely but happy one?
As you all know, I am, among other things, a dedicated philanthropist and public activist. I have more causes than you can shake a stick at and if you don’t have a stick, perhaps I’ll donate you stick to you so that you can shake it.
My latest cause is, “The Coalition Against Nerdface.” “Nerdface,” a term that, as far as I know, I coined, happens when a beautiful actress or handsome actor dons the guise of a nerd to play a nerdy role rather than just, oh I don’t know, stepping aside so HOLLYWOOD CAN GIVE A JOB TO AN ACTUAL NERD!
Nerdface. It’s the world’s number one problem and frankly, everyone should stop working on all the other problems until this one is solved.
Case in point. Emma Stone? Super beautiful. Who is she playing? Tennis player Billie Jean King.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Billie Jean was a great tennis player, a feminist, women’s rights icon etc. but she was no looker. That was actually OK in the 1970s, believe it or not. People who did great things would just be liked and respected for doing great things and they didn’t need to look like supermodels while they did them.
What is Hollywood doing? Do they hire, oh I don’t know, an actress that’s kind of butch with glasses? No. They just whip a freaking pair of glasses on Emma.
You know what? New rule. If a character in a movie has glasses, then said character should only be played by a person wearing actual prescription glasses. Otherwise, hate crime! Hate crime, I say!
Nerdface. It’s the worst. Call it out when you see it.
Can you think of any Nerdface examples, 3.5 readers? Discuss in the comments:
It seems like every generation has a show that is terrible of terms of plot, yet beloved and watched anyway. And in the next generation, that show is destined to be parodied and adults who used to love the show will love the parody.
The Brady Bunch, for example, was one of the silliest shows on TV in Uncle Hardass’ day. By the time I was a young man, the show was lampooned in a series of films where the Brady Bunch keep acting like they’re in the 1960s but in modern times.
Add Baywatch to the list of TV shows turned movie parodies. Honestly, the premise of the original show was so silly that it’s hard to believe that it, in and of itself, was not a parody. David Hasselhoff of Knight Rider fame used to parade his pecs around a California beach while Pamela Andersen and a bevy of other scantily clad beauties would show off their personal flotation devices. (Psst! I’m talking about their knockers! Awooga!) Somehow, the lifeguards would end up fighting desperadoes and solving beach related crimes in between rescues.
In this reimagining of the show, The Rock flexes his ridiculously awesome muscles as the new Lt. Mitch Buchannon, leader of the plucky young Baywatch crew. Zac Efron, also packing some fab abs himself (which I noticed purely in a speculative way and not in a gay way although I’m told there’s nothing wrong with that anymore) is new recruit Brody, a once beloved Olympic swimmer who has since hit the skids after an embarrassing occurrence at the Rio games.
Mitch and Brodie but heads throughout the film. Brody thinks he’s the best swimmer ever and has nothing else to learn. Mitch points out that Brody has the swimming part down, but needs to work on teamwork and life saving skills.
Also, to Brody’s surprise, fighting crime. Yes, as the group’s newcomer, he’s shocked to learn that whenever the lifeguards see crimes they don’t just, you know, call the police. Instead, with no law enforcement training whatsoever, they take it upon themselves to follow leads, track down suspects, and bring down bad guys themselves. The running joke of the film is that Brody is the only one who finds this odd.
Additional new recruits include Summer Quinn (Alexandra Daddario) and Ronnie Greenbaum (Jon Bass.) To the film’s credit, Baywatch, whether in TV form or this version, has always been known for putting the hottest beach bodies on TV. This time, the crew adds Ronnie the tech nerd, the only lifeguard with a flabby physique that requires him to run through the sand with his shirt still on. Naturally, he’s the comic relief and butt of many jokes because, you know, a nerd could never be just, really awesome and a super important member of the team but hey, baby steps. They let a chubby guy get a role in a film for beautiful people so you got to start somewhere.
Meanwhile, Alexandra is hot while Kelly Rohrbach is an epic inducer of boners in her reprisal of Pam Anderson’s CJ Parker role. Boi-yoi-yoi-yoi-yoing!
Cameos by Pam and Hoff themselves. Pam’s is somewhat humorous. Hoff’s is as well, though it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
In fact, little of the film does. Much of it is slapped together simply so you can enjoy the beautiful beach scenery and all of the hot boobs and butts and wonder where you went so wrong that you didn’t hit the gym more and get your ass out to California while you could have.
Hell, if you’re still breathing maybe it’s not too late. Start working out now and invest in hair dye. Also, find Pam’s plastic surgeon. Sigh. Do you know I don’t think there was a single man in the 1990s who wasn’t tugging it to the Pamster 24/7? Ahh, memories, like the corners of my mind…
Did I mention there are a lot of boobs and butts? There’s also a…uh…well I’ll let you see it for yourself but suffice it to say, there is one scene that I was surprised didn’t earn the film a XXX porno rating.
STATUS: Split decision. If you came for humor, action, boobs and butts, it’s an A+. If you came for something serious, you picked the wrong movie. Personally, I find it shelf worthy due to the boobs and butts. FYI none of them are uncovered but you know, close enough.
BQB here with a review of Netflix’s new film, War Machine.
Based on the book, “The Operators” by Michael Hastings, this film is a dark comedy, satirizing the sheer absurdity modern warfare, not to mention the unenviable positions of those whose efforts to win are backseat driven every step of the way.
Brad Pitt plays General Glenn McMahon, a fictionalized version of General Stanley McChrystal, whose own efforts to cut through a sea of red tape eventually culminated in a Rolling Stone article that proved to be his undoing.
In 2009, McMahon is put in charge of Afghanistan. The dirty secret no one speaks about or is even willing to admit is that he is expected to maintain the status quo and lose gracefully. In fact, at the start of the film, McMahon is brought into a room of DC bigwigs who urge him to do a tour of the country and provide them with an assessment of what is needed but then within the same breath, they tell him he’d better not find that he needs more troops.
In other words, the days when great warriors like Eisenhower and Patton could write a check that DC would cash are over. The warriors aren’t really in charge now. The whole operation is second and third guessed by bureaucratic bean counting civilians who’ve never seen a battlefield in their entire lives.
With an almost Colombo-esque style of disarming charm, McMahon attempts to cut through the red tape that is slowing him and his team down. Along the way, he steps on many a toe, but comes across as so humble and down to earth that the bigwigs whose toes were stepped on aren’t sure it was unintentional. McMahon tapping aimlessly on his keyboard, feigning incompetence with technology in order to avoid listening to a DC bureaucrat’s orders via Skype come to mind.
This is a big role for Brad Pitt. Hollywood’s quintessential leading man, an actor that has spent his life maintaining a top of the line physical appearance, playing parts that make the ladies swoon, gets a douse of McMahon style humility himself.
This is the first time I’ve seen him play someone with gray hair, someone who is admittedly older and too busy to hide the fact with an army of stylists. Pitt plays McMahon as a gruff and grizzled old soldier, a man with a hand that has been mangled, who walks as though his body is in pain from years of being pushed to the limit.
Even more surprisingly, Pitt’s character has an age appropriate wife, Jeannie (Meg Tilly). Seeing Pitt snuggle up to a gray haired woman who is light years from looking like Angelina Jolie is nothing I thought I’d ever see on film. Yet, in doing so, Pitt pulls off some of the best acting of his career, namely, convincing us that he could love a woman his age.
This is also a big film for Netflix. The Internet streaming service spent $60 million on this film and it shows. The result is a movie that could have been screened in movie theaters across the country had they chosen to go that route. Brad Pitt is, by my best estimate, the biggest star Netflix has ever recruited for one of its original productions, thus proving that this company is in the movie game to win it, and the future of film is streaming.
For me, that’s a dubious prospect as I love the experience of going to see a film in a theater, though lately I wonder if saving cinema is not a cause as lost as Afghanistan.
Overall, the film asks a lot of questions and paints modern warfare in a not so rose colored light. Bottomline – these days it sucks to be a man in uniform. You’re expected to win, but you’re also told by bureaucrats to lose, except they don’t use the “l” word. They won’t come right out and tell you they want you to lose, just that you should not ask for all the things you need to win. You should essentially rubber stamp their losing plans and act like you can’t tell their plans are going to lose.
Meanwhile on the battlefield, soldiers are torn between their inner need to, you know, shoot at people who are shooting at them in order to live another day. Yet, DC has made it clear that screw-ups (i.e. accidentally shooting a civilian) will not be tolerated and punished severely.
Ultimately, the film lampoons the idea of counter-insurgency, or the idea that men from a foreign land with guns can somehow talk the locals into siding with them against the bad man with guns that are already there. In one heartbreaking scene, McMahon addresses residents of a territory that US forces have taken control of that he’s there to help build roads, build jobs, to protect them and so on. A villager informs the General that all sounds great, but he has no doubt the US will eventually cut and run and when they do, the bad guys will destroy all the infrastructure that was built and punish the villagers for cooperating with the US troops.
Between desk jockeys trying to manage something they can’t comprehend, the media turning real stories of war into trashy tabloid TV and a clash of cultures (is it really wise for America to assume that they can turn third world wastelands into smaller versions of America?), the film leaves the viewer with the sad feeling that modern wars may, in fact, may never be winnable again.
Arr! Avast ye scurvy 3.5 readers. Trim the main sail and batten down the hatches, fer it’s off to Davey Jones’ locker with ye, arr arr, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum and so forth, arr!
BQB here with a review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
3.5 readers, it feels like it was just yesterday when the first Disney Pirate film came out. The year was 2003 and I was a young man, filled with vim and vigor and a head full of crazy ideas like “life is fair” and “good things happen to good people” and “the world is a great place” and “hard work always earns a just reward and so on.”
We hadn’t yet entered into the whole “reboot” nonsense, yet sequels were still prevalent, and even then Hollywood was often lampooned for a lack of originality. Even in those days, if one type of film scored big, then you’d soon see a hundred more films just like it.
I didn’t expect much out of that movie. It was, after all, named after a ride at Disney World, and if video game movies always sucked then a ride based movie would surely suck.
But suck, it did not. It was an original, creative, fun adventure that propelled Johnny Depp into super stardom with his ingenious take on pirate Jack Sparrow. Pirates were the rock stars of their day, Depp would opine, and so with a Keith Richards impression, a blockbuster movie franchise was born.
The second and third films were fun, though for me, it was hard to recapture the first film. It was a time in my life when I felt inspired and I was seeing a film that was inspiring.
The series carried on sans Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley), the lovebirds that were inevitably being saved by or were saving Jack. 2011’s On Stranger Tides was, to me, an OK film, but somewhat forgettable. Other than Salma Hayek was in it, I couldn’t really tell you what it was about.
This go around, the stakes are raised and Disney apparently felt a need to bring their A game to keep the profitable franchise afloat. Disney makes mad, crazy cash off these pirates, not just with park rides but also with Disney Cruises featuring “pirate night” where pirates take over the cruise liner and Jack Sparrow saves the day. Thus, these pirate movies will be milked for all they are worth and then some.
In this, the fifth film of the series, young Henry Turner, son of Elizabeth and Will, seeks to remove a curse from his father’s head. To do it, he’ll need the legendary trident of Poseidon, Greek God of the Sea, but naturally, he’ll have to team of with Jack Sparrow to lead the way.
Throw in Henry’s love interest Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), a plucky young lady scientist whose intelligence is often seen as a sign of witchcraft by the film’s non-stop avalanche of dullards, villains Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem as a ghostly undead pirate) and fan favorite Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and you’ve got a worthy film that’s a fun ride and will definitely keep audiences interested in as many sequels as Disney deems necessary to dish out.
Still, as I sat there watching it, I yearned for 2003, a time long gone by, a time where the world had yet to say no to just about every last hope and dream I had, and watch that original film – a new kind of adventure the likes of which had yet to be seen on screen, as seen through the eyes of a person who still believed in the general goodness of the world.
Sorry to sound like a bummer. The good news though is that as I looked around the theater, I saw wonder in the eyes of younger viewers, the same wonder I once had.
I guess the good news is that every time a flame in someone’s heart burns out, another flame is lit in someone else’s heart somewhere else.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Worth a trip to the theater. I do miss Will and Elizabeth though as they were key to the original films’ success. I don’t want to give it away, but the movie left me with some hope that those two might return in the inevitable sixth installment. I hope I’m not wrong.
Swords! Gunpowder! Monsters! Matt Damon in a ponytail!
BQB here with a review of The Great Wall.
3.5 readers – this film got a bad rap.
Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal aka Prince Oberyn of Game of Thrones fame play William and Tovar, a duo of European mercenaries/scoundrels who have come to China in search of black powder.
Alas, their hopes of making big time money off of the boom boom stuff is put on hold when they are captured by the Nameless Order, a vast Chinese Army in charge of protecting the Great Wall (and in the process, China) from an invasion of monsters who come down from a mountain and eat everyone in sight every sixty years.
Grand in scale, sweeping in scope, filled with bright colors and dazzling special effects, this film is a winner and unfortunately, it was treated as a loser due to political correctness…i.e…a lot of people felt it was highly un-work in the current year for a honky like Matt Damon to be playing the hero in a movie about the Great Wall of China.
Admittedly, even this writer poked fun at the concept…but in my defense, that was before I saw the movie.
3.5 readers, to make a film for an English speaking audience, you’ve got to do one of three things:
#1) Make the non-English people speak English. Basically, you’re giving the audience a wink and asking them to go along with it. No, these people didn’t speak English but unless you want to read subtitles for two hours, stop being a stickler for authenticity.
#2) Make a movie with subtitles. If a film made primarily in a foreign language is good enough, I’ll watch it and read the subtitles. The Ip Man movies based out of Hong Kong and the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series come to mind. However, I am a film nerd and the average English speaking film audience isn’t going to want to plunk down cash to sit and read a film. Too much work!
#3) Throw in some English speaking Westerners to tell the English speaking audience what is going on. The Western audience can live vicariously through them, exploring the idea of being an English speaker in a far away world. Make most of the characters from that world speak their native language and put it in subtitles when they speak to each other, but have one character who can speak English and can act as an intermediary between the English and non-English speakers.
The Great Wall goes with Option 3, and it works well. Commander Lin Mae (Tian Jing) can speak English and Chinese and introduces the newcomers (and, vicariously, the English speaking audience) to her world.
Ironically, despite the fact that it was panned for un-wokeness, one of the film’s highest ranking officers is a woman.
Further, there’s a running theme of trust or specifically, the need for people from different cultures to trust each other. Tovar (Pascal), a Spaniard, tries to convince his British friend William (Damon) throughout the film to abandon the Nameless Order and take advantage of the chaos during the film’s numerous badass monster siege scenes to steal as much as he can carry and run away with him like a thief in the night.
Will William stay true to his past as a greedy sword for hire or will he see the chance to save the Nameless Order from becoming monster lunch as a chance to redeem himself after a lifetime of villainy?
People from different cultures, coming together, working together for the common good or, you know, something that people who are super duper politically correct claim they want.
Admittedly, there have been many occasions where Hollywood has strained the boundaries of common sense and good taste to put a honky in a role that really should have gone to a non-honky. Emma Stone as a Hawaiian in Aloha is the most recent example that comes to mind.
That being said, I don’t think this movie fits the mold of other films that came across as stupid and insensitive due to a honky being crowbarred into a non-honky’s role. The script is all about people from different worlds learning to trust each other.
Is America ready for a film about Ancient China with an Asian actor playing the leading man role? Yes. It’s long overdue. But, and here’s the rub, keep in mind that movie, in order to reach an English speaking audience, will a) require everyone to speak English, thus loosing authenticity or b) be dubbed in subtitles, which means it won’t gain exposure to wide English speaking audiences and only geeky film buffs like me will watch it.
That’s not meant as an affront to non-English speakers. It’s just simple logic. America is an English speaking country and it is also a country filled with die hard movie lovers. We don’t have time to learn all the other languages of the world, so we need films to be in English or to have subtitles. Sure, there’s also the “dub it in English” option but those rarely, if ever, sound good.
Somehow, I have a feeling that all the people who complained about Matt Damon playing the lead in this role would also complain if it featured an Asian man speaking English (not as an affront to Asia but just due to the reason that most American movie goers don’t know how to speak Chinese).
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Deserved more kudos than it got.
Bookshelf Battle 