Tag: movie

Guilty Pleasure: Clash of the Titans 2010 @NataSupernova @theofficialmads @TheRealLukevans @liamcunningham1 @NicholasHoult #GuiltyPleasure #QuarantineLife #Titan

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POST #200!!!

Yesterday, I talked about the original Clash of the Titans and mentioned this one. Of course, that got me thinking. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the Clash of the Titans remake earned scores of 27% from the critics (who cares?) and 40% from the audience, but I’m one of the 40% that liked it.

To start, I’m an apologist for anything related to mythology, even when, as here, they take far too many liberties with the stories. I get that the needs of drama override fidelity to the stories. I also thought that, special effects aside, this movie actually outclassed the original with the scenes featuring the Stygian Witches and Charon. Other than some silly dialogue, I thought the scene with Medusa (Natalia Vodianova) was a match for the original, which is no small compliment, and this movie provided more of Medusa’s background.

As much as I like Rosamund Pike, I wish Alexa Davalos had returned for the sequel as Andromeda. I thought she was good here. Overall, if you look at the cast, it was as solid as a diamond, with some established actors, some making their first attempts at a blockbuster, and some just getting their starts. In addition to Ms. Vodianova and Ms. Davalos, you have Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Flemyng, Gemma Arterton, Mads Mikkelsen, Danny Huston, Luke Evans, Liam Cunningham, Nicholas Hoult, Rory McCann, Alexander Siddig, and one of my all time favorite actors, Pete Postlethwaite (RIP). I think they spent plenty on the cast and not enough on the screenwriters to give the movie broad appeal.

There were definitely some annoying characters. The religious zealot who led the charge against royalty and the two brothers, Ozal and Kucuk, who had no business going on the quest, all irked me as much as they did the rest of you.

If I had to watch movies based in mythology all day, I would do so gladly. This is no exception … though even I wasn’t too fond of Wrath of the Titans (despite a better audience score). YMMV.

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Classic Watch: Clash of the Titans (1981) #movie #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife #Titan @HarryRHamlin @Netflix

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I decided to watch Clash of the Titans again. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and one of the rare ones I convinced my dad to take me to see despite no one else in the family wanting to see it. It still holds up fairly well but with some glaring flaws. First off, Zeus is a dick. He has no mercy for Acrisius because his “1,000 good deeds don’t make up for 1 murder.” How does Zeus punish Acrisius? By murdering his entire city. Zeus added that the murder was especially heinous because Acrisius murdered his own daughter, but even setting aside the sheer number of murders Zeus has committed in doling out his punishment, and their innocence in all of this, aren’t all of humanity Zeus’s children in a sense?

Then there’s the special effects. It seems like the thing to do right now is ignore the context of the time in which things are said and done, so the fact this movie was released in 1981 is no excuse! (Yes it is.) Cerberus had only two heads because that was easier to do. That was supposed to be Cerberus, wasn’t it? (EDIT: No! It’s Dioskilos, who was in turn based on Orthus!) I actually felt bad for it when it died. (For the time, though, the special effects were a groundbreaking and wonderful work of art, and it’s hard not to appreciate them.)

I also want to know how Thetis gets to claim Andromeda’s life despite Zeus’s protection of Perseus, and then once Perseus SPOILER ALERT kills the Kraken, loses that claim. Nothing has changed. Thetis is still slighted, and Andromeda isn’t dead. Joppa should be destroyed, but suddenly a heretofore permissive Zeus says,

Nah! Leave his wife alone. My boy has to get laid.

That’s not a direct quote.

I know; I know. Drama. Moreover, the disjointed logic isn’t unlike the way the gods were imagined by the ancient Greeks.

Bubo the metallic owl was stupid. Even as a 13-year-old kid, I knew better. If Bubo is trying to sneak up on the Stygian Witches and steal the eye, why is it making so much damn noise. Hell, the inferior 2010 remake (that I still liked and will discuss tomorrow) reasonably poked fun at that.

As for things that translate well, Andromeda puts Perseus in his place.

Um, I’m a princess. Do you see the Queen here? No? Then I’m in command, bitch.

Also not a direct quote.

Special effects aside, that scene with Medusa was awesome, and I liked Sir Laurence Olivier’s lethargic and reluctant, “Very well; release the Kraken,” before putting Perseus exactly where he needed to be to face the Kraken.

It’s a fun movie. As always, YMMV.

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Superhero Comlinks #movie #MCU #DCEU

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Another thing that always bugged me about superhero movies (yes, I can pick at the things I love) are the comlinks that the heroes use to communicate. It’s some sort of Bluetooth thing going on; a earpiece with a built in microphone. I always thought, “Why aren’t they constantly talking over one another?”

It just seemed impractical. Of course, we all just let it go; there are far bigger things requiring the suspension of our disbelief. However, I recently started playing D&D again on Wednesday nights via Zoom, and that has brought this thought back to the surface. Even when there are only 5 of us, the cross-chatter makes it impossible for everyone to be heard. It drives me nuts. I’d think there was a lot more planning involved in the defense of New York City from an alien army then there is in deciding how to navigate a bar fight. And don’t tell me about military discipline. The Hulk, Tony Stark, and Thor don’t care about your silly, human, military procedures for communication.

There’s no way this would work, but that’s okay.

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Good Watch: The Two Popes #movie #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife @AnthonyHopkins @Netflix

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The Two Popes is another movie that’s been sitting in my queue since it came out, but I never got around to seeing it. It’s led by Jonathan Pryce (Pope Francis) and Anthony Hopkins (Pope Benedict, a.k.a., Johnny Ratz), so you know it’s going to be well-acted. There are two things that struck me about it. First, it’s an interesting behind-the-scenes account not only of the drama of a retiring pope (the focus), but also how the mechanism of the Vatican’s selection process. I always find the latter fascinating.

Second, I had my reaction to the movie, of course, but I suspect how people take this movie will be far more varied than most because of the subject matter. My interpretation is that, despite the mission of the Vatican, the mechanism and politics are no different than any large business. Some may say it’s run more like a government, and that may be true (technically, it is one), but that’s not how I saw this movie. Still others may see it from the religious point of view, seeing it as either an exaltation or a fall from grace of the church (depending on the viewer’s perspective).

However you view this movie, it seems to be doing something right. As always, YMMV.

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The Superman IV Awards #movie #superman

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Way back in the 80s, my cousin (Tom) and I started awarding a “Superman IV Award” to the most disappointing film of the year. It’s not enough that it was bad; it had to be disappointing. The origin of the award makes sense. Superman III was mediocre at best, and we were promised a return to something like Superman II, which was a great film for its time. Instead we got a steaming pile of hot kryptonite.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) was an award winner. We loved Highlander for reasons I doubt I need to justify to my fellow nerds, but Highlander II turned out to be the single worst movie ever. (Full disclosure: I’ve never seen the Room.) To go from such a high to such a low is the very definition of disappointment.

Then there was Showgirls (1995). There we were, two straight guys in their mid-20s watching a movie that was specifically about women getting naked. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. It was horrible, and our lives are worth just a little bit less having been stained by the memory of that film.

I don’t remember all the movies that received the award. We didn’t have a ceremony on cable access for the thing. It was just something we decided in person once a year. When considering nominees, you have to remember that it must be disappointing. Batman and Robin was pretty bad, but that entire series was going downhill after the first entry. By the time B&R came around, I expected nothing of it, so it couldn’t disappoint me.

With all the movie watching I’m doing, I may just start doing this again once the theaters open up.

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Favorite Watch: The Seventh Seal (1957) by Ingmar Bergman #movie #death #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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Sundays are now lazy days for me. Going forward, I’m just going to re-post other people’s work or just do something silly. Today, it’s my favorite movie of all time offered without any sort of analysis. It’s about a group of people that are dying of the plague, and in order to fend him off, a knight plays chess with death. If he wins, they all survive. You may be familiar with its influence elsewhere. The entire movie is available free on YouTube, though YouTube also offers it as a paid rental. :-/ I re-watched it last week. This is a movie I studied in school, and it’s one of those that has lots to unpack. I’ll leave it to you to peel them away if you so choose, though there’s always some help available.

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Good Watch: Doctor Sleep #movie #horror#GoodWatch #QuarantineLife @DoctorSleepFilm @HBOMax

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I do not like most horror movies. Doctor Sleep was the kind of horror movie I like. There were no obviously stupid moves made by the characters, which means two things: 1) the writing was uncharacteristically tight; and 2) I wound up rooting for the good guys. When people do stupid things in movies, I always think to myself, “Well, I’m glad you’re going to die, dumb ass.” The movie serves as a sequel to 1980’s the Shining. In that story, a father, mother, and son were staying in a remote Colorado hotel during the off-season. Spirits were awakened and possessed the father, who tried to kill them both. Snowed in from the customary weather, the mother and son were left with few options, so they had to fight back. Doctor Sleep is the story of SPOILER ALERT the son, who survived along with his mother, and now faces a completely different threat. While he could continue to keep himself hidden, he connects with another like him — a young girl — and feels compelled to help her as someone once helped him (and still does).

As a sequel to the Shining, it also tugged on the nostalgia heartstrings quite a bit, which may mean nothing to you. I saw the Shining in the theater when I was 12 years old. That was a fantastic movie, and Doctor Sleep did a great job of lining up with the Shining while still carving out its own path. For what it’s worth, its scores on Rotton Tomatoes are 77% from the critics (who don’t matter to me; well, usually), and 89% from the audience. These aren’t as good as the 85%/93% the Shining received, but close enough for you to consider it.

Doctor Sleep is currently streaming on HBO. As always, YMMV.

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Good Watch: Horns #movie #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife @SabrinaAnnLynn @imheathergraham @Netflix

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Horns is a movie from 2013, and I’m shocked that I had never even heard of it before Netflix notified me that it was on their service. I was missing out.

Daniel Radcliffe plays a boy wizard … no, that’s not right. He plays a boyfriends suspected of having murdered his religious girlfriend. The entire town and the news media (always blame the media!) assume he’s guilty. As the emotional walls come closing in, he wakes up in the morning with a pair of horns sticking out of his head. (Side note: It’s clear that we’re supposed to assume they’re devil’s horns, but as a sporadic D&D player, I saw them as satyr horns.) Once he has horns, most (not all) people in close proximity begin to confess their inner immorality and negative feelings, often acting them out. On the other hand, some people can’t even see the horns. In some ways, this made it easier to unravel the mystery, but in some ways it made it harder.

The ending is a bit heavy-handed, but a scene leading up to that ending is heart-wrenching. I don’t handle death in movies particularly well, but that actually draws me to those movies because, as strange as this sounds, I’m not afraid of my fears. The reason why is something I’d never share publicly and have only once shared privately (I’ll be damned if that wasn’t a huge mistake), though I suspect someone who grew up with me understands it. The point is that there’s really no reason to believe anyone would enjoy the movie as much as I, and that appears to be the case.

This is one of those movies where I get hooked from the beginning, wanting to know how it’s going to unfold. As always, YMMV.

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Comic Book Movies: Same IP; Different Media #movie #MCU #DCEU

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I ran into this meme on Facebook, and it triggered a long-held thought that I suspect is still relevant today.

Constantine
Constantine (if you know the source of this meme, please let me know so I can give proper credit)

This refers to the movie Constantine, which I love. Its Rotten Tomatoes scores are typical of the divide between film credits and the audience. The last panel in the meme is what grabbed me. It references the fact that comics and movies are different media, and so they should play out differently. That appears to be something many (not necessarily most) comic book fans can’t grasp. Even when they accept, for example, the death of Thanos, they immediately start spreading theories as to how he could return in future movies. That attitude is still prevalent, and as much as I loved Thanos, I don’t get why.

This issue goes back a long way for me. I remember my cousin, and avid comic book collector, not liking that the Joker died in Michael Keaton’s first Batman movie (1989). In part, he saw it as a waste of a character that could be put to good use later. (His views may have changed, but others still make this argument.) The thing is, the Joker is not a character that they should have used again, precisely because it’s a movie.

It’s necessary for villains to survive in the comics. There are only so many ideas for villains, and with comic story lines having to last decades, killing off villains would create a shortage of adversaries for your stories. The only way to fix that would be to have another person take up that villain’s mantle. Sometimes that works, but doing that too often would leave the reader with the notion that they’re effectively dealing with the same character, so the writers are (cheaply) trying to have it both ways. Hence, you instead put them in prison or Arkham Asylum, they escape, and then you start the cycle again.

Movies are different. Most audience members require definitive closure, with death providing the most dramatic end to a story. Because the MCU‘s “blistering” pace still produces only three movies per year, there are actually far too many interesting villains that will go unused if you’re going to reuse the ones you’ve already shown. By the time you genuinely need to reuse a villain (if ever), you’re probably rebooting the cinematic universe for a different generation of viewers anyway. Ergo, for movies, you can have the closure your audience craves without painting yourself into a corner. If that pisses off a small percentage of your core fans that are still going to watch your movies anyway, you have an acceptable outcome.

Go ahead. Kill the Joker.

EDIT: See my comment below.

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Ability Is Great, but Confidence Is Key #DCEU #MCU

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It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.
— Mark Twain

Yesterday, I wrote about my re-watch of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. As soon as I finished, I re-watched Justice League because of course I did. My favorite scene from Justice League was the fight between Superman and the others, and within that scene, I loved where the Flash entered the speed force (his element), Superman was ready for it, Superman cast off the other members with ease, and then beat up the Flash before the other three even hit the ground. Once and for all, it established Superman as a badass. A badass with the exploitable weakness of his concern for others, but nevertheless a badass.

What struck me about that scene within the scene is that Superman won on Flash’s home turf. He shouldn’t have, but yet he did. Superman won because he was confident, and the Flash was an insecure kid who had never been in a fight before he teamed up with Batman, et al. (which didn’t go so well for him). This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a superhero movie address this theme.

Also, within Justice League, Victor Stone had to take control back from the machine that infected him, and he couldn’t do that while it still intimidated him. There are quite a few examples. On the flip side, Arthur Curry was far too arrogant when he agreed to face his half-brother, King Orm, in the Combat of the Kings (Aquaman). Arrogance can be just as damaging as meekness. You need to strike a balance between the two to realize your full potential, but the point is that attitude certainly matters and always will.

I hope Flash won the race from the mid-credit scene, but he probably spent too much time looking at Superman to see who was currently winning, which always slows you down. Meekness. 😦

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