There’s something to be said for a movie that doesn’t overtly sell itself as something more than it is. Sure, Shazam! addresses important messages and themes, but they take a backseat to the delightful silliness on screen in what amounts to a live-action cartoon. This is the first big-screen superhero since Ant-man who seems to truly enjoy himself and the film mostly embraces that. In the class of DC heroes, Aquaman is the jock who thinks he’s funny recycling jokes that don’t interfere with his reputation, and Shazam is the actual class clown throwing expectations and any “cool” reputation out the window in favor of entertainment. It often feels like a kids’ movie, which makes some things hard to take seriously, but there’s a lot of fun to be had along the way.
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Right from the start, it’s difficult to shake the idea that “The Beach Bum” is an exaggerated autobiography from both director Harmony Korine and star Matthew McConaughey. The latter has not been afraid of comparisons to Moondog (one name), the hippie-stoner-alcoholic-sex addict-awful-beyond deadbeat-depraved, yet genius poet at the center of the film. Much like McConaughey, Moondog is extremely entertaining despite the real (or rumored) debauchery, and we are at least told he is an undeniable talent despite the mediocre examples of his poetry. McConaughey’s real life isn’t front and center though, and we don’t see the details of how his real relationships function. If he’s truly as out-there as the media (and he) likes to portray, then living with him is certainly less fun than watching it on screen. So, while much of Moondog’s antics are a decent way to pass time, the fact that he has no character arc and the crimes/abandonment/insolence is not only ignored but celebrated sends a dangerous message. “The Beach Bum” has the potential to become a stoner cult classic, especially with Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Buffett as co-stars, and if that happens I’m worried about the drug-addicts and drunks that will simply wait to be loved for the genius they really are.
Launching a career with Get Out infinitely raised expectations and the difficulty level for whatever Jordan Peele did next. Us lives up to the promises from a filmmaking and suspense standpoint. It surpasses Get Out in laughs, cinematography, and performances. Us isn’t quite as well-written or unique. But most importantly it prevents audiences from developing a blueprint of expectations for all Jordan Peele films. For months I assumed a giant twist revealing a mind-blowing political reality was coming at the end of Us. That’s not there. It says a lot (and assuredly even more I haven’t figured out yet), it’s just a more straightforward horror film. As with 99.99% of films, Us isn’t quite as good as Get Out, but that doesn’t make a bad film. It’s a great film and ultimately successful at almost everything it attempts. With Us Peele proves why we shouldn’t do what I just did and was inevitable: compare everything to Get Out.
Captain Marvel is a wildly entertaining, action-filled buddy cop movie with some smaller character moments that let the fantastic crop of actors shine. The first origin story after Black Panther continues the more overtly allegorical tone, focusing on the universal (literally) undermining of and disrespect towards women. At times Captain Marvel repeatedly hits the same point, losing metaphor altogether and letting the characters directly state the message, which creates some stilted and trite dialogue, but that’s a small sin compared to most of its blockbuster brethren. The action scenes are organically integrated into the plot, so it rarely feels like the directors or producers just said ‘ok, time for an action scene' (even if they did). The transitions are smooth, and the storytelling continues during the fairly consistent battles. Overall, this is one of the better superhero origin films and a good sign for the long term plans for the MCU.
I’ve seen over 600 movies in the past six years, and paid an average of about $4 per ticket. That luck has ended. It seems the dream of an independent, unlimited movie subscription service is dead.
This past Sunday I wanted to see Greta, so I opened my Sinemia app as usual. When I tried to order the ticket, I was greeted by a message that I had an “important notification that requires your attention” available online only. I logged onto my computer to find that my account had been terminated due to “examples of your membership use that violates the terms of service.” After reviewing the terms again I'm fairly certain I never violated them and doing a little more research I discovered many users are in the same situation. I wish I was surprised by this blatant disregard for their consumers (especially those of us who paid for a full year upfront), but I’ve been through it before. Moviepass wasn't this bad though. The 2018 film slate and resulting awards season has been weird. It’s the first year that the Academy showed significant growing pains as it tries to make its membership better reflect the world at large. That diversity has come across gender and racial categories, both domestic and abroad.
The clearest example of the wide spectrum of Academy membership is that both Green Book and Black Panther are nominated for Best Picture. The former is about as traditional an Oscar movie as you can make today (Driving Miss Daisy won almost 30 years ago), complete with questionable racial politics. The latter is a spy thriller with an almost all black cast that promotes African pride and empowerment, all wrapped up in a superhero comic book adaptation that’s part of the biggest franchise in film history. Other notable inclusions this year are Cold War’s director nod, as well as it and Never Look Away in cinematography. Roma is a black & white, foreign-language Netflix film that’s also the frontrunner to win Best Picture. Spider-Man is all but guaranteed an Oscar. But there’s still a mediocre film that pops up everywhere (cough* Bohemian Rhapsody *cough) to remind us that no matter what the Academy will make questionable choices. The changes reflected in the nominations alone would make it a fascinating year, but the Academy has also shown a desperate desire for increased ratings and the puzzling belief that a three-hour show would help. First, there was the popular film category, an idea that was quickly abandoned after a backlash that should have been expected. Then they got Kevin Hart as host which was a big win until his old tweets and homophobic jokes (which were already common knowledge) caused controversy – again something that should have been expected. Instead of just apologizing first and maybe getting to keep the gig, Hart got defensive, the Academy flubbed the response (two or three times) and he was out. Then Hart finally properly apologized. Now the show is left without a host. Finally, there was the three-day flip-out around four categories, including editing and cinematography, being cut from the broadcast. While I think the response was overly harsh, it was another expected issue that they should have been prepared for. Once again, they had to backtrack. For an organization that includes some of the best PR representatives in the world, they’re surprisingly inept at crisis management. In the end it looks like the telecast may be the most surprising part of the night since there's no host to guide the way, but that might just make it boring. We get Queen as the opener, so at least one good thing has come from Bohemian Rhapsody’s nomination count. While I'm hoping we get some interesting wins along the way I'm predicting fewer surprises because that always reflects my optimism and leads to a lot of incorrect guesses. So here we go – my somewhat informed predictions that will be heavily influenced by personal taste and therefore heavily wrong. Enjoy! I was fascinated throughout the entire first season of “Trigger Warning with Killer Mike” on Netflix, but I didn’t expect to find a case study on branding and community marketing in the “White Gang Privilege” episode. Rapper and activist Killer Mike starts every episode with a relatively straightforward thesis – in this case, why can a white “gang” like the Hell’s Angels sell merchandise (a stream of revenue that has helped them become more legitimate) and black “gangs” can’t – then does a real-world test. There are a lot of fascinating racial politics at play, and I urge you to go watch the entire series since it dives into those divides from many angles. But here I’m going to look at the launch of Crip-a-Cola and Blood Pop as branding experiments, taking the facts presented in the episode at face value and ignoring any other assumptions or expectations I may have. With that in mind, this is a perfect example of how story-driven, preferably in-person marketing is especially important when brand recognition is high, yet reputation is low.
When thinking about the themes of the films of 2018, part of me thought it was positivity, but when I look at my list, that’s clearly not the case. Two of the best superhero movies ever came out, hopefully signaling that genre has reached a more artistic plateau and it’s not just a fluke. There was a sudden resurgence of skateboarding. It was a GREAT year for documentaries, reflecting on powerful life stories with a realization of dreams or camaraderie in there somewhere. But inevitably my final theses were driven by the real-world context into which these movies were released.
First, I noticed a lot of stories celebrating outsiders who are ok with being outsiders, sometimes even proud. Occasionally this required fighting against oppression, occasionally it was just remaining isolated. We were finally treated to an abundance of characters who saw being unlike everyone else as a good thing. We should always celebrate that in ways both large and small, in fiction and nonfiction, on-screen and off. The second and most prominent theme of my personal list is that even when things are terrible, they can still be funny. I noticed a lot of great dark, weird comedies, which always strike a chord with me but may be even more effective now as reminders that we need to laugh at something in even the worst circumstances. Maybe reality has gotten so dark that anything is a pleasant break? it’s all absurd anyways, and any gentle reminder of that is nice. These thoughts are not deep revelations about film, but these movies are reminders it can be an escape or it can remind us all is not lost, even when showing us how it can be. It’s not an excuse to ignore what’s around us, but it can occasionally give us a bit more optimism. Enjoy my top thirteen (plus a bunch of honorable mentions) and let me know your thoughts! We’re right in the middle of my favorite season: Awards Season! A busy month of ceremonies kicks off on Sunday with the most fun and unpredictable show, the Golden Globes. I say it every year, but always feel the need to reiterate that all artistic awards are meaningless as any actual judge of quality, and that’s even more accurate for these. They are however, a great way to talk about film & television, and typically a pretty entertaining show. I’m sure that will continue in 2019 with a ceremony hosted by Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh, a very interesting and seemingly random combination of two people I like. They also said they hope to avoid politics for the night, which would be a pleasant surprise.
One thing (or rather 18) I’m not sure of, is who the winners will be. Film awards are becoming increasingly difficult to predict in general as social media reaction is louder and more important than ever and the Hollywood Foreign Press appears to be trying to improve their reputation with recent wins. The Golden Globes sometimes seem really predictable (big stars! big musicals!) until they’re not (Aaron Taylor-Johnson for Nocturnal Animals?), so even if there’s reasoning here it could all go completely out the window when dealing with the whims of a small, random group of foreign journalists that are particularly susceptible to marketing and meet & greets with celebrities. The TV awards at the Golden Globes feel like a huge afterthought for them and the audience, although they are ahead of the curve (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) as much as they are too eager to crown something new (Mozart in the Jungle). I do not mean to take away from any winners, it’s just all very confounding. The Golden Globes do still manage to put out a good list of nominees, there are only a couple true headscratchers. With that, onto my totally right, maybe wrong, subjective, well-reasoned, unbiased opinion on who will (and should) win. Vice is a comedy, and can be quite funny at times, but the dominant feeling I had was not joy. It was anger. And I'm pretty sure that was director Adam McKay’s goal, with laughter as a secondary objective. The film's political bias (although it makes the argument it's simply a humanity bias) is in plain view, and that education appears to be main purpose other than letting us watch Christian Bale play this part. When you have a villain as the lead in your story, it’s typically important for the audience to be on their side at some point, but while Vice often shows (or strongly implies) Dick Cheney’s motivation for his awful acts and beliefs, it never agrees with him, and certainly never wants the audience to be on his side.
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