Seventh Son

Directed by Sergey Bodrov. Written by Charles Leavitt, Steven Knight, Matt Greenberg, and Joseph Delaney (novel “The Spook’s Apprentice”). Starring Jeff Bridge (Master Gregory), Ben Barnes (Tom Ward), Julianne Moore (Mother Malkin), and Alicia Vikander (Alice).

Bottom line: I’ve seen a lot of bad movies, but Seventh Son might even top R.I.P.D. as one of the worst. Do not see this movie.

.5/4

The movie opens with Master Gregory (Bridges) hammering the last nails into a steel grate that covers the entrance to a cave in a mountain. We hear a woman yelling the name “Gregory!” The camera slowly pans as we see a computer graphics aided time-lapse sequence which stops as the moon becomes a blood moon. The blood moon revitalizes the dragon-woman who is trapped in the cage and she escapes. The rest of the movie is spent with Bridges hunting the she-dragon-witch, Mother Malkin (Moore) with the help of his new apprentice. To become his apprentice and then a knight one must be the 7^th son of a 7^th son. Thaaaaat’s how they get the title!

Seventh Son is a terrible movie. The graphics are lame. The dialog is putrid. The story is trite. It’s been a long time since I saw a movie that made me feel anger and disgust while I was watching it. It’s one of those movies that I regret not walking out of.

I’m going to refer to the character as Bridges because I’d rather not call him Gregory. There are few Gregorys in movies and I don’t want to squander one on this miserable character.

I’d like to start out with the villains of the movie, Malkin and her crew: her sister, her niece (the love interest, whose father was a human), a black guy, an Asian guy, a blue mythically-creature guy, and a snake guy. So the villains are strong female characters and minorities who sympathize with the female characters. To contrast we have two “good” witches in the story: the niece and the apprentice’s mother. They are good because they rarely do magic (the niece uses it to appear and disappear when it’s convenient to the plot) and they silently stand behind their respective male partners.

Indeed, one of the worst parts of this movie is the gender politics. Maybe it’s bad because it’s a really subtle scathing commentary about the world; that is, I see it as painful because it’s too real.

Let’s contrast this to the heroes: two white guys and their stupid, ugly (these are their words, mind you), nigh-mute troll assistant. I’ll also add that Bridges literally gives the troll assistant to his apprentice at the end of the movie. I’ll talk about this more in a bit; I’d like to mention a couple of parts of the movie.

Seventh Son is a cheap movie so the plot is minimal. It was based off of a short story or novel called The Spook’s Apprentice. I’d be curious to see how much the film departed from the original story. Well, mildly curious, not enough to actually go check but you know if you have read it, please leave a comment!

There is a love story subplot because that’s always necessary for movies like this. The niece is half-witch but it’s convenient because she’s young and attractive and matches up perfectly with the young attractive half-witch apprentice (his mother was a witch).

The acting is painfully flat. Sure, the writing may have been terrible but there is at least some room for the actors to maneuver. There can be an inkling of feeling. It’s like the delivery in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

With a cheap movie like this, the major draw is for the computer graphics. They aren’t worth it. If that’s what you want, go watch Transformers. Yes, I actually said that. What is the world coming to?

A major problem with the graphics is that in the major action sequences, the camera shakes and moves in such a way that I had trouble parsing the images. That’s a trick, of course, because if you can’t parse it, they don’t actually have to show anything.

I must ask you to not see this. Please. This is a painfully bad movie. Maybe if we abstained from watching painful movies, they won’t make them anymore.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Directed by Joss Whedon. Written by Joss Whedon, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby. Starring Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banners/The Hulk), Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff).

Bottom line: Avengers: Age of Ultron is full of fancy graphics and witty banter but it doesn’t quite match its predecessor.

2.5/4

Avengers: Age of Ultron opens into a winter battle. It’s a comic battle if I’ve ever seen one and it brings us up to speed on what’s been going on in the Marvel world since the last Avengers installment. The superhero team is fighting a Hydra army (the running force of antagonists in the franchise) who now control the powerful, magical, staff wielded by Loki in The Avengers.

Other than knowing that the staff is a powerful weapon, it’s a mystery and thus, a danger. Stark hatches a plan to give the world a veritable suit of armor by way of automized Iron Man suits in a program called Ultron. What could go wrong? Well, Ultron starts up and declares what every sentient robot does when it’s commanded to stop threats; it tries to stop Mankind. The Avengers must assemble and stop the new villain.

The acting is just what you’d expect. It seems like each of the actors is more comfortable in their characters than the previous movie. James Spader gives a great performance as the voice of Ultron.

In each of the film’s fight scenes there’s at least one shot that encompasses each of the heroes. If you add some photo-effects I’d say it was straight out of a comic book. In the opening scene, the camera glides through the winter Slovakian forest pausing at each Avenger as they perform some movement that characterizes them: Thor uses it hammer, Captain America throws his shield, Iron Man zaps his laser-hands. It’s kind of fun and it’s kind of meta; the movie knows it’s a comic book movie and it knows you know. The meta-moments are one of the things that made the first Avengers fun. Now, the only catch, and The Avengers: Age of Ultron falls into this trap from time to time, is that if it does these types of meta-moments too often then they lose their affect.

The Marvel superhero movies in this franchise have really pleasant banter between the characters and this is no different; there is solid chemistry among the cast and the dialog highlights this. I was going to say there was an exception to this, in the case of Black Widow and Bruce Banner, but I’ll talk about that in a bit.

I’d also like to note that I saw Age of Ultron a couple days after Mad Max: Fury Road and I experienced the downside of having a general 5-star rating system. Mad Max was in the 2-2.5 range but I pushed it to a 2.5 for various reasons. Age of Ultron is between a 2.5-3 but I don’t think it was quite a 3. Between the two, I had more fun with The Avengers: Age of Ultron and I would recommend it first but you wouldn’t know that if you just looked at the star rating. I suppose, though, that in the scheme of movies, the two fall into the same general place of “pleasant enough for a matinee but you aren’t missing much without it.”

Avengers: Age of Ultron has lots of action, fancy special effects, and clever banter. If you are a fan of the franchise and aren’t sick to death of comic book super hero movies yet, this can be a fun matinee. I wasn’t really that inspired by it. Maybe it was because I’ve seen a bunch of movies about robots coming alive and lashing out against humanity. Now, mind yourself of spoilers in this next part?

In the time between The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, the team has developed a new system to work with Bruce Banner’s Hulk-form. Bruce Banner will hulk out only when it is necessary and when the action is over, Black Widow will come and help him calm down (by caressing his hands). When he transforms back into Banner, he listens to some classical music using Beats By Dre headphones. With such intimacy, romance is bound to blossom, right? It begins with some cute flirtation between Banner and Black Widow but then almost immediately she switches to full on seduction. I thought it was awkward but, then again, maybe that’s one way of building out her backstory. She was, after all, an assassin trained from childhood; it’s possible that the closest thing she knows to affection is seduction. In that light, I can understand it.

If you’ve seen this movie, I’d also like to briefly comment on that scene between Banner and Scar-Jo in the Hawkeye secret farmhouse of solitude. Banner says, “I can’t ever give this to you. It physically wouldn’t work.” To which ScarJo explains that she was sterilized when she was being trained as an assassin. She asks, “Do you think you’re the only monster on the team?” So a woman who can’t have children is a monster? A friend of mine noted that, perhaps, she was implicating the audience with that statement. That is, the audience would think she is a monster and that’s supposed to make us uncomfortable. I don’t quite buy it though; I think she was saying that she was a monster.

Have you seen Avengers: Age of Ultron? Please leave a comment if you agree or disagree or if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks for reading!

Mad Max: Fury Road

Directed by George Miller. Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nick Lathouris. Starring Tom Hardy (Max Rockatansky), Charlize Theron (Imperator Furiosa), Nicholas Hoult (Nux).

Bottom line: Mad Max: Fury Road didn’t wow me but it wasn’t the worst movie ever either; there are, however, some noteworthy stylistic and artistic decisions.

2.5/4

Mad Max: Fury Road is the latest installment to the Mad Max franchise. The world has been torn apart by “The Oil Wars” and, now, the last remnants of humanity battle over fuel and water. The movie opens with Mad Max (Hardy) standing alone, haunted by the screams of those he couldn’t save. He jumps into his iconic 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT to evade bandits who hunt him. Within minutes, they throw a grenade to disable the car, capture him and take him to their base, The Citadel.  The gang is composed of “War Boys”: ghost-painted fanatics who follow their leader, Immortan Joe (Keays-Byrne), with cult-like zeal.

Immortan Joe, a large boil-covered despot who breathes through a mask fashioned from a bear-trap, rules over the impoverished population in proper totalitarian fashion. He briefly opens vales to an underground source of freshwater to screams/cheers of desperation saying, “Do not become addicted to water – you will resent it in its absence.” He then announces that Furiosa (Theron) has the honor of driving the fuel tanker to Gas Town but, when given the first opportunity, she changes course.

When her treachery (though her reason's unknown) comes back to Joe, he and his force make chase. The next time we see Max is when he is tied to a pole mounted on the front of his car. Max and Furiosa come to work together to escape Joe for various reasons and try to find a place of peace and vegetation.

Just about everything in Mad Max: Fury Road is pretty good. There are lots of explosions and lots of cars jumping and flipping and lots of shooting and fighting. The action is clear too so you can, for the most part, actually parse the images.

Mad Max: Fury Road is not overly stylized; I was afraid that the movie would look like 300 or Sin City. However, a consequence of having such colorful characters the environments feel somewhat bland. We watch as the heroes drive through yellow sand, blue sand (aka yellow sand at night), and canyons.

That said, Mad Max: Fury Road does present a fleshed out comic-book style world. It creates the world without assaulting you with mythology and I dig that. Why do I need to know the specific sociopolitical atmosphere before showing a guy painted like a ghost, holding grenade tipped spears, jump into a into a car covered in barbs?

In that scene, the guy had just been shot with arrows, he sprays something in his mouth and, before jumping screams,“Witness me!” I thought he was spraying some sort of adrenaline in his mouth, but it turns out to be chrome. He will be shiny when he enters Valhalla. I didn’t get it at first but did it matter all that much? No. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the presence of details which provide incite about the sociopolitical atmosphere but I’d don’t want them forced on me.

Max Mad: Fury Road, as I mentioned, is full of action but it wasn’t enough to be too entertaining for the entire two-hour runtime. Sure, you have a guy playing a guitar that shoots fire, strapped to a truck full of amplifiers and, sure, you have a car with another car welded on top or a car driving on tank treads, but after a while, the effect is lost.

Another thing that Max Mad: Fury Road could’ve done better was to have a little bit more of a sense of humor. When you have a guy with bullets for teeth, why do you have to be so serious? The Avengers and even Fast and Furious poke fun at themselves and it would’ve been a nice improvement if that happened here.

I’ll talk a little more about the plot in a bit but there might be more spoilers involved. Overall, I’d recommend Mad Max: Fury Road if you are a fan of the series or if you are in the mood for an action movie. Based on the movies currently in theaters, I recommend seeing Furious 7 before Mad Max. Furious 7 is simply more fun.

Now, mind yourself of some spoilers from this point on. The driving force of Mad Max: Fury Road is that Furiosa is escaping to a promised land with several of Immortan Joe’s favorite slave-wives. If you’ve seen the trailers, the wives are the ones scantily clad in white. I thought that surely, with a point of the movie is that the women are objects used for breeding (the movie’s words, mind you), the threat of rape or something like that would be a plot point. Even the introduction made me anticipate the worst. Max comes out from behind the trailer that held the women to see them using a water hose to wash themselves. It looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic Sports Illustrated model shoot. But, overall, between the capable female characters, Furiosa and the gang of women, you have a clearly articulated feminist argument. I’m down for that.

I liked the scene where the car is approaching and Max shoots two of the three sniper rounds before giving the gun to Furiosa who, using Max’s shoulder for balance, takes out the car.

The end left me wondering though. I mean, sure you have a happy ending where they return victoriously with plants but, are we supposed to believe that their new society is going to function for very long? The masses of people ruled by Immortan Joe hardly seem that capable. (They were clawing over each other for water rather than showing resentment or resistance to their ruler.)

Thank you very much for reading. If you have any questions or comments please do leave a comment, you can even email me too if you don’t want to make a public comment.

EDIT: I was thinking about Mad Max some more and I'd like to add one more thing. The reviews for this movie are absurdly good. Currently, it has an 89% on Metacritic. 18 of the 45 reviews polled gave this movie a 100/100 and I think that's a little much. Don't get me wrong there are some cool things going on and the stunts were really impressive but is this really that good? I suspect that there is a mixture of nostalgia and relief going on.

George Miller, the writer and director, made the first Mad Max and it was good. He went on the make Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior which was either good or great (depending on who you talk to). Mad Max 3: Beyond the Thunderdome was atrocious. What else if Miller known for? Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2. It is remarkable that, given a 20-year hiatus, the franchise could be picked up so successfully but let's not blow it out of proportion.

Alright, cool. I feel a little more satisfied. I'll update this or any of my reviews if I have any other thoughts. Once again, thanks for reading!

Furious 7

Directed by James Wan. Written by Chris Morgan, Gary Scott Thompson. Starring Vin Diesel (Dom), Paul Walker (Brian), Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs), Jason Statham (Deckard Shaw).

Bottom line: Furious 7 was what I expected and more; it’s fast-paced, action-packed, and a fulfilling potential ending to the saga (not to mention a tasteful send off to Paul Walker).
3/4

In the past months, one thing that’s really aided (or enabled, depending on who you ask) my relationship with The Fast and the Furious is the local theater, the Marcus Grand. They were doing a Fast and Furious marathon: every Wednesday leading up to Furious 7 each movie in the “saga” would be played at half-priced. How can you pass up that opportunity?

The build up was wonderful and, thankfully, Furious 7 actually lived up to the hype. Even if you haven’t seen the rest of the series, you’ll be able to pick up the plot. You‘ll be missing out on some referential jokes but you aren’t missing much.

Furious 7 is one of those movies that isn’t trying to hide anything. You know what you’re going to get: fancy cars, big explosions, fight scenes, colorful villains, and butts.

By this point, the cast has stabilized and we’ve developed a relationship with them. There isn’t that much character development in this movie but that’s ok. The premise is essentially: there is a bad guy (Statham) and the good guys have to stop the bad guy.

The explosions and fights are over the top in a way that fits in with the franchise. In another movie in the franchise, Vin Diesel is on the hood of a speeding car (which he is managing to drive). He speeds into the median launching him over the gap between the highway lanes, a highway that runs high above a rocky coastline, onto a tank. That’s the type of stuff Fast and the Furious has to offer. In this case, as you may have seen from the trailer, Diesel jumps a sports car from one skyscraper to another.

Initially I was repulsed by the franchise. There are so many lingering shots of body parts; I won’t even say objectified women. These body parts act as cars which men drive, trophies for winning a race, or accessories to cars. In 2 Fast 2 Furious, Eva Mendes gets into Paul Walker’s car to which his companion complains, “Why she get to ride with you?” To which Mendes responds, “Cause you get the convertible.” So a woman is equivalent to the roof of a car…

It wasn’t until maybe the second or third time I saw Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift until the franchise started to grow on me. I saw it a couple times with friends as jokes. It baffled me that they kept coming out with them. I think was morbid curiosity that drew me to the theater to see them as they came out and, over time, I have a fondness for them. The franchise has a special place in my heart next to Tom Cruise and Nicholas Cage.

Anyway, I still haven’t quite worked out my feelings about all this. I mean, sure the franchise is more self-aware, especially in Furious 7 but does that make a lot of this excusable? Just because you know your being problematic, does that make it ok because you might be doing it on purpose?

As you’re probably aware, Chris Paul Walker (Thanks for the correction, Ali!) died before filming was completed. I read somewhere that only about half of filming was completed. I was really curious how they were going to handle the situation. He is, after all, one of the main characters. I must say that they handled it really well. His two brothers donned the same outfits and haircut to match the shape and general features of the late actor and digitally added his face in, when necessary. The same company who made Gollum from The Lord of the Rings was in charge of the facial effects. There was one scene at the end that I suspected was digitally manipulated but, overall, it was really well done. His send off was tastefully done, but don’t worry, I won’t tell you anything more about it. But it got me a little choked up in the same way as Gladiator (starring Russell Crowe).

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Furious 7. I’d be down for watching it again, actually. No, scratch that – I will be watching it again. I’m not going to give it higher than a 3/4 because it’s a cheesy action movie but as far as cheesy action movies go, especially when you go in with the right attitude, Furious 7 is solid.

Have you seen Furious 7? Are you a fan of the series? Please leave a comment if you like!

Sheesh, it's been a while

Good day, readers! It has been too long since my last post. It's been a combination of laziness and distraction. I recently presented at the PCA/ACA, which was my first academic presentation and my first conference. It went well, but because it was my first, I was nervous about it. So much so that instead of working on a review, I would try to work on the paper associated with the conference. That why, in part, I haven't been posting any movie reviews but, now that it has concluded, I can go back to my normal levels of procrastination with respect to writing reviews.

Normally, I would want to post the paper here but I think I will expand and publish it.

In the past couple days, my wife and I had some little movie marathons. On the flight back from the conference, we watched some of The Avengers and, once we finished it, we watched Thor: The Dark Planet and Iron Man 3 ended the night with Predator (which acted as a segue to Alien which we started the following evening).

In other news, Furious 7 came out last Friday and I'm going to see it this evening! I think I've discussed The Fast and Furious franchise before but I think after seeing Furious 7 in addition to a review, I will write a post about the movies overall. I don't even think I would call the franchise a guilty pleasure. Maybe I should feel guilty but I'm convinced that there has to be something deeper than cars and butts. I look forward to discussing it with you!

I also saw Disney's The Princess and the Frog but there are other reviews that take priority, quite frankly, in part because I neither loved nor hated it.

Have you seen any movies recently?

Before I close this brief post, thinking about my conference paper, perhaps it would be helpful or beneficial to make a post about my experience with the conference particularly with respect to how I went about writing the paper and making the presentation. I would also like to add that my wife was instrumental in me writing the paper and having a positive presentation experience.

Please do leave a comment or suggestion if you feel moved to.

Thanks for reading!

Big Eyes

Directed by Tim Burton. Written by Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski. Starring Amy Adams (Margaret Keane), Cristoph Waltz (Walter Keane), Krysten Ritter (DeeAnn).

Bottom line: Big Eyes is a really solid movie but I can’t help but be left with the feeling that they could’ve gone further in some respects.

3/4

Big Eyes is fascinating true(ish) story of the Walter and Margaret Keane who attained world fame through Margaret's interesting art style.

The movie opens with a shot of 1950's American suburbs. The camera enters one of the houses and we see Margaret and her daughter packing to leave Margaret’s husband. That isn't something someone does in the 1950's. She moves San Francisco to start a new life as a single mother. She soon meets a charismatic painter named Walter. The pair gets married and live in artistic, romantic bliss. Walter, as shrewd businessman, discovers the economic potential of Margaret's unique style. Unbeknownst to Margaret, Walter takes credit for the Big Eyes. He’s a natural salesman and knows how difficult it would be to sell a woman's art. When Margaret learns of his actions, she feels betray but she complies. Thus begins a decade long scam that took the world and the art world by storm.

Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz each give a wonderful performance. Adams received a Golden Globe for her role at Margaret, after all. This a directed by Tim Burton and, remarkably, it doesn’t have Johnny Depp or Helen Bonham Carter. There are some really good camera shots and I liked the music.

Thematically, Big Eyes provides a lot of food for thought. It’s fascinating to her Margaret’s story; in the fifties, women let alone mother’s never left their husbands, then to take their gender issues a step further, Walter asserts that no one buys female artists work, and on some level, it was true. Big Eyes also plays with the idea of the relationship to art – not only between the consumer and the art, but the artist and the art, even the artist and the consumer.

Have you seen Ratatouille? If you haven’t, please do. It’s adorable. In this movie, the villain is a tall, thin, skeletal food critic named Anton Ego (Peter O’toole). “For a person who likes food, you’re pretty thin,” quips a character. To which Anton responds with, “I don’t like food; I love it. If I don’t love it, I don’t swallow.” That’s the type of character we’re talking about. There is a remarkably similar character in Big Eyes. He’s a critic named Terence Stamp (John Canaday). When Stamp is introduced, he is giving a scathing review to the Big Eye painting, “…this is why the world needs critics: to protect the public from garbage like this.” He’s a character that returns at several points in the story but the relationship between the art and the critic and the public is one I always find interesting.

After all, that’s what I trying to be with this blog. I love movies. I know that if I don’t like a movie or like a movie, there will be a ton of people who like it. That’s totally fine. It serves as a reminder. When I post a review it isn’t so much about passing judgment but discussing my experiences with a movie.

Discussions about the merits of a work of art are complex. I hesitate to get much further into it because there are books, course, even careers built on that question alone. The film opens with a quote by Warhol saying, ‘If people like it, that’s all that matters,’ which gives some incite into the position it might be taking.

Overall, I’d recommend Big Eyes. You don’t even have to like the Big Eyes art to enjoy the movie. I’m not the biggest fan of it but I enjoyed watching and thinking about the issues the film brings up.

There is one scene that nearly caused me to laugh out loud. Margaret is walking through a grocery store – I’m not totally positive that it wasn’t a dream sequence but, in any case, we see a stack of Campbell Soup cans near a Big Eyes merchandise stand. Racked by conflict and guilt over the Big Eyes success, Margaret quietly walks to the cash register. She looks up at the cashier and stands, stunned. The cashier has big eyes! Margaret looks around and sees the impatient family behind her (a mother, daughter, and son) that has big eyes. “Don’t forget this is directed by Tim Burton,” screamed this scene. Other than that, there was a lot of restraint shown throughout the movie so it didn’t become over stylized. I, for one, really appreciated it.

My one major complaint about the movie is that it didn’t quite go far enough. It was solid until about halfway through or maybe three-quarters when they turned Waltz’s character into a domineering monster. Like nearly The Shining level crazy. They really didn’t have to do that either. I mean, Walter Keane was a person after all. He had feelings and hopes and dreams just like Margaret but because he had a fiery temper, he was demonized. Margaret, after all, was complicit in the scheme for a long time too. I wish the film would’ve gone further in terms of developing their characters. But I’m not surprised they went in this direction. Tim Burton is a collector of the Big Eyes paintings and has always been a big fan of Margaret’s art, so you can see where his sympathies lie.

Have you seen Big Eyes? Do you like that style of art? What did you think about the characterization of Walter Keane?

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment below!