Off the Page – Coraline

Neil Gaiman has emerged as one of the most unique voices in modern literature over the last couple of decades.  The British author has particularly had a hand in creating a renewed interest in fantasy literature, especially when it comes to darker themed fantasy.  Gaiman himself cites the likes of J.R.R. Tolkein and Lewis Carroll as inspirations in his writing, and it’s interesting how he has carved out his own voice the literary world.  Not only has he made a name for himself with the written word, but he has also become a celebrated writer in the field of comic books as well.  The common theme that seems to appear in most of his writing is the idea of mythical and celestial beings existing in a modern world setting.  It’s a theme that pops up in most of his works.  His first novel, Good Omens, involved a familial relationship between a literal angel and a demon.  American Gods told a story about the gods of the old world making their way through life in the New World of modern day America.  Even his run of Sandman comics for DC involved the clashing of heaven and hell on earth.  But even with all of the literal biblical sized elements that he throws into his stories, his writing is also focused on the humanity that often comes into conflict with these world shaping elements.  Perhaps the best illustration of his ability to ground the fantastical in a contemporary, ordinary world is found in what was his first foray into children’s literature.  Of course, when we say children’s literature from the pen of Neil Gaiman, it’s still in the genre of horror fantasy.  His version of a story appropriate for young readers is within the same context of the works of the Brothers Grimm being appropriate for young readers.  He softens his edges, but still creates for his readers a spooky and at times also disturbing atmosphere.  And that’s the story we find in his 2002 novella, Coraline.

Coraline tells the story of a young girl who finds that her new home is not what it seems.  The titular heroine is at odds with her parents after their move, and wishes for an escape.  She finds that escape when she finds a door in the back of the house to another house identical to her own, only livelier and more welcoming.  There she finds a woman identical to her mother, only with buttons sewn onto her face instead of eyes.  This “Other Mother” is generous and attentive in a way that her own Mother has not been, and Coraline grows more fond of this “Other World.”  As he seems more inclined to stay in Other World, she soon realizes there is a catch; to live there, she must sew buttons into her own eyes just like the other residents there.  She of course refuses, and begins to see the Other Mother for who she truly is, a deceptive creature called the Beldam, who begins to grow  more grotesque after the pleasing facade has fallen.  Coraline manages to return to the real world, but her family is nowhere to be found.  It is here that Coraline realizes the cost of taking her parents love for granted, and favoring her own comfort and happiness over the needs of the family as a whole.  From this point, she determines to find her real family, and in the process, she learns of the horrible history that her new home has had with the Beldam lurking behind the hidden door.  Overall, it is a spooky sort of haunted house story that Neil Gaiman manages to craft that certainly is provocative without ever being gory.  You can definitely see the Lewis Carroll influence, as the Other World is a twisted take on the concept of Wonderland, where it takes on a sinister character after making too much sense instead of nonsense.  When the novella was first published, it was instantly successful, earning Gaiman among other things a Hugo Award.  A couple years later, Gaiman would oversee a graphic novel adaptation, which was published in 2008.  The graphic novel gave readers the first visual representation of Gaiman’s imaginative world, and as it turned out, it would be just an appetizer as Coraline was about to make the jump to the big screen.

“How can you walk away from something and then come towards it?”

Enter Laika Animation studios.  Laika had just emerged after a rebranding of the old Will Vinton Studios, which had been the stop motion workshop that had been animating shorts and commercials since the 1970’s, famous for the California Raisins among other things.  Due to growing health issues, Will Vinton was looking to pass his Portland, Oregon studio off to new management that he hoped would continue the stop motion tradition after he was gone.  A former animator who work at his studio was Travis Knight, who just so happened to be the son of Nike founder Phil Knight, and he managed to convince him father to invest in Vinton’s ailing studio.  Vinton retired in 2005 and shortly after Travis Knight took over management of the studio, re-branding it Laika Animation.  Knight wasted no time in turbo-charging the output of his new studio, quickly looking for a project to develop into a feature film that he hoped would put the studio on the map.  Given that stop motion already has this other-worldly feel to it, so a story like Neil Gaiman’s Coraline was a match made in heaven for Laika.  The story had all the elements that was ideal for the studio, a spooky story that could still appeal to all audiences and allow for them to flex their arms creatively, especially with the construction of the “Other World.”  And to also show that Laika was serious about getting the tone of the book right, they sought out some veteran help by hiring Henry Selick to direct the feature.  Selick, of course, famously directed the classic stop motion feature, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) for Disney and producer Tim Burton.  The success of that film led to a follow-up adaptation of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach (1996), but the souring of the working relationship between Selick and Burton eventually led to the former leaving their partnership in pursuit of a different creative path.  This was fortuitous for Laika, as they wanted their house style to evoke the weird and imaginative sights that both Nightmare and Giant Peach both shared.  Bringing Selick on board would prove to be exactly what their Coraline project needed, as it gave the film the fully realized vision that it needed.

“You probably think this world is a dream come true.  But you’re wrong.”

So, what did Laika manage to do to give Coraline the cinematic treatment.  Gaiman’s story already lent itself very well to the visual form as the graphic novel demonstrated.  On the whole, Laika didn’t make a whole lot of changes to the story itself; it plays out pretty much as it did on the page, with some notable but not too drastic alterations.  Perhaps the most noticeable difference is that Laika decided to give their setting a bit more character.  Neil’s novel is set in no particular place, with only the house itself being the primary setting for the story.  It’s presumed that Neil sets his story in his home country of England, as the house he describes is reminiscent of the old manor houses that dot the English countryside.  Laika on the other hand gave Coraline a decidedly American setting, and in fact the studio chose it’s own back yard as the place to set this story.  The movie takes place in the town of Ashland, Oregon, which is a real town nestled just north of the California state border.  It’s a small cultural community known for it’s yearly Shakespearean Festival.  If you’re wondering why the movie has citizens from the town reciting quotes from the Bard, that’s the reason why.  It’s an interesting choice to set the story there, because while Ashland can be an inviting place, it’s also a bit cut off, being surrounded by mountains and farms.  The often gloomy Oregon weather also plays well with the atmosphere of the story.  But what is interesting is that Laika also makes the “real world” in their movie stylized as well.  Both the realms of reality and fantasy have the same off-kilter look; the big difference is the way that the different realms are colored.  Coraline’s reality is muted and washed out, while “Other World,” is bright and colorful.  This is an effective way to differentiate the two, with the more sinister side appearing initially to be the more appealing of the two.  The effect is still the same with regards to the story, which works to Laika’s advantage.  They are able to make even the real world visually interesting, without sacrificing the impact of seeing the “Other World,” and in the end it gives the movie as a whole a vibrancy of style.

The characters for the most part are pretty similar to their literary counterparts.  One change that is made to the characterization is that the movie does not carry over Gaiman’s use of the first person narration from Coraline herself.  Coraline is still the main character here, but we are experiencing the story with her, rather than having her recount it for us.  Apart from that, she is the same character described in the book; spunky and free spirited, but still flawed due to her abrasiveness, especially when she shows it to her parents.  The story is a coming of age tale and through it we see Coraline grow into a more responsible character, not letting personal interests and desires get in the way of doing what’s right.  The animators definitely made her distinct, with the matching of her yellow rain coat and blue dyed hair creating an instantly iconic profile.  She’s also given great personality by a then teenage Dakota Fanning in her vocal performance.  Her work in the film is also complimented by a surprisingly complex vocal performance by Teri Hatcher as both Coraline’s mom and as “Other Mother” aka the Beldam.  Hatcher remarkably plays her role with incredible range, showcasing so many different variations on the same character; being warm and inviting at one point and then terrifyingly shrill by the end.  The Beldam is also a character where the animators got to be more creative in their designs.  Neil Gaiman described the creature as looking just like Coraline’s mother, except taller, thinner and paler, and obviously with those unsightly button eyes.  In the film, the Beldam goes through multiple transformations, at times being similar to what Gaiman described, but done one step further.  By the end, the Beldam is almost insect like, with metal needles as spider legs.  It makes for a truly terrifying villain for the story, and one that very much could only be fully realized in this style of animation.  All of the other characters are much like their counterparts in the book, with the animators using their creativity to give them all exaggerated bodies.  Coraline’s neighbors in particular are fun caricatured designs, like her downstairs neighbors Miss Spink and Miss Forcible having extreme “curves”, and her upstairs neighbor Mr. Bobinsky having blue skin.  The one character that seems to be the most direct pull is The Cat, who in the movie speaks with the distinct voice of Keith David.  He’s a character that definitely feels like he jumped right off the page, and he’s very much present in much of the promotions of the movie, including appearing as part of the logo.

“Even if you win, she’ll never let you go.”

There is one character that was original to the movie that made a significant change to the story.  The film added another neighbor named Wybie to the plot; a boy around Coraline’s age that doesn’t live in the same house like the rest of Coraline’s neighbors but nevertheless still hangs around the property.  He starts off as a bit of a nuisance to Coraline, being a bit of a weirdo that talks too much.  But, when Coraline begins to investigate deeper into the mystery of the house she lives in, she learns that Wybie’s family has a dark past related to it.  Wybie tells her that his grandmother lost a sister when they used to live in the same house.  The sister disappeared one day and was never seen again.  It’s only after Coraline challenges the “Other Mother’s” authority that she comes face to face with the truth.  The house is haunted by the spirits of children, all of whom were captured and eaten by the Beldam, who lured them into the “Other World” the same way that Coraline was.  This revelation is found in the original book, but the fact that one of the ghost children is related to Coraline’s new friend in the real world gives the revelation a much more personal angle.  It hits home a lot more that Coraline knows what fate she’s about to face after becoming aware of Wybie’s great aunt’s own grisly fate.  It helps to elevate the threat of the Beldam in the story and it gives Coraline a bit more purpose in the story.  Not only is she going to face off against the Beldam for her own survival, but she also is doing it to seek justice for those who were not able to escape.  It definitely gives Coraline a bit more urgency in her story, showing that she is thinking through her ordeal as she presses forward.  The inclusion of Wybie in the story also gives Coraline a character that she can relate with on a personable level.  As she finds out, Wybie is the only one who believes her after she has passed into a different world, with all the adults dismissing her childish “fantasies” as just that.  It’s interesting that in the “Other World,” the Beldam has also created an “Other Wybie” whose mouth has been sewn shut.  Perhaps the fact that “Other Mother” went to the extra effort to keep “Other Wybie” silent is what convinces Coraline to take the words of the real one more seriously, and that’s an interesting new wrinkle added into the plot of the film.

What the movie and book both effectively realize is the theme of confronting fears head on as a positive sign of maturity.  For Coraline, she appears on the surface to be a fearless pre-teen girl whose adventurous spirit leads her to explore the unknown.  But all of that fearlessness to what’s in front of her also puts a wedge between her and her parents.  Her fear is internalized; she is afraid to open up to her parents and tell them she loves them, because that’s a sign of immaturity in her eyes.  There’s a degree to that in every rebellious youth, but the movie and the book Coraline confronts this theme in a very vivid way.  Her fear manifests clearly when the Beldam has taken her parents away.  She realizes her greatest fear is being alone, and that because of her actions, she has ended up isolating herself, making her own fear come true.  It’s a mature theme to explore in a coming of age story like this, and it’s interesting to see how Coraline comes to the realization that having everything come to her on her terms is actually what has made her world come apart.  Once the Beldam shows her true form, and the “Other World” begins to slowly crumble apart, we see all the old things that made the “Other World” so inviting before suddenly become the things of nightmares.  In her quest to save her parents, all of the different encounters with the “Other” residents of the house become twisted and nightmarish moments in the final act of the film.  And the worst is saved for last when she has to face the Beldam face to ugly face, all the more disturbing when the creature is still faintly like her mother.  Another interesting element that was added for the film was the idea of the Beldam luring her victims with dolls that look just like them found in the real world.  What it tells us is that the Beldam seems to sense the insecurity that a child like Coraline possesses and uses the dolls as a plant to coax out the curiosity of each child once they arrive at the house.  Neil Gaiman’s story certainly deals with all these themes, and thanks to Henry Selick’s creative vision, those themes manifest is some truly eerie and at times terrifying moments on screen.

“She wants something to love, I think.  Something that isn’t her.  Or, maybe she’d just love something to eat.”

Coraline premiered in February of 2009, but regardless of its wintertime release, it has since become a favorite for Halloween time playlists.  The film was critically well received and it had a pretty healthy box office take for a stop motion animated film.  More importantly, it put Laika Animation on the map.  In the 15 years since Coraline’s premiere, they have released four more features (2012’s ParaNorman, 2014’s The Boxtrolls, 2016’s Kubo and the Two Strings, and 2019’s Missing Link) with a fifth one currently slated for 2025 called Wildwood.  While they have struggled to repeat the same success as Coraline, each film is still highly regarded and the studio has helped to keep the prestige of stop motion animation going.  Like many other successful runs, it matters how well a studio is able to perform on it’s first go, and Laika certainly found the right story to tell with Neil Gaiman’s short modern fairy tale.  The movie itself has helped to elevate the novel itself, which when it was first published was regarded as one of Gaiman’s lesser works.  It was still loved, but it didn’t shine as brightly as Gaiman’s run of Sandman comics, or his novels Good Omens and American Gods.  What is noteworthy though is that the movie Coraline was the first actual cinematic adaptation of one of his literary works.  Since then, many of his novels have been been given adaptations, mostly for television.  Both American Gods and Good Omens were faithfully adapted into shows for Starz and Amazon Prime respectively, while Netflix managed to take his vast collection of Sandman comics and turn it into a successful mini-series.  And after 15 years, Coraline still holds up and is probably even more popular now than it was when it first premiered.  One thing that really has helped it to stand out is the fact that it’s an animated feature that’s not afraid to be a little dark.  Animation used to have a lot more darker moments than they do now, and those were the kinds of movies that have withstood the test of time.  Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to make a family friendly film have that extra little bit of peril in it, even if it becomes borderline horrific, because those end up being the scenes that we remember most from childhood on.  Coraline has the perfect mix of all that; whimsy, humor, creepy atmosphere and even a good scare here and there.

“They say even the proudest spirit can be broken…with love.”

Joker: Folie a Deux – Review

Five years ago, Warner Brothers and DC struck gold with a bold and ambitious movie centered around one of pop culture’s most infamous villains.  The movie Joker (2019) stood out from all the other comic book movies that were released towards the end of the 2010’s.  It was grounded, gritty and unforgiving in it’s tone.  The filmmaker behind it, Todd Philips was diverting far from his usual comfort zone in comedy and was taking a page from early Scorsese with this origin story centered around Gotham City’s “clown prince of crime.”  The Joker has always been a highly coveted role in the past for actors, because it’s a character that is all about extremes, especially when it comes to both humor and horror, and that’s a mix that many actors love to throw themselves into.  From Jack Nicholson to Heath Ledger, many great performances have helped to turn the Joker into a cinematic icon, but in the case of the Todd Phillips’ movie, the Joker was not just going to be a foil for the Batman this time; he was going to be the main character.  To make the movie work, they needed an actor who could not only pull off the grandiosity of the Joker persona but also someone who could find the human being underneath and make that aspect just as fascinating.  Joaquin Phoenix proved to be the ideal choice for the role, as he slipped into the clown shoes of this iconic villain and crafted an unforgettable performance that was both chilling and unhinged but also felt authentic.  The resulting film was a smash hit at the box office, becoming the first R-Rated film ever to gross over a billion dollars worldwide, a feat only matched this year by Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).  The film also received numerous accolades, including a Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival, and 11 Oscar nominations including Best Picture.  Joaquin ended up walking away with a Best Actor win for his performance, making him the second Oscar winner for a portrayal of the Joker, after Heath Ledger’s posthumous win in 2009 for The Dark Knight (2008).  In many senses, the timing of Joker’s release could not have been better to capture the zeitgeist of the comic book movie boom.

But, the success of Joker was not without controversy.  Many people were worried that the movie painted too sympathetic a portrait of the Joker character, and in a way they believed that the film was an endorsement for anti-social, anarchic behavior that often attributes itself to the Joker persona.  Only 7 years prior, the infamous mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado was attributed to a gunman who wore make-up similar to the Joker, which is a memory that still sticks with movie-goers to this day.  Because Joker is such an evocative idea of a villain, his persona has been unfortunately usurped by dangerous radicals in the online community, including incel movements and even white supremacist groups.  For many, the idea of this origin film giving a more nuanced look at the beginnings of this famous villain was like playing with fire in an already volatile cultural moment, with so many people getting radicalized into these extremist groups, particularly angst-y young men.  Now, Todd Philips and Joaquin Phoenix have always asserted that their movie is not an endorsement of the Joker’s actions, but rather that the movie is an examination of the way that societal problems and lack of care for mental illness leads to the creation of someone as bad as the Joker.  Like with heroes, villains are not born but made as a response to problems in society and the trauma it leaves behind.  Most audiences agreed and could see the nuance of the filmmaker’s intent, but there were many others, especially those in the radicalized community, that only saw the movie as a glorification of their anti-social behavior and they adopted the movie as a vindication for their extremism.  In the wake of this movie, particularly with the unrest of the pandemic and the 2020 election that saw rioters attack the Capitol, as well as the targeting of marginalized groups under the guise of “fighting the woke,” it’s easy to see why so many people were fearful of the message that the movie was sending, even if it was misinterpreted.  Still, Joker remains a controversial yet potent film that still sparks conversations today.  And perhaps in response, Todd Phillips and company are looking to provide an answer to the volatile impact of the first movie with a sequel called Joker: Folie a Deux.  The question is, does it offer up anything new or meaningful to the discussion?

Joker: Folie a Deux takes place not long after the events of the first film.  Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is being held at the Arkham Asylum where he is awaiting trial for murder.  His daily routine involves receiving medication to pacify his violent tendencies and he is allowed to roam around the courtyard under the watchful supervision of a group of rough and mean prison guards, led by officer Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson).  Not long before his trial starts, Sullivan decides to allow Arthur to attend an Asylum musical therapy group.  It is there that he meets another inmate at the asylum named, Harley Quinzel (Lady Gaga).  Harley it turns out has been infatuated by Arthur after seeing his crimes play out in the public eye, including the murder of talk show host Murray Franklin on live television.  Arthur takes a liking to her and they begin a courtship in the prison, leading to some mayhem along the way.  Meanwhile, Arthur’s lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) is trying to soften his persona in preparation for the trial, getting him on board with the idea of pleading insanity in order to get a lighter sentence.  His defense will be that he suffers from schizophrenia and that the Joker is a separate personality created out of the years of abuse he faced at home.  His defense is of course being disputed by the city that is seeking the death penalty in response to his murders.  On the other side of the courtroom, Arthur’s attorney is having to face off against the ambitious and skilled new Assistant DA, Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey).  But, Ms. Stewart is noticing that Arthur has been under the influence of his extremely volatile new girlfriend, and that it’s bringing out all of the bad aspects of his character into full view.  She worries that the unstable relationship that Arthur is having with Harley is going to jeopardize his chances of avoiding the death penalty because the jurors are only going to see Arthur and Joker as being one in the same.  Will Harley and Joker’s whirlwind romance ultimately lead to Arthur’s end, or is she awakening something far worse in him than was ever there before.

Perhaps the boldest choice that Todd Phillips could’ve ever made in response to the reception of the original film was to decide to follow it up with a musical.  But, that’s exactly what he did.  Folie a deux is a French term for shared psychosis, and the use of it in this title is to explain that both the Joker and Harley are both feeding the psychotic states of each other, and that is manifested in the movie through song.  Music is the language that speaks to both of them, and so we see the descent of madness they both fall into being presented in the movie as lavish musical numbers.  Keep in mind, this isn’t a movie that has a song here and there; this is a full-on musical, with songs intended to underscore the story and everything.  This idea intrigued me, because it was such a departure from the original film which was a ground, gritty drama.  I was excited to see how well this change in genre would work within the same world.  Also, I wanted to see the anti-woke crowd have a meltdown, seeing their beloved Joker franchise take a decidedly more artsy direction that runs contradictory to their worldview, and would hopefully cause them to abandon their claim on the original so that it wouldn’t be co-opted by such a bad faith group of anti-fans.  Well, I can definitely say that the meltdown among those people is happening, and they are throwing a massive fit over the direction that Joker: Folie a Deux has taken the franchise.  Unfortunately, Todd Philips didn’t give much else to this movie to make those of us on the opposite side care either.  I don’t know if Joker: Folie a Deux was too much of an over-correction for the harder edges of Joker’s message, but the movie that we got just has nothing that appeals to either the “woke” or the “anti-woke” crowd.  The musical element is ambitious, but it rings hollow and doesn’t have the desired effect of creating a sense of awe with the audience.  In many ways, this is one example where I can say that the movie is made worse by the musical numbers and not better.  And most annoyingly, it seems like Todd Philips doesn’t really have a point to make in the end.  The first Joker, for all of it’s controversy, still had a clear sense of what it wanted to say.  Here, the movie just throws a lot of different big concepts all at us at once, and none of it lands.

What’s frustrating about Joker: Folie a Deux is that it ultimately feels toothless.  It becomes clearer the further you get into the movie that Todd Phillips had nowhere to go after the first Joker.  Whatever statement he was trying to make, he already made it clear before.  So, the choice he made with this sequel was to flip genres and go full surrealist with the musical twist.  The strange thing is that the movie is still in that gritty tone of the first movie, so the switch to musical numbers feel jarring and without meaning.  And it should be noted that this is a jukebox musical, meaning that all the songs are not original to this movie.  The film utilizes old standards of classic  Hollywood, such as “That’s Entertainment,” “If They Could See Me Know,” and “Put on a Happy Face” to name a few.  And you’ll notice that a lot of the song choices are very on the nose beating you over the head with their themes.  The movie has a very La La Land (2016) feel to it, where it bounces back and forth between the fantastical and the down to earth, but it doesn’t have any of the cohesive narrative that that revisionist musical had.  Perhaps the audience that’s going to feel the most frustrated with this movie’s lack of bite and cohesion are the comic book fans.  In Joker, they got a fascinating deep dive into one of the most iconic comic book characters of all time.  With this, the comic book connection is really treated like an afterthought.  There’s not a single mention of Bruce Wayne or any of the Wayne family in this movie, which is odd to see a Joker film that doesn’t have any connection at all to Batman.  At least the last film gave a hint at that future.  This movie almost feels disconnected completely from the comic book, like it could be about any other murder trial.  It’s only occasionally you’re reminded that there’s a character named Harvey Dent in this movie, because nothing distinguishes him as a character at all, and there’s not a single hint of his future as the villain Two-Face.  The movie doesn’t have anything to say as a musical, as a comic book movie, or as a social commentary.  It’s just feels like a 2 1/2 hour epilogue to the first movie with a few songs added in.  It offers nothing more than that.

And the sad thing is there is that the movie is still well crafted from a technical standpoint.  The period recreation carried over from the first movie, which depicts a Gotham City in the same vein as late 70’s/ early 80’s New York City, still looks incredible.  Lawrence Sher, who was also the cinematographer for the first Joker, returns to do the photography for this movie.  The film was shot digitally, but the team did a great job making it look like it was made with the same kind of film stock they would’ve used on the films in the 70’s.  And when the movie does go into the dreamlike musical sequences, Sher does make them feel bold and colorful.  And while the musical numbers are hit and miss (mostly miss), the one piece of the movie that still shines bright musically is the original score by Hildur Guonadottir.  Hildur was the recipient of the first Joker’s other Oscar win for Original Score and her haunting music is a perfect fit for gritty world that this film depicts.  The eeriness of her mix of low bass strings and horns fits very well with the fractured state of Joker’s personality in this film, and the score just does such a great job of setting the melancholy mood of the film.  You almost resent the fact that the movie interrupts itself to start playing a musical number as it takes away from the beautiful music in-between.  There’s definitely skill on display, and Todd Phillips definitely shows off his knowledge of classic films as the movie references not just old school Scorsese, but also has nods to the musicals of New Hollywood as well like New York, New York (1977), All That Jazz (1979) and Hair (1979).  Even older musicals like Singin’ in the Rain (1952),The Band Wagon (1953) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) get shout outs.  There is clearly love of movie musicals in this movie, but the love also seems to be misplaced.  The fact is, even with all the skill put into the musical numbers and the drama side of the story, the film never really commits to one or the other.  It’s hard to tell if there is sincerity in the musical numbers, as it feels like Phillips isn’t so much trying to create a new kind of musical as he seems to be using it more for parody.  Unfortunately, the movie never feels clever enough to get the ironic use of musical numbers to carry much of an impact.

For the musical numbers to also work, it also matters to have the right cast in place.  The musical is primarily sung through by only two performers in this movie; Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga.  Phoenix is no stranger to singing on film, as he received an Oscar nomination for playing Johnny Cash in Walk the Line (2005), a film where he didn’t do any lip-synching in playing the country music legend.  For this film, he’s called upon to do some pretty big numbers which require a powerful singing voice, and strangely he still performs in character as Arthur Fleck, who he portrays as having a weak, damaged voice.  In a way, the strain in his voice makes sense, as it shows the struggle that Arthur Fleck has in controlling his emotions, showing the psychological damage he’s still dealing with.  And when we see him fully embrace his Joker side, his voice gets much bigger and commanding.  Joaquin plays both of these sides well and there’s a lot of crazy turns that he takes with the character in this movie.  Even as his character lacks the rich development that was found in the original film, he’s nevertheless giving it his all as an actor throughout the movie.  Of course, on the singing side, the movie benefits greatly by having Lady Gaga in the cast.  Here she’s taking over a role that in past films has been memorably played by Margot Robbie.  I find it refreshing that her version of Harley Quinn is nothing like Robbie’s bubbly little anarchist.  Her performance as Harley is definitely well suited for grittier version of the Joker mythos.  The only problem is that Harley Quinn is not as important to the overall plot as she should be.  We see her be a bad influence on Arthur Fleck in prison, but we don’t learn more about Harley outside of what Arthur sees with her.  Again, like the absence of Batman, we are denied the inclusion of seeing Joker and Harley committing crime together like they do in the comic books.  Harley is just there to be a motivator for the evolution of Joker’s story, and that sadly is another disappointing underuse of the potential of the character.  But, at least she sings the hell out of her songs in the film; far and away the best singer in the cast.  There isn’t much else to say about the cast other than there’s some decent work from a good collection of character actors, such as Cathrine Keener and Brendan Gleeson.  I also want to spotlight little person actor Leigh Gill, whose witness stand scene is a highlight in the film and he manages to steal the scene with a heartbreaking performance.

Joker: Folie a Deux is not the worst movie of the year, nor is it the worst comic book movie of the year; both easily go to the travesty that was Madame Web (2024).  But I will say that this is probably the most frustrating movie of the year, because of the waste of good talent that I saw on screen.  I was thinking back a lot to my experience watching Megalopolis the previous week.  Objectively, Megalopolis is a much sloppier, mismanaged movie than Folie a Deux, but it was also much more entertaining to watch.  Both movies are wild swings, but one of the movies misses and still manages to be memorable while the other misses and just makes you feel nothing.  There was little hope for Megalopolis, and yet I admire it’s audaciousness and the fact that it was just such a bizarre experience.  Joker: Folie a Deux wishes it could be bizarre.  Like I said before, there just seems to be this lack of committment to the bit from Todd Phillips.  He’s making a musical, but the musical numbers feel restrained to the point where they don’t soar, with Phillips still trying to tie it back into the grittiness of the original film.  And the fact that the movie never gives us anything more than a rundown of Joker’s criminal trial to center the story around also makes the movie feel small.  It’s barely a comic book movie adaptation, with a baffling absence of any hint of Batman. Lady Gaga is giving it her all in the belting out of her songs in the film, but her Harley Quinn has nothing else to offer and like everything else in the movie, she’s just there because she’s a piece of the Joker puzzle that ultimately never fully gets solved.  The must insulting part comes in the end, when Todd Phillips even appears to undermine the Joker origin that he set up in his original, beloved movie.  You leave the theater wondering what was the point in the end, and sadly there is none.  I get the feeling that Phillips was upset by just how many people misread the first film and he wanted to deconstruct the mythos that he himself had created as a means of getting the point across that he intended.  He wants us to see the way that fame and celebrity can corrupt, and that we as a society are embracing more and more people not for their good qualities but rather for their extreme personalities, and that can often lead to horrible consequences as villainous people can be elevated to heroes for the angry masses.  Unfortunately, too many people viewed the first film as a celebration of the extremes in society, and Folie a Deux feels too much like a not well thought out rebuttal to that misunderstood message of the first movie.  I imagine this is all we are going to get out of this brief else-world storyline from DC comics.  It’s not a good sign when you’re big musical comic book movie barely gets a reaction from even the most forgiving fans of the genre.  My screening was dead quiet by the end, and there were even walkouts before the credits rolled.  Joker will still live on in comics and on the big and little screen for years to come, but I doubt we’ll hear anymore singing from him for a while.

Rating: 5/10

Megalopolis – Review

There are many reasons why Francis Ford Coppola has been dubbed the “Godfather of Cinema.”  Of course the main reason is because he made the Godfather movies, but he has also earned the title because he was also a crucial figure in the re-shaping of cinema as we know it.  He was one of the batch of filmmakers that came to be known as the New Hollywood movement in the 1970’s, which steered the industry away from the old studio system and more towards auteur driven projects that were less glossy and more gritty.  While Coppola may not have been the one to start the movement, he was certainly the one who turned it into a powerful force, with The Godfather  (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) both rising out of this new style and becoming successes at both the box office and during awards season.  In the meantime, Coppola also steered himself away from Hollywood itself, choosing instead to craft his own mini industry in his home base of San Francisco.  His American Zoetrope company was a truly independent studio of it’s own, with it’s own soundstages, facilities for editing and post production, giving for the first time a Hollywood style level of filmmaking services outside the confines of Hollywood itself.  But, with that incredible progression of growth, there was inevitably going to be a fall of from grace too.  While Coppola did manage to achieve accolades for his ambitious war epic Apocalypse Now (1979), the production was a chaotic mess that began to take it’s toll on Coppola’s reputation in Hollywood.  And then the box office failure for the musical, One from the Heart (1981), put his company in a financial bind.  Coppola would work throughout the 80’s and 90’s on much smaller productions that while they did pay the bills and were generally well received they also were safe and not the kind of bold artistic statements that he used to make.  In that era, only Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) stood out as an artistically daring movie.  After 1996’s The Rainmaker, Coppola left filmmaking behind to focus more on his growing wine making business.

But, during those years in the wilderness, there was always this idea that was occupying his thoughts.  Coppola had long dreamed of making a Roman style epic, but have it set in modern day America.  His ambitious story would concern the theme of rising and falling empires, the disconnect between the patrician and plebian classes, and the new civilizations that grow out of the ashes of the old.  He dubbed this story, Megalopolis, and it was a story that was bold in concept but highly difficult to sell to potential investors.  Coppola would continue to work on the film periodically, but as the industry was changing and largely leaving him behind, the hopes of making the film a reality also diminished.  For the longest time, among fans of Coppola’s oeuvre, Megalopolis became this mythic thing; an unrealized project that we could only speculate what it may have been.  But, Coppola never gave up hope on it.  In the late 2000’s, Coppola regained some of his creative spark, and made three small scale films that while nowhere as ambitious as his earlier film were nevertheless granted him the creative freedom he desired; Youth Without Youth (2007), Tetro (2009) and Twixt (2011).  But even with that late career resurgence, Hollywood still wasn’t interested in investing in Megalopolis.  As Coppola has entered his mid-eighties, he was at the point where he knew that if he wasn’t going to make Megalopolis now that it would never get made at all.  So, he took the drastic measure of self-financing Megalopolis himself, to the tune of $120 million.  To accomplish this, he sold half of his wine making business, which was a sacrifice he was willing to make since his own grown children were uninterested in inheriting it, given that they’re all successful filmmakers like him.  And now, with a good chunk of his fortune poured into the film, the once impossible dream of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is finally a reality and making it’s debut on the big screen.  The only question remains, was it worth all of the wait and the many years of hype.

The story takes place in a heightened version of New York City named New Rome.  New Rome has been going through many years of decline due to a volatile economy, and it’s up to a select few to fix it’s crumbling infrastructure.  Unfortunately, two sides are at wat over the vision of the future.  On one side is Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who is inclined to keep the city budget minded and exactly as it is.  On the other side is popular architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) of the New Rome Design Authority, who has won the Nobel Prize for creating an environmentally adaptive building material known as Megalon.  Cesar’s dream of a utopia clashes with Cicero’s more pragmatic plans for the crumbling city, But, the mayor’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) doesn’t agree with her father’s vision, and finds herself seeking to help Cesar fulfill his utopian dream.  Both rivals desire the favor of a patron in the form of New Rome resident and richest man in the word, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), who’s also Cesar’s uncle.  Unfortunately for both Cesar and Cicero, there are troublemakers seeking to disrupt the power structure of the city by exploiting the old man and his money.  One is Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), a former news anchor who was once Cesar’s estranged girlfriend and is now the new wife of Hamilton.  The other is the old man’s grandson, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf) who is interested in stoking up the resentful working class people in a rebellion against the people re-shaping the city, manipulating them to his own benefit.  While Cesar continues to draw up plans for his utopian vision of the city, he and Julia form a relationship that becomes more romantic over time.  But there is a dark secret to Cesar’s past that continues to haunt him and force him deeper into substance abuse.  Even under the observant eye of Ceasr’s assistant Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne), Cesar can still let himself go too often and that creates an aura of scandal around him that could derail his vision.  Will Julia be that calming influence that helps Cesar literally re-shape New Rome into a modern utopia, or will the wolves at Cesar’s door be able to destroy him and wreck havoc on the city as a result.

I was one of those observant cinephiles who had heard of this mythic production called Megalopolis,  and I would say I’ve probably been aware of it maybe for over twenty years.  The genesis of the project went even further back, but by the time I started to hear about it, it still hadn’t advanced more than just a title and an outline of the concept.  For many years, I wondered like many about what Francis Ford Coppola was cooking up for us.  The idea sounded bold, and I was really eager to see Coppola go for something big again like he did with the films of his glory days,  But, as the years went on and Coppola distanced himself more and more from Hollywood, it seemed like Megalopolis was just going to be one of the great never made films in movie history.  So, color me surprised when I learned that Megalopolis was indeed being made.  With nothing left to lose, Coppola is taking one last big swing as a filmmaker and getting this dream project across the finish line before he himself has left this world behind.  That in itself is admirable, and I’m just glad that I can now actually see this mythic film for myself.  So, was it worth the wait.  Well, the answer is going to be a complicated one.  The film, I would say is objectively bad.  It is a colossal mess in terms of story, tone, and just general common sense with regards to logic.  But, is it also entertaining?  Absolutely.  In a strange way, everything that made this movie awful is also what kept me interested.  I was never bored watching this movie, and it’s probably one of the craziest movie experiences I’ve ever had in a theater.  This movie was a self-financed passion project and it shows; we are seeing Francis Ford Coppola’s unvarnished creative mind on display in all of it’s unfocused glory.  There is so much going wrong with this movie that it somehow goes all the way around and becomes it’s own beautiful thing.

There’s no doubt in my mind that many people are going to hate this movie.  Anyone expecting this to be another Godfather like masterpiece will be very disappointed.  This is a Coppola that is far closer to the gonzo weirdness of Apocalypse Now, though I will say it’s still no where near as masterful as that movie managed to be.  Apocalypse Now managed to somehow come together into a coherent narrative, but Megalopolis is far from coherent.  So much of the movie does not make sense.  Cesar has the ability to control time.  Is it ever explained why? Nope, and it doesn’t even have a purpose to play in the story itself.  Megalopolis is full of these incongruent elements, all thrown together into this melting pot of ideas that Coppola’s trying to force together into a story.  Francis’ overall thesis about this movie is that he wants to spark a debate about what should be done about our future.  But, he sadly undermines his own message by throwing so many ideas at us that it all gets muffled amidst all the noise.  And yet, there’s so much creativity abound in all the madness of this movie.  This movie really is unlike any other film I have seen.  At some points of the movie, there are moments that genuinely soar and show what the potential of the film could’ve been had there been more of a focus to it.  While this movie can in no way fall within the same category of beloved epics of the past, I do feel that it does stand out as something bold and original, which is welcome in a Hollywood market that has grown more homogenous in recent years.  It’s hard to tell if Coppola is aware of the oddball nature of this movie.  There are a lot of moments that I think were unintentionally hilarious that Coppola had maybe intended to be taken seriously.  But, then he’ll have an intentionally funny moment, and it’ll be actually funny.  So, I wonder if the weirdness was intentional and all of the abrupt tonal shift were actually all meant to be farce after all.  The movie is such a hodgepodge, I honesty could not peg down what Coppola was doing at all.

There’s definitely a lot to be said about the performances as well.  Anyone who accepted a role in this film must be commended for their bravery, because it must not have been easy.  Nobody talks like a real human being in this script; the whole thing is heighted with characters speaking in these grandiose terms and with grand soliloquies.  But, some actors are better equipped than others.  For one thing, I think the only leading man you could ask for to carry a movie like this is Adam Driver.  Driver has chosen to act in some very out there films recently, and he’s committed himself to the craft no matter how bizarre the film or role may be.  He brings that kind of energy to the role of Cesar Catalina, taking it big when he needs to go big, but also finding the moments to reign it in find the subtlety in the character when it’s called for.  While the character ultimately gel together on the page, with Coppola making him too enigmatic, Driver at least gets the job done in his performance.  He’s also got a great match in Giancarlo Esposito.  His performance as Cicero may be the best in the entire movie, because it’s the most grounded.  He definitely captures the grandiose nature of the character, but also finds the ability to make him feel like a real person as well, unlike so many of the other characters that come across more like caricatures.  The supporting roles are the most bizarre in the film.  Aubrey Plaza is really vamping it up as the character Wow Platinum, in a performance that leave no room at all for subtlety.  And the fact that she goes whole hog with this character makes her performance pretty fun to watch.  Shia LeBeouf is a bit more mixed, as he’s trying to be a bit more method while at the same time playing a character that’s supposed to be wildly erratic, and the mix doesn’t always work; though there are flashes of entertaining moments from him here and there.  And I honestly don’t know what Jon Voight is doing in his performance, but I’ll say this, he has one hell of a final scene that was ballsy for an actor of his age to be a part in.

With a $120 million price tag, you would imagine that a lot of that had to go into the visuals.  For quite a bit of the movie, Megalopolis is a visually impressive movie.  In terms of costuming and cinematography, the film does have some incredible craft behind it.  The film was shot by DP Mihai Malaimare Jr., who has worked on films as varied as Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012) and Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit (2019), as well as shooting all of Coppola’s last three films.  He manages to create some really beautiful shots throughout the movie, including a romantic scene that takes place among hanging steel beams high above the skyline of the city.  He also incorporates many beautiful uses of lighting, especially during some of the more dreamlike moments of the movie.  The costumes used in the film also are well crafted, giving the film it’s best connection to the underlying theme of this being a modern day Roman Empire.  The suits that the men wear all have these capes that the characters fling over their shoulder like the togas of a Roman senator, and the women’s dresses also carry over that Roman aesthetic, in a nice visual connection contributed by designer Milena Canonero, who had previously done costumes for another member of the Coppola family in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006).  But, even with a $120 million budget, the film’s ambition seemed to still test the limits of the budget, and that unfortunately leads to some visual effects that don’t entirely work.  There’s a heavy use of some very obvious green screen that comes across as clunky in the final look on screen.  Also, the ill-defined substance Megalon that is supposed to be this game-changing building material never comes across as tangible and also it looks like a very low quality digital effect from decades ago.  But, as bad as some of the visual effects come across, there is still a sense of ambition behind all of it.  Coppola put his own money behind his vision and there are moments where the film does carry across some striking visuals.  The sequence with giant stone figures coming to life and growing weary may be a ham-fisted metaphor in the film, but it is visually striking at the same time.  It goes along with so much of what the rest of the movie represents; it’s messy, but it is also unique.

The best thing that I can say for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is that it will be remembered.  Whether that will be either infamously or lovingly is up for debate, but I am sure that anyone who sees this film will never forget it.  It is just this weird, anomaly of a movie that could only exist through the sheer will of a legendary filmmaker investing everything he has into it.  He may burn through more good will with casual filmgoers as a result, but he got this dream project to the finish line in his twilight years and that seems to be the goal in the end.  He’s not seeking to reclaim past glory and put himself back on top in Hollywood.  He wanted to make this movie for most of his career, and he lived long enough to see it through, and now it belongs to the world.  He’s not looking for the awards season gold anymore.  And he’s also very well aware that this movie will not see a return on investment, as the box office looks to be pretty weak.  It shouldn’t be surprising, given that he had trouble convincing any studio to help distribute the film, before Lionsgate ultimately stepped up.  It may be a box office flop, but I can see this film finding a cult following in the years ahead.  While the movie may have been a colossal mess, it did manage to entertain the audience at my screening.  They were laughing pretty consistently throughout at all the weirdness of the movie, including the clunky dialogue and the unexpected tonal shifts.  Every time you think the film has peaked with it’s craziness, it somehow finds another way to go a level beyond that, and that kind of is impressive.  I don’t think it will tarnish Coppola’s reputation at all; the Godfather movies and Apocalypse Now are still undeniable masterpieces that will continue to shine a bright light on Coppola’s legacy.  But I am happy to see him trying to swing hard at his advanced age, even if also becomes a big miss.  Megalopolis may be a mess, but it’s a very beautiful mess that gave me one of the best and most insane theatrical experiences I’ve had in a long time.  It’s almost impossible to really rate it like usual because it almost defies a quantitive value.  As a story, it is without a doubt in a 4/10 range, but as a theatrical experience, I would put it near an 8/10 or even a 9/10, just based on how much fun I had.  To split it down the middle, I’m giving the one below which is about how I feel as a whole.  In the end, it was worth the wait even with all those flaws I mentioned.  It’s no where near a masterpiece, but in a way I kind of love the movie for being an uncompromised work of originality that only a great, legendary filmmaker can make.

Rating: 7/10

Like a Box of Chocolates – 30 Years of Forrest Gump and American Nostalgia Put on Film

The movie Forrest Gump (1994) by many accounts would seem to be an unusual choice to be the highest grossing movie of the year as well as the champion of awards season.  A story about a simpleton who has managed to stumble his way into important historical moments while being completely oblivious to his own impact on those same events, as well as the effect he has on the lives of others.  On the surface it doesn’t scream out as being a blockbuster.  And yet, it accomplished all that and more.  Forrest Gump was the undisputed champion of it’s release year both at the box office, and at the Academy Awards, and it’s even more surprising when you see the competition it went up against.  It managed to become the highest grossing film of the year, even with direct competition against Disney’s juggernaut The Lion King (1994) that same Summer.  And during awards season, it managed to beat out universally beloved classics like Pulp Fiction (1994) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994).  So what was it about the movie that made it such a champion with critics and audiences.  When you look at the film, it makes a lot of sense given the context of when it came out and also with the talent that was involved.  Forrest Gump was the right movie at the right time for Hollywood.  America was going through a period of relative peacetime during the Clinton era of the 1990’s, and during this time the culture was beginning to reflect on the struggles of the past and look at how they shaped the country into what it was at the time.  With Forrest Gump, the focus was on the shaky period of American post-War history between the 1950’s and 1970’s that saw the rise of Civil Rights in the South, the horrors of the Vietnam War and the loss of faith in government through the Watergate scandal.  All of these events provide the backdrop of Forrest Gump, but at it’s center is an eccentric character brought to life through an unforgettable performance by an actor who was starting to hit the peak of his powers in Hollywood; Tom Hanks.  All of this collided in a movie that benefited from the right timing, and 30 years on, it’s interesting to look back and see if the movie has the same kind of potency today.

The movie was based on a 1986 novel of the same name by author Winston Groom.  Told as a first person account from a Southern man named Forrest Gump, we witness his life story while at the same time getting a perspective on the national events he witnessed from his own simple and unburdened mind.  The novel was meant to be a picturesque story of America in transition with a bit of humor injected to give a satirical perspective on what it meant to be an American during these tumultuous years.  The story lent itself very well to a cinematic adaptation, and went through a fierce bidding war before eventually landing at Paramount Pictures.  Screenwriter Eric Roth was given the task of refining Groom’s sprawling narrative into a manageable script, and even though it did adhere pretty closely to the original plot of the novel, Roth did make quite a few changes, especially with the character of Forrest himself.  In the novel, Forrest is more of an overt savant, with clearly defined disabilities that made him academically deficient in many things, but also highly proficient in others.  In Roth’s script, Forrest it’s a bit more ambiguous of a character.  We never know what’s going on with him as a person, and why he’s not as bright as the average person.  It wasn’t that long after the film Rain Man (1988) had featured a savant character with severe autism in it’s story, so perhaps the studio just didn’t want that to be the focus of their movie.  In a sense, Forrest is written much more like a Capra-esque “every-man,” but with just a little less mental acuity.  It does fit more with that the intent of the story should be, which to not focus on Forrest’s disabilities but rather the journey he takes through life.  It’s a style of story that dates back to Voltaire’s Candide, and has been the basis for other films of the same ilk like Woody Allen’s Zelig (1983) or Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man (1973), where a common man finds himself wandering though life and finding himself unexpectedly being caught up in the march of history.  The fact that Forrest is not the brightest apple in the bunch is inconsequential to the plot, though it does occasionally lead to some of the funniest moments.  What is of consequence is where his journey in life leads him, and what effect he has on others.

What was also crucial in the making of Forrest Gump was who would end up directing it.  Filmmakers like Ivan Reitman, Penny Marshall, and Terry Gilliam had circled around the project, but the job ultimately went to Robert Zemekis.  Zemekis was an interesting choice for this material, because he was not exactly known as a prestige film director.  He made blockbuster films that were cutting edge in technology, and also enormous crowd-pleasers.  His type of movie were comical adventures like Romancing the Stone (1983), Back to the Future (1985) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988).  A period film was not exactly what he was known for, but Zemekis did see the potential of this story through his own unique style.  Given his background in comedic movies, he saw the underlying humor of Forrest’s story to be something that he could easily work with.  He also saw a way to use the story as a means to try out some new visual effects techniques that had yet to be used on screen.  The visual effects used in the movie wouldn’t be the big kind that you would see in blockbusters like Jurassic Park (1993).  Instead, they were the invisible kind that made you forget you were looking at something that was digital touched up in a computer.  In particular, what stuck out to audiences were the scene where Tom Hanks is digitally inserted into real archival footage of famous historical events, which includes meetings with long gone past presidents like John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.  It’s a subtle effect, but audiences were still struck by the seamlessness of the result.  There were other really effective visual effects that again don’t draw attention to themselves, but in retrospect reveal themselves to be very impressively executed.  Some people, for instance, thought actor Gary Sinise was a real amputee but it turns out his legs were removed through the magic of CGI in the film.  While Zemekis was indeed using his skills as a cutting edge blockbuster director to good use in this movie, Forrest Gump also marked a departure for him from the more zanier movies in his past and got him more comfortable with delivering a more mature, dramatic story, though still with some humor throughout.  Hollywood certainly rewarded him with that maturity, as he won the Oscar for directing.

But, when you think about the movie Forrest Gump, the first person who comes to mind will always be the man who brought the character to life, Tom Hanks.  Hanks had something of a challenge with the character.  Play the part the wrong way, and the character of Forrest could have unfortunately fallen into cringe territory.  The movie Tropic Thunder (2008) touched upon this aspect, where Robert Downey Jr.’s character warns about the perils of going “full r-word” in their bids to win awards for playing in mentally challenged roles.  Forrest Gump was used as an example in the movie of an actor who managed to walk that fine line the right way and of course Tom Hanks got his Oscar for it.  Despite how Tropic Thunder pokes fun at it, Tom Hanks manages to find the right tone with the character of Forrest.  He’s dumb, but not without some thoughtfulness, especially when it comes to expressing his emotions.  This is certainly in line with the more Frank Capra “every-man” angle that Eric Roth tried to make Forrest into.  We can laugh at some of his goofy simplicity, but the movie never mocks him for being who he is.  Forrest makes his way through the film as a pure soul who just is oblivious to the prejudices that infect the rest of us.  Tom Hanks managed to make Forrest more than just a one note character, finding his humanity through all of the relatable aspects of the character; his charm, kindness and enthusiasm for life.  Hanks managed to find the unique sound of Forrest’s deep Southern accent by observing the young actor who would be playing Forrest as a boy.  Young Michael Connor Humphreys (no relation) had this unique way of speaking in his Alabama bred accent that Tom Hanks just loved, and he used it for his own performance.  But Hanks’ performance alone wasn’t the thing that helped to make the movie memorable.  He was given great support by Robin Wright as the tragic love of Forrest’s life, Jenny, as well as the memorable turns of Gary Sinise and Mykelti Williamson as Lieutenant Dan and Bubba respectively; all characters whose lives unexpectedly intersect with that of Forrest and are forever shaped by it.  Tom Hanks himself was coming off of an Oscar win for the film Philadelphia (1993), so his stock was already on the rise.  Thanks to Forrest Gump, he would be only the second actor after Spencer Tracy to win back to back Oscars for Best Actor.

While it’s undeniable that the movie was a massive success in it’s day, looking back on the film from today’s perspective certainly offers up some interesting questions; namely what is the movie trying to say.  One complaint leveled at the film is that it’s a bit shallow, at least when it comes to the perspective it gives about the historical events that it depicts.  The movie approaches everything from this apolitical stance, and some people complain that this leads to some sanitization of important events that shouldn’t be ignored and that it only pays lip service to the social movements that fill the background of the story.  Where the complaint has some merit is in the way it presents representations of the Civil Rights movement and manages to work in an comical awkward moment involving Forrest.  A clip where Forrest politely gives a book back to a student who dropped it during the highly contested school integration protests, and is unaware that he ended up on live television, is certainly in line with Forrest’s character, but it can be seen as a bit in poor taste to throw a comedic scene into a historical moment that still represents an important milestone in Civil Rights.  The thing about the movie is that it is entirely from Forrest’s perspective.  He’s the one telling the story, and in his view, he’s oblivious to the politics of his time.  Some would say that the movie is minimalizing these moments that matter to our society, but at the same time, we as viewers are also aware of the context of these events too.  Robert Zemekis and Eric Roth are not treating Forrest Gump like a history lesson.  It’s much more of a character study, and the character just so happens to live through extraordinary time and meets extraordinary people.

One thing that people can read into the film is that Forrest as a character is a metaphorical representation of America itself; existing through good intentions and principled morals, but oblivious to the consequences of his actions.  Forrest achieves many great things in his story; he becomes a star football player at Alabama, he’s a decorated war hero, he meets at least three presidents, he wins a ping pong tournament in China, he starts a shrimp fishing business that makes him a millionaire, and he even taught Elvis how to dance.  His life is the personification of the American dream.  However, while his life achievements are many, none of it seems to land with the people that he chooses to love in his life.  His childhood sweetheart Jenny goes through a hard fought life of sexual abuse and drug use that ultimately catches up to her.  Lieutenant Dan becomes suicidal and violently depressive after losing his legs in Vietnam, instead of gloriously dying on the battlefield like all his ancestors had before him.  And Bubba doesn’t even make it off the battlefield, dying in Forrest’s arms from his battle wounds.  Even the historical figures that Forrest meets receive horrible fates, from Assassinations to Resignation.  It’s almost like Forrest is an angel of death to everyone but himself.  But, at the same time, the lives of these characters are also enriched by being in Forrest’s orbit.  Jenny’s only source of normality and protection in life comes from the tender love that Forrest shares with her.  Lieutenant Dan accompanies Forrest on his shrimp fishing venture, and he in turn becomes a multi-millionaire himself, and even gets to walk again on “magic” titanium legs.  There may be some merit to the idea that Forrest embodies the sometime naivete and ignorance of America to it’s own faults.  But, the key part of Forrest’s character is that his simple outlook on life also makes him free of prejudice, and that his defining characteristic is unconditional love and respect, even if someone is undeserving of it.  Forrest is not so much a critique, but an ideal of the American dream.

One other thing that stands out about the movie is the way it presents a sense of nostalgia about the past.  Given the context of when it was made, Forrest Gump represented a time where America was feeling comfortable about re-opening some old wounds and confronting some of the darker moments of the past.  The complaints about the minimalization of history perhaps stem from the fact that nothing, from Civil Rights to Vietnam to eventually the AIDS crisis, is ever fully explored in the movie.  And instead of addressing the brutal realities of those historical events, the movie just uses them as a part of the palette in it’s upbeat pastoral of America.  A large part of the nostalgia factor of the movie comes from it’s enormous soundtrack of pop music standards from the era, with songs ranging from Jimi Hendrix, to Credence Clearwater Revival, to Lynard Skynard, to REO Speedwagon all getting playtime in the movie.  Along with the sweeping musical score by Alan Silvestri, the film creates this sense of an idealized version of the past that shows off the grandeur of it’s time period.  The 60’s and 70’s was a prolific period of time with regards to culture, especially when it came to music.  But, this alone does not mean that the time period was free of turmoil, and I don’t think that it’s what the movie is intending to say to it’s audience either.  Like everything else in the movie, the music is part of the background of Forrest’s story.  The movie knows how to place it’s historical context on the cultural touchstone within, without painting a false sense of nostalgia that minimizes the events taking place.  Even still, so many movies that try to whitewash American history by painting a false portrait of the past by milking our sense of nostalgia have often taken a page from the formula put to use in Forrest Gump.  These were harsh times put on screen in the movie, and yet the rocking soundtrack and the glossy filmmaking all make it feel like an idealized world.  It’s not the movie’s intention, because the filmmakers were explicit in letting us know that this was never supposed to be a history lesson.  But, nostalgia can be a powerful tool in shaping our perspective on things, and too often it’s abused by people wanting us to mis-remember the past by falsely presenting us with an idealized one.

Regardless of the critiques, Forrest Gump still stands as a solid piece of entertainment that holds up well after 30 years.  Tom Hanks performance in particular really helps to carry the film, and makes it richer through his ability to give dimensions to a character that could’ve easily fallen into caricature.  The passage of time that the film covers is also interesting to explore, especially looking back on this film as it’s own time capsule.  While it wasn’t the first film to address Vietnam on the big screen (movies like Apocalypse Now and Platoon had already covered it extensively), it certainly put more of a spotlight on the aftermath of the War, especially when it came to the forgotten Veterans whose lives were broken once they came back.  The character of Lieutenant Dan in particular was one that few people had seen spotlighted, especially in a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster, with regards to the War’s aftermath.  Both Gary Sinise and Tom Hanks have become strong advocates for the veteran community since the making of this movie and their charitable contributions have helped many vets get the aid they have desperately needed.  Forrest Gump also represented something of a cathartic exercise in helping America to make sense of an era that for all accounts showed itself as struggling to figure out what it wanted to be.  The era depicted in Forrest Gump was one of a nation in turmoil, seeking to find it’s soul again.  While it does so with a comical twist, the story of Forrest Gump is nevertheless a story about hope in the face of death and destruction.  Forrest is a pure soul that never lets the awful events surrounding him make him bitter, resentful and hateful about the world.  And it’s some, whether he’s aware of it or not, that he is thankfully passing along.  His cross country run inspires a nation to join in because it gives them something good to believe in.  And after Jenny sadly passes away due to an unknown illness (implied to be AIDS), she leaves behind a son she had with Forrest, who he now must be a father to (played by a very young Haley Joel Osment in his first role).  Through Forrest Jr. we get a hopeful sign of a better future as Forrest’s good heart endures for another generation.  That’s ultimately what Zemekis, Hanks, and Roth wanted to convey with the character of Forrest Gump; never giving up on hope.  It’s thing that endures about this movie all these year later; embracing change and letting hope persevere.  That’s why the most famous line from the film resonates: “Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.”  Forrest treated everyday like a surprise and was eager to embrace that feeling no matter what life brought his way.

Evolution of Character – Abraham Lincoln

When Hollywood looks for subjects to create historical biopics on, the most compelling subjects usually end up being important world leaders spanning across history.  For American films, the Presidents of the United States have often been given the cinematic treatment.  From our founding fathers to the men and women who are still shaping our nation today, there are a fair amount of film dedicated to these important figures.  But there probably hasn’t been an American icon that has appeared on both the big and small screens more than our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln was not a founding father, but his impact on our nation may have been even greater than that of the people who shaped it in the first place.  And his story lends itself so well to cinema.  Born and raised in the humble beginnings of a log cabin in the early American wilderness, Lincoln became a self made man who found his way into a law profession that in turn led to a career in politics, spurred by a passionate belief in the abolition of slavery.  His eloquent speech and intelligent mind made him one of the great debaters of his day, and he carried the torch of abolition with him in a bid for the presidency, though it came at a volatile time for this nation.  His election to president and promise of emancipation of the slaves was violently rejected by the southern states, all of which soon seceded from the Union and ignited the Civil War.  But, Lincoln became a steadfast wartime leader and not only did he see the Union to victory over the Confederacy, but he also kept his promise of emancipation, ensuring the passage of the 13th Amendment in Congress, ending the barbaric practice of slavery once and for all in America.  But it came at the cost of an assassin’s bullet, which prematurely ended Lincoln’s life, preventing him from seeing his achievements bear fruit in the years after the war.  All of this history has made for some compelling cinematic moments, which is why Lincoln’s life story has been one of the most widely dramatized in all of cinema.  What follows are some of his more noteworthy big screen appearances.  Not only do they show the many ways that Lincoln continues to be a compelling figure in history, but it’s also interesting how the span of cinematic history itself shows different perspectives on the same man, showing the way history itself can be viewed differently over time.

JOSEPH HENABERY in THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)

Unfortunately for Mr. Lincoln, one of his earliest big screen appearances comes in a movie that is antithetical to his legacy.  D.W. Griffith’s monumental Civil War epic is one of the most influential and groundbreaking films in history; responsible for setting the precedents for so much of what we know as cinema in it’s wake.  It is also Confederate apologia and a virulently racist film that was historically responsible for reviving interest in the Ku Klux Klan.  Undeniably one of the most controversial films of all time, and it is still a lightning rod over a hundred years later.  So, how does a film that spits in the face of everything that Lincoln stood for represent the man himself.  Griffith, despite using his film to glorify the “lost cause” of the Confederacy and the KKK that arose out of it’s ashes, seems to also show a tiny bit of reverence for Lincoln himself, though it’s still very surface level at best.  Griffith still understood the iconic nature of Lincoln in America’s historical legacy, and he presents him as this stoic, serious man who leads with a dignified air.  The movie doesn’t tell us much more about the man; he’s barely a part of the main plot and is more or less just a background element on which the plot pivots.  Joseph Henabery certainly looks the part, with the well-defined bearded chin and sunken eyes that we all know very well from Lincoln’s many portraits.  It’s interesting to note that the movie itself was only 50 years separated from the life of Abraham Lincoln, which today would be the equivalent of us looking back on the Watergate era in politics. There might have been people who saw The Birth of a Nation during it’s original release who had also seen the real life Lincoln in person, which shows you how we are not too far removed from these historical events as we might think.  Lincoln though should have deserved a better debut on the big screen than a horrific racist movie that the man himself would’ve likely condemned.

WALTER HUSTON in ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1930)

Fifteen years after The Birth of a Nation premiered, Griffith would try to atone for the hateful nature of his past epic with a movie devoted to telling the story of Lincoln himself.  But, it was too little too late.  While it is a far better movie than Nation for the simple factor that it doesn’t support the Confederacy and the KKK, Griffith still doesn’t create a compelling story around the life of Lincoln either.  The movie is a speed run through the life of Abraham Lincoln, giving us an episodic look at all the touchstone moments in his life, from childhood to his presidency, to ultimately his assassination.  But you know what Griffith conveniently leaves out; Lincoln’s abolitionist activism.  The Emancipation Proclamation gets only a passing mention in the film, which is complete whitewash of history as ending slavery was the benchmark of Lincoln’s political career.  In Griffith’s film, Lincoln is instead celebrated as the man who saved the country from division, which of course is an over-simplification of his accomplishments and his character.  At least Griffith did a good job of casting the role.  Renowned character actor Walter Huston (father of legendary filmmaker John Huston) is an ideal choice for the role, giving Lincoln an air of respectability, while at the same time making him relatable as down to earth leader of men.  He also gets the look of the character right, very much capturing the stern faced man we all know from the photographs and the 5 dollar bill.  But, as good as Huston’s performance is, he still can’t salvage the historical inaccuracies that plague the entire movie.  While Griffith attempted to atone for the sins of The Birth of a Nation with this favorable portrait of Abraham Lincoln, one can’t help but see his own pre-built prejudices creeping in and still sanitizing the horrible racist legacy of the Confederate States by burying the reason the Civil War was fought in the first place.  Abraham deserved a better film treatment than a hollow summary of the man’s life told by someone who was trying to use the film to whitewash his own toxic legacy in Hollywood.

HENRY FONDA in YOUNG MR. LINCOLN (1939)

Finally, we get a portrayal of Abraham Lincoln that is true to the man’s legacy while at the same time is compelling as a great piece of cinema.  Director John Ford wisely chooses to not tell the whole life’s story of Lincoln, and instead focuses on a specific period of time that informs us about the man who Lincoln was.  As the title suggests, it’s a movie about Abraham’s early years, specifically the period of time in which he was practicing law in the town of Springfield, Illinois.  In that period of time, we see Lincoln grow into the compassionate defender of the innocent that we know he’ll soon be in a racially and politically charged world that’s about to explode in the years ahead.  It also covers his early love life, including his courtship with Ann Rutledge who sadly dies too soon and eventually leads him to his marriage to Mary Todd thereafter.  Ford clearly has a reverence for Abraham Lincoln’s story, but he wisely refrains from making Lincoln too saint like.  He managed to strike the right balance with the character of Lincoln by casting the perfect actor to play him; Henry Fonda.  Fonda’s folksy everyman charm works perfectly with the character, and he perfectly captures the tender soul of Lincoln while also giving him the commanding presence of a man who will stand up for what is right.  It’s the kind of performance that Fonda would continue to portray in most of his role over the rest of his career, including The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and 12 Angry Men (1957).  While Young Mr. Lincoln was not his first role, it was certainly the movie that propelled him towards becoming an A-list movie star.  The movie itself is also seen as a cinematic classic, and without a doubt one of the most beloved films centered around the story of the iconic American figure.  After several films beforehand that either distorted or minimized the legacy of Mr. Lincoln, Young Mr. Lincoln was the movie that we really needed to help remind America the important and essential mark that he made on our nation.

RAYMOND MASSEY in ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS (1940)

Released the following year after Young Mr. Lincoln, this equally reverent portrayal of the man picks up right where the last movie left off.  Henry Fonda’s portrayal of Lincoln showed us the young man just beginning to find his footing as a lawyer and discovering where his convictions lie.  Abe Lincoln in Illinois takes us through the next stage, showing us how the lawyer became a politician and then ultimately the President of the United States.  The movie is much more focused on showing us Lincoln the orator; the man who could inspire the people with his command of reason and intelligence.  Actor Raymond Massey gives Lincoln a big booming voice, which definitely fits with the idea of Lincoln being a commanding speaker, especially in the film’s recreation of the famed Lincoln Douglas debates.  Massey may not have the folksy innocence of Fonda’s portrayal, giving his version of Lincoln a more operatic presence, but he still treats the character with this respectable air.  The movie also gives us perhaps the most historically accurate account of Lincoln’s life up this point.  While Young Mr. Lincoln was true in spirit to the man, the movie itself was an imagined portrayal of what his early life might have been like.  Abe Lincoln in Illinois stays very close to the actual events that shaped Lincoln into who he was, albeit with some typical Hollywood embellishment.  Watchin the two movies together actually does work as a way of giving the viewer a fuller account of Lincoln’s life, each one complimenting the other.  Given that so much is known about Lincoln’s time in office, it’s nice to see that two very strong older films were devoted to showing us the parts of his life that we know less of, which helps us to understand how he became the man who would guide our nation through it’s most perilous era.

BENJAMIN WALKER in ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER (2012)

Now, jumping ahead several decades, we go from some of the most honest, historically honest depictions of Abraham Lincoln to something that is just pure fantasy.  Based on a history/fantasy mash-up novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is exactly what the title infers; a story about the 16th president having an alternate career as a killer of vampires.  This came out at around a time when these horror infused mash-ups were gaining popularity, which also included another Grahame-Smith novel titled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which itself was turned into a 2016 movie.  The movie was directed by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, who had gained popularity with his previous vampire flicks Nightwatch (2004) and Daywatch (2006).  Seeing this foreign filmmaker deliver his own twisted spin on an American icon was going to be interesting to see, though the end result was unfortunately underwhelming.  The movie never really lives up to the lunacy of it’s premise, and instead strangely tries to play things safe when it comes to the violence and the overall plot.  The casting of Benjamin Walker was an interesting choice, given that he had gained fame on Broadway for portraying another American president in the musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.  The statuesque Walker does create a physically imposing figure in Abraham Lincoln.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t make Lincoln anything other than a stock action hero, which is not only a let down for the zany premise of the story, but also for the persona of Lincoln himself.  It makes sense that Lincoln would be quite good at killing vampires with an axe, given that he was raised in the woods where tree-cutting was an essential skill.  The movie should have been either far more scarier or far more absurd than the standard, boring action film we ended up with.  It’s weird to say this about a movie where Abraham Lincoln is shown chopping up vampires with an axe, but Lincoln deserved better.

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS in LINCOLN (2012)

Of all the portrayals of Abraham Lincoln that have made it to the big screen, this is likely going to be the one that people will think of first.  Irish actor Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of the Lincoln in the 2012 film directed by Steven Spielberg may very well be the definitive one in all of cinema.  It’s the only performance of Lincoln that has won it’s actor an Oscar (a third for Day-Lewis, making him the current reigning champ).  Daniel took his method acting to the extreme and not only transformed himself into the persona of Abraham Lincoln, but also lived in his shoes throughout the filming of the movie.  There was a great amount of effort in the actors part to get every detail of who Lincoln was on screen, with Daniel Day-Lewis even researching the tenor of voice that people who knew him described him as having.  While we don’t know 100% for sure what the real life Abraham Lincoln sounded like, Daniel’s performance feel like it could be the closest that seen yet to being true to history.  And while the Lincoln in this film is definitely at the heart of the story, the film is also about a specific period of time that was crucial to the shaping of America.  The film centers on the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which banned slavery and the incredible maneuvering that Lincoln made as President to see it successfully pass through Congress, despite fierce opposition.  It’s a textbook example of the right way to do a biopic of a historical figure, which is to center the story on a specific moment in their life and dramatize it to it’s fullest rather than condense an entire life into one 2 hour story.  It makes for a more interesting and compelling story.  And it gives us a more intimate look at Lincoln himself, as we see him struggle through the twists and turns of this very important moment in time.  It’s also a great reversal of the early D.W. Griffith films that we have a movie that firmly establishes the Emancipation of the slaves across America to be Lincoln’s crowning achievement.  Both Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner create a compelling step by step dramatization about what it took to make Lincoln’s dream come true, and Daniel Day-Lewis brings the man to life in a way that feels like we’ve gone back in time to be in the presence of the real man himself.

BRAYDON DENNEY in THE BETTER ANGELS (2014)

This film delivers a story about Abraham Lincoln unlike anything else we have seen in cinematic history.  With a title taken from the famous quote delivered by Lincoln in his first Inaugural Address, The Better Angels takes us way back in history to show us the earliest part of Lincoln’s life, when he was still living with his family on their homestead in the Indiana wilderness.  Here, Lincoln is a young man between the age of 9-10, discovering his identity and observing the sights and sounds that would motivate his future actions.  The movie itself has a dream like atmosphere that is less plot driven and more like cinematic poetry akin to the films of Terence Malick.  Not surprisingly, Malick was a producer on this film, with his frequent editor A.J. Edwards making his directorial debut with this film, and it’s clear that the influence trickled down.  The film is also shot with some gorgeous looking black and white cinematography, which reinforces the film’s historic time capsule feel.  At the center of the film is the portrayal of a very young Lincoln by actor Braydon Denney.  Denney’s performance doesn’t reveal much of any indication of the man Lincoln would end up being.  If you didn’t know going in that you are watching a movie about the early years of Abraham Lincoln, you would think that this was just another coming of age film, but with an artistic flair to it.  Denney does well with his depiction of a young Abe.  It’s a very grounded portrayal, and it helps to make him feel like a real person living in this historical time period.  You don’t really learn much about Lincoln himself in this film; the movie is mostly just there to showcase what kind of life Lincoln must have had.  As an artistic rendering on true history, it does create a provocative portrait of Lincoln’s upbringing.  We know the least about this time period in Lincoln’s history, the only accounts being taken from Lincoln’s own autobiographical writings.  We can only imagine what his early years may have been like through evidence of how people lived back then, and the movie does a fair job of that too.  So many films about Lincoln use their time to build up his legend, but his film does the interesting action of using his own personal experience to inform us of the kind of life that would shape someone into a legend in the beginning.

These seven examples of Abraham Lincoln’s presence on the big screen are honestly just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many different appearances that he has made across all media.  There are countless made-for-TV movies and miniseries that are either about Lincoln or include him as an important figure.  He’s also shown up in several different films as a supporting player, including a silly cameo in the time travel comedy Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989).  Abraham Lincoln today still stands tall as one of our greatest historical icons, and is almost unanimously regarded as our greatest Commander in Chief.  No other man achieved so much in his brief time as President of the United States.  He secured the future of this country by commanding the nation through it’s greatest crises, the Civil War, and brought it to a worthwhile end by defeating the Confederacy and reuniting the sates.  But of course his greatest legacy was getting the 13th Amendment passed and adopted into the Consitution, ending the barbarism of slavery in America once and for all, and emancipating the millions of slaves who were now free to live as equal citizens in American society.  At least that was the hope, and sadly it would take nearly another century for equal rights to become enshrined into law, and even today the scars of slavery and the Jim Crow laws that followed still run deep in society.  The good thing about movies that celebrate the life of Lincoln is that they remind us of the example of his leadership and how it still inspires us all to appeal to our “better angels” in society today.  America still falls short of where it should be with regards to race relations, but the example that Lincoln left behind hopefully drives us to be better and to work to solve the problems of racial division that persist to this day.  The best portrayals of Lincoln, from Henry Fonda’s tenderness to Daniel Day-Lewis’ intensity all have that inspiration in common.  Far more than four score and seven years have we seen Lincoln be a guiding presence in our cinematic history, and hopefully he is a figure that continues to inspire future filmmakers and audiences in the years ahead.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – Review

When we look at the whole career thus far of Tim Burton, there is a definable split between the early years and the later years.  When Tim Burton was first starting out, he was a unique voice unlike any other in Hollywood.  He cut his teeth as an animator at Disney before expanding his talents in the realm of live action film-making.  He would get his first shot at directing when LA-based comedian Paul Reubens selected him to make a movie adaptation for his Pee Wee Herman character.  Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985) certainly showed off the great creative mind that Burton had, but it would be his follow-up that people consider to be the first true Burton movie.  Beetlejuice (1988) was a true original.  It was bizarre and eerie, but in a way that was still appealing to a mass audience.  It was also irreverently hilarious in a way that many movies of it’s kind in the 80’s were too afraid of being.  Creating a oddball twist on the haunted house sub-genre, Tim Burton created this imaginative world where life and afterlife intersect.  The peaceful serenity of a small New England town becomes a gateway to a strange and otherworldly purgatory with “newly dead” tenants waiting for their turn to be processed through underworld bureaucracy.  And at it’s center is a ghoulish prankster who is too much to handle in both realities.  The titular “ghost with the most” Beetlejuice features remarkably briefly in the movie (less than 20 minutes), and yet he is the centerpiece of the whole movie.  Michael Keaton, the actor who played him, had been around for a while, but Beetlejuice was the character that catapulted him to super-stardom.  If Keaton hadn’t shown off his incredible talent as a performer as Beetlejuice, would Tim Burton have had the confidence to cast him as the caped crusader in his next film, Batman (1989), even when everyone else thought he was crazy.  Burton would have eventually found his footing as a filmmaker, but because of Beetlejuice, he was able to make a name for himself early without having to compromise his vision, and because of that, Burton movies are a category of their own.

But, like with most other filmmakers, it becomes difficult to try to live up to your own legacy.  That’s why the latter years of Tim Burton’s career have been a little more hit and miss.  When he was a much hungrier young filmmaker, he was more willing to take chances to prove himself.  That’s why that early run of movies feel so creatively vibrant.  From Pee Wee, to Beetlejuice, to Batman, to Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Ed Wood (1994), there was a sense of Tim Burton using his talents to transport audiences into another world that only he could imagine.  But, the latter half of his career seems to have lost a bit of that creative spark.  Movies like Planet of the Apes (2001), Alice in Wonderland (2010), or Dark Shadows (2012) feel more like parodies of a Tim Burton film rather than genuine artistic expressions.  As the Burton name has gained it’s reputation, so has the interest of Hollywood in using that to appeal to audiences.  And it seems like Tim Burton has become more inclined to bend to Hollywood’s will rather than them bending to his.  There are occasional flashes where Burton makes something that he feels genuinely invested in; like the Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) musical adaptation, or the Margaret Keane biopic Big Eyes (2014).  He’s also shown an interest in animation that has proved fruitful, going back to his dream project of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and continued through his adaptation of his own live action short, Frankenweenie (2012).  But, even still, he’ll still return to the Hollywood machine and make a soulless project like the Dumbo (2019) remake for Disney.  But, he recently found renewed creative and commercial success with the popular Netflix series Wednesday, which he produced and directed half the episodes for.  The home run that that show turned out to be is giving long time Burton fans hope that he is finding his creative mojo again, which is helping to build anticipation for his next project.  And what that project has turned out to be is a long in development sequel to the movie that defined his career from the start; the highly anticipated Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024). The only question is whether or not the world is ready to bring this ghoul back from the dead again, or is it dead on arrival?

Set in the present day, decades after the events of the first film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice catches us up quickly with what has been going on with Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder).  Her ability to speak with ghosts has turned her into a bit of a celebrity, with her own ghost hunting show, produced by her manager and romantic partner Rory (Justin Theroux).  Lydia’s show is interrupted one day when she receives the news from her quirky stepmother Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara) that her father Charles has died. The news hits her hard, and it also means that she’ll have to return to the home that she thought she left behind years ago.  In addition, she has to break the news to her estranged daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega) in order to get her to come along.  Meanwhile, in the Netherworld, a malevolent ghost with the power to devour the souls of the dead named Delores (Monica Bellucci) has arisen from her exiled imprisonment and seeks to take revenge on the man who killed her; a familiar ghost by the name of Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton).  Beetlejuice is desperate to steer clear of his soul-sucking old flame Delores, and he seeks the help of a ghost cop named Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), who was an actor who played cops in his past life.  While Beetlejuice is on guard, Lydia finds it hard to balance the new life she has made with the life she once had, as it increasingly begins to intrude more with her return home.  Rory is also pushing her to make important life decisions that she is clearly not ready to make, such as getting married, and it’s creating even more of a wedge between her and Astrid.  In the midst of all this, she is having traumatic flashbacks to her original encounter with Beetlejuice, to the point where she’s starting to see him everywhere she goes.  Is she on an inevitable collision course with Beetlejuice once again, and is it possible that this time he may need her help more than she needs his.

A sequel to Beetlejuice has been in off and on development for over thirty years, and given that lengthy span of time, it’s a wonder that Burton and Company managed to actually get it to finally happen.  In many ways, the idea of a sequel seemed to be treated like a joke, with the movie at one point being called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Obviously that version never happened, and I imagine nothing of that original treatment made it into this sequel, with Tim Burton opting to not stray too far from the original recipe.  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice more or less covers much of the same ground as the original, which for many legacy sequels tends to be where they fall apart creatively.  Thankfully, this sequel manages to avoid most of the pitfalls that a long in the making follow-up falls into.  While Tim Burton is revisiting the same settings of the first film, he doesn’t turn Beetlejuice Beetlejuice into an endless string of memberberries.  There are a lot of new ideas thrown into the mix that builds upon the world of the first film rather than just exploiting it for cheap nostalgia. The most pleasing thing about this movie is that it’s the first Burton film in a long while that actually feels like a Burton film.  I think this is because he’s not working with an adaptation this time of someone else’s work; like a book adaptation or a Disney remake.  This time he’s working with a universe of his own creation and is allowed to expand upon it and even poke fun at it a little.  What is especially pleasing is that it shows that Tim Burton is still capable of making a movie like this after a decade or so of feeling like he’s just been coasting on his past glory.  Given the special place that Beetlejuice holds in his legacy as a filmmaker, you can see how he wanted to approach this movie with a bit more resolve to get it right, almost like he’s trying to prove himself once again just like he had with the original.

But, this movie is also far from perfect as well.  The big problem with the movie is that it’s unfocused.  There are half a dozen plots going on in this movie, and Tim Burton doesn’t seem to know which one he wants us to focus on.  There’s the Lydia/Astrid storyline, the Beetlejuice/ Delores storyline, a subplot with Astrid getting to know a local boy in town, Lydia’s trauma coming back to haunt her, and a few others thrown into the mix.  The problem is that none of those stories intersect in an organic way, and they all keep butting into each other.  When one storyline finally hits it’s footing, it will be undercut by another storyline, and in some cases, storyline’s that have potential will suddenly be dropped in favor of another.  The movie is missing a traditional three act structure, and is instead a bunch of fun but loosely connected scenes strung together in the hopes that it tells a cohesive story.  The biggest problems with this occur when it robs the effectiveness of the character development within the story.  Delores for example is a really interesting character, with a fantastic introduction scene.  But then she disappears for most of the movie, only becoming an active threat once again towards the end.  Too much of the other subplots got in the way of Delores’ development, and it lessens her presence as a villainous threat in the story.  The original film may not have been the tidiest of plots either, but it had a consistent through-line in it, with the Maitlands (played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis in that movie) being effective audience surrogates whose eyes are the ones we follow along with as they observe the weirdness of Beetlejuice’s world.  They were the cornerstones on which the rest of the movie could focus on.  This sequel seems to not know which character it should be focusing on; Lydia, Astrid, or Beetlejuice.  It’s the thing that makes this movie fall well short of it’s predecessor, even while hitting the right notes when it comes to the visuals and the humor.

One thing that certainly is pleasing to see with this film is the absence of CGI in the effects.  It really seems like Tim Burton made an effort to return to his roots with the way he made this sequel.  Instead of relying heavily on computer animation to recreate the world of Beetlejuice, Burton instead resorts to old school practical effects that feel like the ones he would’ve used back in his early days as a filmmaker.  For one example, the sandworms that make a return from the first film are animated in stop-motion.  This gives them a more dynamic presence than how they appeared in the first movie, which was done with puppets and models, while at the same time helping to retain the hand crafted effect that Tim Burton is striving for with this film.  There’s also some incredible make-up and puppetry work that help to make the more cartoonish moments of the movie feel genuinely in line with the original film’s low budget charm.  But, even with the drive to do everything with practical effects, Tim Burton doesn’t cut back on the scale of his film either.  The full practical sets of this movie are expansive and pretty incredible to look at as well. They definitely feel in line with the visual style that we all are familiar with when it comes to Tim Burton.  Some of the corridors still retain that off-kilter aesthetic that he’s known for, especially the ones with uneven floors.  And you can tell when watching the movie that these are real sets on real soundstages, with the minimalist of green screen enhancements.  These Netherworld sets also pair nicely with the actual, on location shooting that they did for the film, bringing a beautiful juxtaposition to the film between the world of the living and that of the dead.

Of course, the thing that matters most is how well the cast is able to perform in this imaginative Tim Burton world.  Michael Keaton and Tim Burton go way back, with their shared history obviously going back to the first.  And while this isn’t a long in the making reunion between the two, since Keaton had a part in his Dumbo remake in 2019, it is still very pleasing to see these two working together again on a character that matters a lot to both of their careers. Of course, even with the 36 year gap, Keaton doesn’t miss a beat playing Beetlejuice.  It’s a part that Keaton, whose in his 70’s now, can still play despite the passage of time, given that the character is literally a decaying corpse.  It’s also pleasing that he gets a lot more screen time in this film, though I still believe it’s a lot less than it should be.  Winona Ryder also gets to explore a bit more of Lydia’s character this time around.  It’s interesting how she is a much different person this time around now that she’s a mother, but at the same time, you still see the rebellious little goth girl underneath the surface.  The movie wouldn’t be the same without both Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder both on board, so it is pleasing to see them both say yes to being in this sequel.  Jenna Ortega became an audience favorite with her acclaimed performance as Wednesday Addams in the Wednesday series, and it’s nice to see Tim Burton bring her on board this project as well.  Unfortunately, there isn’t much to the character of Astrid, other than her being an angsty teen.  Jenna does her best with what she can with the role, but Astrid unfortunately is the least interesting character in the movie.  The always great Catherine O’Hara consistently steals every scene she’s in here, and it’s great to see her return as well.  Her throwaway one-liners may be the highlight of the screenplay all on their own, and she delivers them perfectly.  And while stars like Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci are sadly sidelined for much of the film, they still bring a strong presence to every scene that they are in.  The only actor I feel is wasted is Justin Theroux as Rory.  He’s a one-note character that sadly Theroux isn’t able to do much with, and in the end, it becomes an unfortunately underwhelming performance.  But, the highlights of the cast are the ones we were all hoping to see return, and Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara all look like they are having a blast being back in this world.  Burton certainly likes working with the same people over and over again in his movies, and it’s pleasing to see how far after the fact that his troop of stars are willing to get right back into this quirky world again.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is nowhere in the same league as the original film, but it’s not exactly going to reflect poorly on it either.  It’s flawed, but still entertaining enough to be worthy of being a continuation of the story.  The most positive thing about it is that it’s Tim Burton finding himself once again comfortable with making the kinds of movies that he made in his early career.  While I don’t think we will ever see him make a film again that hits the same way that his early films did, this sequel is certainly the closest he’s gotten in quite some time.  The movie is very funny in all the right ways, the visuals are distinctly Burton-esque, and there was an effort made to use real, practical effects in the making of this film.  All of that is a welcome change from the way Tim Burton was making movies over the last couple of years.  We may be witnessing a new, third phase of Burton’s career starting to emerge with this and the Wednesday series.  It would appear that Burton is no longer coasting on any big studio gig that he can get (though this film is still certainly that too).  He’s now starting to seek challenges again as a filmmaker, and trying to build upon his legacy rather than compete with it.  My hope is that he applies some of that renewed creativity into something original.  That’s the thing that we have been missing from Tim Burton over the last couple decades; an original concept brought to life on film.  Even still, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice should still prove to be an audience pleaser.  Michael Keaton slips right back into Beetlejuice’s striped suit just like he’s never left, and it looks like he’s happy to be back, as does Winona Ryder.  A lot of things had to happen to make this sequel possible.  It helps that both of it’s stars have seen big career comebacks in the last decade, with Keaton earning an Oscar nomination for Birdman (2014) and Winona getting a boost from her role in the hit series Stranger Things.  Their hot streak, plus the addition of Jenna Ortega to the mix is almost certain to drive audiences to see this movie in massive numbers.  But hopefully, the biggest beneficiary will be Tim Burton, who needs his own Renaissance as a filmmaker.  While far from a perfect sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice still delivers enough entertainment that’ll keep this franchise alive and far from dead and buried.

Rating: 7.5/10

The Movies of Fall 2024

The Summer of 2024 proved to be an unexpected couple of months at the box office.  The month of May, which typically kicks of the Summer with a bang ended up being more of a whimper.  With no Marvel film in it’s first week, Hollywood had to rely on the Ryan Gosling/ Emily Blunt vehicle The Fall Guy (2024) to open up the season; a feat that it sadly didn’t have the muscle to pull off.  But what really got Hollywood sweating was the surprisingly weak Memorial Day weekend box office.  The highly anticipated prequel film, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) not only under-performed on the usually big ticket weekend, but it ended up becoming a massive flop, even despite glowing reviews from both critics and audiences.  This began to spread talk around the industry that the theatrical market was in trouble and that Hollywood was in for a massive downturn in box office in what looked to be a very weak summer.  But, perhaps all of us were too quick to give up on the box office for Summer 2024, because once we entered June, things actually took a turn for the positive.  There was surprisingly strong box office results for the sequels Kingdom of the Planet of Apes (2024) and Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) that helps to buoy the box office for a few weeks more.  And then came the box office savior that Hollywood needed.  Inside Out 2 (2024) not only exceeded expectations, it has broken down every conceivable record there is for an animated movie at the box office.  This is an inspiring story on it’s own, as Pixar needed a win after seeing it’s brand take a hit post-pandemic after the misguided decision to send their films straight to streaming for two years.  This summer proved that the Pixar brand is still strong and they weren’t the only battered brand to see a comeback.  Marvel had it’s biggest hit in years with the record-setting release of Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), giving parent company Disney the two undisputed champions at the Summer box office by a mile with it and Inside Out 2.  That’s a relief to the Mouse House after the tough year they had in 2023.  There were also several surprisingly strong box office returns for movies like Twisters (2024), It Ends With Us (2024), A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) and Longlegs (2024), and what looked initially like a bleak Summer season in the end became a bright moment for movies in general.

So, with a Summer season that proved to be better than expected now behind us, it’s time to take a look at what’s ahead for us in the Fall.  Like in past years, I will be looking at select movies that I think are the ones that are Must Sees, the ones that have me worried, and the ones that I think you should skip.  Keep in mind my track record is not perfect, so some movies may end up being better than I expected or be less than I expected.  My choices here are based on my own expectations from what I have gathered from the hype surrounding these movies as well as the effectiveness of the marketing.  So with all that said, let’s take a look at the Movies of Fall 2024.

MUST SEES:

MEGALOPOLIS (SEPTEMBER 27)

This movie has me intrigued more than any other coming out in the months ahead.  It goes without saying that Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest film directors of all time.  I’m sure that any list made of the greatest movies of all time will have at least 3 Coppola movies on it.  But, in recent years, Francis has stepped away from Hollywood, choosing instead to make small art films like Tetro (2009) and Twixt (2011).  While it is sad that one of the greats of Hollywood has been left behind by the industry due to his purity of vision, he has nevertheless revered by the industry, so whenever he makes something new people still take notice.  This year, we are finally getting able to see what is undoubtedly his most ambitious film in years.  Megalopolis has been a passion project of his that he’s been persistently bouncing around for 20 years.  When you look at the very out there premise, you can see why Coppola struggled to get the financing for the film.  In the end, he put his own money into the project, making this one of the biggest self-financed films in history.  The fact that this movie exists at all in a final form is a miracle in itself.  But, is it a miracle that may have consequences for it’s creator.  The movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to a mostly mixed reception.  Some critics loved it while others found it to be a baffling mess.  Given it’s nature, I can easily see this movie dividing audiences once it makes it’s way to theaters; which even there became a struggle as it took a while to find a distributor until Lionsgate thankfully stepped in.  I really do hope it turns out to be better than expected because this is a movie that I’ve been hearing about for such a long time and I’m thrilled to see it become a reality.  It’s been a while since we’ve seen Coppola work on this kind of scale and I think it’ll be worth it to see the “great master” take one final big swing.  The visuals look great, and the all star cast that includes Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf and Dustin Hoffman looks really impressive.  I hope this movie delivers on it’s promise.  The man who gave us The Godfather Parts I and II, as well as Apocalypse Now (1979) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) is one of the last swing for the fences filmmakers left of his generation, and even if it may be a mess, it’s a mess that I must see to fully appreciate.

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX (OCTOBER 4)

Five years ago, Warner Brothers and DC put out a somewhat controversial comic book film that centered around the famed “clown prince of crime.”  Some saw it as a brilliant deconstruction of one of comic books and cinemas greatest villains that also tapped into some intriguing social commentary.  Others thought it was exploitative and convoluted in it’s approach towards creating a fully fleshed out characterization of it’s central character, as well as being derivative of too many other movies like those of director Martin Scorsese.  But the one thing that nobody could dispute was the powerful performance given by Joaquin Phoenix as the titular psychopath, earning him a well deserved Oscar for Best Actor that year.  In the years since, the movie has continued to be controversial, with a lot of people worried that it has been co-opted by reactionary thugs on the internet who clearly misread the intention of the movie and believe that the movie supports their own twisted and bigoted agendas.  Which is why I’m pleased to see the direction that returning director Todd Phillips and company have decided to go with for this sequel by making it a musical.  Nothing would upset the edge lords who embraced the first movie more than to see this franchise turn into a song and dance extravaganza.  I can already see the click bate reactions by this crowd complaining that “Joker’s Gone Woke” and I’m so eager to see that crowd meltdown over this movie.  I respected the first movie well enough without outright loving it.  I do think turning this kind of story into a musical is an interesting angle and I’m intrigued to see how it’s executed.  It would be interesting to see if the musical numbers feel like the musicals of the same era that the original Joker was trying to evoke, like say emulating the movie of Bob Fosse or other kinds of grounded, gritty musicals.  Or are we going to see some old school Hollywood musical sequences like Singin’ In the Rain (1952) had.  Having Joaquin Phoenix back is a plus, and I’m interested to see how handles the musical aspect.  We know Lady Gaga can carry her own, and I’m interested to see what she does with the character of Harley Quinn.  This movie is taking a risk to be sure, with the possibility of alienating part of it’s fan-base, but that’s the kind of gamble I like to see from Hollywood.

MOANA 2 (NOVEMBER 27)

It’s been a tough couple of years for Disney Animation.  Their last truly blockbuster hit was pre-pandemic with Frozen II (2019).  Since then they’ve been putting out completely original films, and none of them have been lighting up the box office.  Sure, the pandemic had something to do with the reversal of fortune, and the move to streaming has altered audience patterns, especially with Encanto (2021), which became a smash hit once it started to stream on Disney+.  But, the back to back flops of Strange World (2022) and Wish (2023) have put a damper on the animation powerhouse, with the latter being especially disappointing as it was supposed to be the studio’s big 100th anniversary project.  Disney Animation really needs something to turn it’s fortunes around, and that means relying on that dirty word again; sequels.  It’s understandable to think that Disney is selling out by falling back on sequels rather than adding something new to the mix, but new things are what we’ve been getting for the last couple years, and it’s not working.  To help rebuild themselves back to where they were, they need to go with what’s worked before, and they have a reliable winner with Moana (2016).  The original film was a smash hit, and has only gained in esteem in the years since.  It is the most streamed movie not just on Disney+, but across all platforms, which is quite a feat so it makes sense that Disney would want to make a sequel given the original’s staying power.  The film thankfully returns the original cast, including Auli’i Cravalho as Moana and Dwayne Johnson as Maui.  While the sequel looks like it will be covering some of the same territory as the first, it does appear that it will offer some new thrills to the mix, including the hint of a yet to be revealed villain.  One thing that sadly will not be present in this movie are new songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda.  Hopefully the new songwriters are capable of living up to the high standards set by the first movie, which included now beloved classics like “How Far I’ll Go” and You’re Welcome.”  The one thing you can count on is that the Disney animators will still make this movie a visual feast, and I certainly am eager to hit the high seas again with Moana and Maui.

NOSFERATU (DECEMBER 25)

Merry Christmas from the Dark Side.  This isn’t the first time someone has attempted to update F.W. Murnau’s chilling and now century old horror masterpiece for the modern day.  Werner Herzog famously remade Nosferatu in 1979 with Klaus Kinski as the titular vampire.  But, if there was ever a right person to make another attempt at re-creating the spooky horror of this classic story, it’s the man behind terrifying films like The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019).  Robert Eggers is a director that has done a magnificent job of putting style back into horror, and what better way to show off what he can do than to pay homage to the movie that set the standard for the genre.  The film does look like it will be a visual feast, but I also appreciate just how much Robert is trying to create the most unsettling visuals that he can with this version of the story.  The shadow of a hand stretching over the city is an especially evocative visual, and one that is clearly a nod to the original, which was very much reliant on the use of shadows for conveying the supernatural.  The trailer wisely keeps things vague, because I’m sure the studio would like to keep a few of the scares secret, but those familiar with the original film will definitely pick up on the story itself.  Thankfully one of the withheld secrets is what the lead vampire, Count Orlock will look like.  We know he is being played by Bill Skarsgard, who’s no stranger to playing iconic movie monsters.  But I’m wondering if his look will be akin to the original creation by actor Max Schreck in the original, or are we getting a different Nosferatu.  Ironically, frequent Robert Eggers collaborator Willem Dafoe is also in this movie, taking on the Van Helsing type role, who 24 years ago was nominated for an Oscar for playing Max Schreck in the film Shadow of the Vampire (2000).  It will certainly be quite an experience, especially with this coming out on Christmas Day in one of the wildest out of season movie premieres in a while.

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE (SEPTEMBER 6)

It looks like the Fall season may be kicked off with a bang with the “ghost with the most” running the show.  Legacy sequels that come out way beyond the release of the original can be a huge risk, but it helps when the same people who made the original are on board.  There has been talk of a Beetlejuice (1988) sequel for over 30 years, and now it has finally become a reality.  The question is, can it still spook up the same mix of laughs and scares.  It’s been five years since Tim Burton last released a film in theaters, the ill-fated remake of Dumbo (2019), but in the meantime he managed to find his mojo once again with the hit Netflix series Wednesday, of which he produced and directed half of the episodes.  The positive sign is that he is bringing on board the creative team from the Wednesday series to help him craft this sequel, including the shows writers as well as the star Jenna Ortega.  What is also pleasing is that Tim Burton is making an effort with this film to primarily use practical effects instead of computer animation, so that the movie will feel authentic and in the same spirit of the original.  This includes long neglected effects like stop motion and complex prosthetic make-up, which were key components of creating the world of the original Beetlejuice.  But of course, you can’t do a Beetlejuice sequel without the man who brought him to afterlife in the first place, Michael Keaton.  Keaton is certainly a much older man now, but Beetlejuice is the kind of character where that doesn’t matter and it looks like he is slipping right back into that iconic striped suit like he never took it off.  And if he can play Batman again, why not also play Beetlejuice while he still can.  Another plus is that Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara are also returning to reprise their roles as Lydia and Delia Deetz.  And the new cast including Justin Theroux and (hello again) Willem Dafoe all look like they will be a lot of fun in their roles.  Let’s hope that the long wait is worth it and that Tim Burton is able to deliver yet another thrilling and funny adventure with the recently departed.

MOVIES THAT HAVE ME WORRIED:

GLADIATOR II (NOVEMBER 22)

It is remarkable that in his mid-80’s Ridley Scott is still capable of making epic scale films for the big screen.  At the same time, he has also been a bit hit or miss in recent years.  For every The Martian (2015) or The Last Duel (2021) that lands, there is an Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) or Napoleon (2023) that doesn’t.  He also has a very shaky track record when it comes to creating franchise follow ups, as the movies Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) failed to reignite the Aliens franchise.  So, there’s a bit of doubt surrounding whether he is able to create a follow-up to his Oscar-winning epic Gladiator (2000).  There are a lot of variables that are working against this movie, chief among them is that there is no Maximus in this sequel.  The iconic central character of the original ends up dead at the end, so where do you go from there.  Of course, it would be a tall order to have Russell Crowe reprise the role in a different way, as he is much older and out of shape now.  So, what this movie does instead is to take the child character from the first movie, the son of the Emperess Lucilla (played by Connie Nielsen) and have him aged up and in the role of a gladiator inspired by the memory of Maximus.  I will say that the casting choices in this movie are intriguing.  I’m especially interested in seeing how Denzel Washington performs in this swords and sandals style epic.  He may feel too modern and out of place, but then again I just saw him kill it as Macbeth only a couple years ago so he might surprise people.  I also am interested in seeing Pedro Pascal perform in this movie, playing a general in service to two corrupt emperors that have taken over after the death of Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix).  What remains to be seen is if Paul Mescal can fill the big boots left by Russell Crowe, who won an Oscar for his performance.  Maximus is one of the most iconic movie heroes of the last quarter century.  Also, it’s hard to say if a movie like Gladiator needs a second chapter, as the first one felt so complete.  Hopefully Ridley Scott still has it in him to deliver yet another grand epic on that same level again.

MUFASA: THE LION KING (DECEMBER 20)

If you’ve been reading my blog for at least the last five years, you’ll recall that I absolutely hated The Lion King (2019), Disney’s so-called “live action” remake of their animated masterpiece.  What frustrated me was that the movie was just a copy and paste job that added nothing to the experience, and in fact robbed the story of it’s strength by having the characters be animated in this naturalistic style that robbed them of any personality.  So, you’re probably wondering why I have this movie here and not in the movies to skip category.  Well, I still have plenty of reservations about this movie, primarily with how it still uses that unappealing photo realistic character animation for the animals.  But, at least with this film they are working with an original story, rather than copying beat for beat the same plot of the original film.  Sure, it’s a prequel, telling the back story of Mufasa and Sacr so we aren’t really going to cover any unknown territory.  But at least now I don’t have to negatively contrast the beats of this film with those of a vastly superior movie.  One other intriguing aspect of this film is that it is being directed by Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk).  Getting a prestige, art house filmmaker like him to jump on board is a bold move on Disney’s part, and it might make this a bit more of a deeper film that it normally would be.  At least that’s the hope.  I am worried that this could be the kind of movie that could sully Barry Jenkins’ reputation as well if it still feels like a cash grab the same way that the first one did.  My hope is that Jenkins is capable of finding a rich and meaningful story with this film that transcends the limitations of the medium and well exceeds expectations.  The track record of Disney remakes is pretty shoddy, and the sequels to those remakes fare even worse.  Here’s hoping the gamble of giving this project over to a filmmaker of Barry Jenkins’ caliber helps to make this Lion King prequel roar.

WICKED (NOVEMBER 22)

One has to wonder if the Broadway to cinema pipeline has run dry.  There have too many stage musical translations recently that have failed to light up the box office.  One of the last true blockbuster musicals that has yet to get the cinematic treatment is finally making it’s way to theaters, and it is a lot to digest.  One thing that worries me is that the film looks a bit overproduced.  It seems like a whole lot of the budget went into the make-up, costuming, and the production design.  But, here’s the problem; it doesn’t give off any authenticity.  Overproduced movies never feel like they are lived in worlds; the artificiality just overwhelms everything else.  You do admire the hard work that the technicians put into building all of the sets and costumes, but unless people connect with the story, no one will care.  And that’s the vibe I am getting with this cinematic adaptation of Wicked.  The trailer seems to be going out of it’s way to hide the fact that this is a musical, which should be the biggest selling point for this movie.  We all know about Wicked from Broadway, so why aren’t they showing us a clip from a musical number.  Perhaps it’s a sign that the studio is concerned with the final product of the musical numbers.  Hopefully this isn’t the case.  One of the pluses of this film is the stellar cast that’s been put together.  I’m not quite sure about Ariana Grande as Glinda, but Cynthia Erivo is one of the most powerful belters working in musicals today, so her casting as Elphaba should be something in the movie’s favor.  The casting of Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard is another inspired choice, and I’m happy to see Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh here as well.  With all that, it’s still unclear if this movie is going to be able to stick the landing.  The Broadway musical is beloved by many, as is the classic 1939 film that made The Wizard of Oz famous in the first place.  That classic film still feels magical, and most of all tangible in how it depicted it’s magical world.  You would think that over 80 years later we would be able to still make the land of Oz feel like a magical place.

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE (OCTOBER 25)

The iron grip that Sony holds on their rights to the Spider-Man side of the Marvel Universe has not been delivering anything good recently, outside of animation that is.  Morbius (2022) was a disappointing mess and Madame Web (2024) may be an all timer for one of the worst comic book films ever.  The only success that the Sony Spider-Verse has had in live action is with their collection of Venom films.  Though those movies have been a success at the box office, they still are far from the level of quality that we’ve seen from the MCU.  They still have the same convoluted plots and underwhelming action of all the other failed films in the Sony franchise.  The only saving grace has been actor Tom Hardy in the leading role as Venom and his alter ego Eddie Brock.  Hardy may be acting in trashy movies, but he’s still giving it his all and he’s managed to make the characterizations of these characters work.  This new film, Venom: The Last Dance, appears to be where Sony is looking to close out the Venom franchise.  Tom Hardy looks like he’s still having fun in the role, which is a good sign.  But, there are some red flags that show up in the trailer.  One of the big issues is the moment where it looks like they are retconing the stinger from the movie Spider-Man: No Way Home  (2021), where Hardy’s Eddie has been transported briefly into the MCU, where he accidentally deposits part of his symbiote suit, which we thought may be a tease for other problems in that universe later.  But as seen in the trailer, it looks like they are saying that that universe was not the MCU at all but instead is the same universe that they Venom movies have always existed in, thereby shutting down any possible multiverse connections in future.  It gives us the sense that Sony is continuing to go rogue in defiance of the plan that Marvel Studios has been laying out, and I think it’s doing a disservice to their own franchise and the character of Venom.  The hope is that Tom Hardy can still at least keep this movie entertaining, but it’s a shame that Sony has undercut their own cinematic possibilities by refusing to play nice with the rest of the Marvel Universe.

MOVIES TO SKIP:

KRAVEN THE HUNTER (DECEMBER 13)

Speaking of Sony’s endless string of mediocre Marvel films, here we have a new film dedicated to one of Spider-Man’s most famous foes.  This movie was already delayed one whole year, mostly due to the ongoing labor strikes that drove down box office in general, but the massive delay also indicates that Sony didn’t have a lot of confidence in this one carrying the torch immediately after the strike had ended.  The pattern from the Sony Marvel films has been one of completely missing the point why people want to see comic book movies in the first place.  We aren’t concerned about the origins of these characters and why they became who they are.  We just want to see them either be the heroes or villains they were meant to be.  One thing is noteworthy about all of these Spider-Verse films that we’ve seen from Sony; a distinct absence of Spider-Man himself.  That’s because the Spider-Man that everyone loves is in the MCU, putting him out of reach unless Sony plays ball with Marvel.  They are never going to be able to spin-off a cinematic universe on the same level with just the side characters of the Spider-Man comics.  We don’t care about Kraven the Hunter as the main character.  We want to see him fight one on one with Spider-Man, and this movie will definitely not deliver on that.  The casting of Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a bit strange for this character, as he seems to be a fair bit too young for what should be a seasoned hunter.  Maybe there will be some decent action scenes, but the trailer just gives us the same generic style that we’ve seen from all the other Sony Spider movies, where they feel like they are ashamed to be adapted from a comic.  The MCU showed that audiences are embracing of the campy and colorful aspects of comic books.  The Sony films feel like throwbacks to the era of super hero movies that were trying too hard to feel grown up as they grounded their characters too much in reality.  For Kraven, he should be a formidable villain and not just another generic anti-hero.

FLIGHT RISK (OCTOBER 18)

It’s a painful to watch one career downward spiral manifest on film.  This new thriller is giving us two.  Mark Wahlberg’s recent choices in film roles have seen him fall more and more off from his career highs.  He seems to be distancing himself more from Hollywood as he’s become more spiritual in the last couple of years.  Now, it is possible to be more in touch with one’s faith while at the same time continually challenging themselves as an artist, but Wahlberg seems to be distancing himself a bit too much and that is putting a limit on the kinds of roles that he’s taking.  It’s a similar downward trend that this film’s director, Mel Gibson, has gone through and both of them show no signs of changing anytime soon.  Both Wahlberg and Gibson could do so much better, and have so in the past, but their egos have gotten in the way and have led them to attaching their names to schlock like this.  In Gibson’s case, he’s never really gotten out of the rut he put himself in through his own bad behavior, and Wahlberg seems too concerned about his own image that he’s stopped taking risks.  I guess this movie exists because they like working together (this is their third collaboration) and it’s not a bad thing to work with the people you trust the most.  But, both of these guys should take a more introspective look at where their careers are, because this kind of movie should be beneath them, and yet here they are.  But if Wahlberg feels comfortable acting with one of the worst bald caps I’ve seen in recent memory, then it seems to me that he’s not ready to be the risk taker he once was again, and the same goes with Mel who said yes to having Mark wear that bald cap.

RED ONE (NOVEMBER15)

Another painful reminder that star power does not guarantee that a movie will be good.  This Christmas themed action movie feels like it’s late to the party by a couple of years.  Nothing is going to surpass the hilariously over-the-top Violent Night (2022), which was one of the best possible examples of bringing Christmas theming to recognizable action movie tropes.  Given that this is a production from Dwayne Johnson’s own company, Seven Bucks, it’s clear that it’s little more than a star vehicle for him.  It might have been funnier if he were in the Santa role, but no he gave to J.K. Simmons, which even isn’t the first time that the Oscar-winner has played St. Nick.  What makes this trailer especially cringe is the very obvious indication that neither Dwayne nor his co-star Chris Evans have any on screen chemistry.  Evans looks like he was dropped in from an entirely different movie, and his personality is merely looking at all the Christmas themed elements around him and finding it all weird.  That’s pretty much it; no other punchline.  Overall, it just looks like an excuse for an easy paycheck for everyone involved, so I highly doubt this will turn into a new Holiday classic.  There are far better action movies with Christmas theming to them (the aforementioned Violent Night is highly recommended).  I would imagine this movie will be out of theaters not long after we cut our Thanksgiving turkeys, falling well short of the Christmas season that it is hoping to capitalize on.

So, there you have my outlook of the upcoming Fall Season at the movies.  Of course, there are many other films that have yet to make it through the Fall film festival circuit that could become some big deals in the months ahead as the Awards Season heats up.  While the Fall hasn’t exactly been producing big Oscar winners recently (the last two Best Picture winners came out in the Spring and Summer of their respective years), it still is a fertile ground for some movies that no doubt will be talked about for next year’s awards.  I’m certainly interested to see what surprises come up in the next few months.  My favorite movie of 2023, The Holdovers, wasn’t even one of the films on my radar when I did my preview of Fall from last year.  Of the films that I spotlighted in this preview, I would imagine that few are going to be deemed awards worthy, and my excitement is more about anticipating the chance to see them for the first time.  Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis will be one of those experiences that I have to see for myself in a theater, even if there’s the chance that I might not like it.  The fact that the movie even got made is kind of miraculous and that in itself is the allure.  I’m also eager to see how audiences respond to Joker: Folie a Deux, which could be it’s own spectacle.  And my hope is that movies like Gladiator II and Wicked are better than expected.  Given that both movies are releasing on the same day, we could see another Barbenheimer situation arise due to the strange counter-programming, though I doubt either will achieve the same box office levels, given that Moana 2 is likely going to crush both over the same holiday weekend.  There’s a lot of interesting stories waiting to happen this fall, and I will be heading out to the movies quite a bit in the next couple of months.  Hopefully this Fall continues the same box office recovery that we saw happen this Summer.  We may not have the same kind of blockbusters, but a good healthy box office spread across all films will be great for theaters in general.  Here’s hoping for a good finale to the year 2024 at the movies, and an even better future going into 2025.

Too Many Notes – 40 Years of Amadeus and the Perils of Making a Musical Biopic

There are many right ways to create an engaging biopic for the big screen and also many wrong ways.  Too often we see movies based on the lives of famous musicians take the latter route.  There are good ones to be sure, but too often we see many musical biopics fall back on formula.  What a lot of bad musical biopics seem to forget is that it’s not the songs that the subject wrote and/or sang that made them stand out, but the lives that they lived that offer up the true cinematic story.  Some of the worst offenders, like this year’s Back to Black (2024) or 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody don’t really tell us anything new about their subjects, but merely just show a point by point book report on the lives of these famous singers.  The formula often involves the characters getting inspired to write their big hit song in the most convoluted way possible, and it glosses over how many great songs came into being which is many hours of fine tuning and rewrites, which truthfully don’t lend themselves very well to a cinematic experience.  And then you have the very icky sort of biopic where you see a performer’s tragic story mined for empathy when it at the same shifts the blame away from the people who drove the person to an early grave; probably due to the fact that those same people probably still control the estate that the movie had to gain permission from in order to make the movie.  But then you have the good musical biopics that aren’t afraid to show a person’s life warts and all in the knowledge that it will be more honest and interesting movie character, such as movies like 8 Mile (2002) or Walk the Line (2005), both of which were movies that got the personal approval and involvement of the musician themselves.  And then there are also good biopics that are completely outside of the norm that they take the musicians story into an entirely elevated level, like The Doors (1991) or Rocketman (2019).  I would however say that the best musical biopic that has ever been made would be a film that entirely flies in the face of actual history.  That would be the Oscar-winning Amadeus (1984).

Amadeus can be described as a musical biopic, while at the same time also be considered a complete work of fiction.  The reason it falls into a biopic designation is because it depicts the life of one of the world’s greatest composers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  It shows us the life he led during his most productive years composing in the court of the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Joseph II in the city of Vienna.  We also see him compose his most famous pieces of work, including the operas The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and finally The Magic Flute.  But the movie isn’t about any of that, nor is it really about Mozart either.  The film instead is told from the point of view of another character; a rival composer named Antonio Salieri.  Salieri retells his life’s story to us, which so happens to coincide with Mozart’s, and we see how jealousy and insecurity led him down a path towards destroying Mozart completely, which he ends up succeeding in as Mozart’s misfortunes lead him to an early grave.  But to Salieri’s eternal frustration, he sees Mozart’s musical far out live his short life while Salieri grows old and watches his own legacy wither in Mozart’s shadow.  It’s only fitting that the entirety of the film is framed as a confessional, with Salieri recounting his story to a priest after feeling the guilt of having destroyed Mozart’s life and in turn his own.  Amadeus is not a movie about the music that both of these musicians left behind, but rather about the way that fame destroys the soul.  At the same time, the movie is lavishly constructed to recreate the time period of Mozart and Salieri in great detail, and it does touch upon the actual events that shaped their lives as well.  The success of Amadeus is that the story at it’s center and the fascinating characters within are what drive the film along.  The movie is not concerned about hitting all the historical notes perfectly and in order.  And in Amadeus’ case, it’s a movie more about speculative history rather than true history.

The playwright Peter Shaffer who first penned to script for the stage play Amadeus described his story as a “fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri.”  It was his way of telling us upfront that this story was never meant to be taken as literal history, but rather a universal narrative about jealousy and corruption that just so happened to center around real historical people.  The idea of a rivalry between Mozart and Salieri dates back to a play written by Alexander Pushkin in 1830; a mere couple of years after the death of the real Salieri.  Pushkin’s play was even more accusatory of Salieri, with him actually murdering Mozart at the very end.  Shaffer’s play is not as harsh towards Salieri, merely showing him as being petty and conspiring to deny Mozart success, which in turn aggravates the alcoholism that ultimately ends his life.  Even still, the original Pushkin play is still credited as the inspiration that drove Shaffer to write his own play.  It was Shaffer’s idea to make the center of his story and tell it from his point of view.  This is a great addition to the narrative because it adds the unreliable narrator element to the play.  Yes, we are witnessing the life of Mozart, but it’s through the lens of someone who was jealous of him, and was willing to view him in the most negative light.  And yet, through even Salieri’s spitefulness, there is a reverence for the music.  The theme of divine interaction plays throughout the story of Amadeus, with Salieri often complaining about how God gave such a gift to a boorish, ill-behaved man-child like Mozart.  And the brilliance of Shaffer’s play is that no such gift was ever given; Salieri is only seeing Mozart in that light because he barely knows the man.  He only sees the party animal and clown that Mozart could be in a  public fashion, but he never saw the struggling artist that he was in private; that is until the very end when he sees the true genius in what ends up being his final hours.  The original play debuted to great acclaim in London in 1979, and it soon made it’s way to Broadway afterwards.  Many celebrated actors came and went in the lead roles; one such combination even included heavyweights like Tim Curry as Mozart and Ian McKellan as Salieri.

It’s no surprise that Hollywood was eager to turn this hit play into a big lavish screen adaptation.  Oscar-winning producer Saul Zaentz managed to secure the rights to the play, and he was eager to re-team with Czech filmmaker Milos Forman for the film, having found success before with their film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).  Peter Shaffer was granted the opportunity of adapting his own play, and he managed to find a good collaboration with the spirited Forman.  The one big thing that Forman wanted to break away from the original play was the way it was staged.  Amadeus was a bit of an Avant Garde play in that it was very minimalist when it came to the setting.  In the case of it’s Broadway run, the play was performed “in the round” meaning that the audience encircled the stage, so the actors had to perform merely with simple props and no scenery.  Forman had no interest in telling this story merely through the power of suggestion.  He wanted to make Mozart’s world come alive, and this was thankfully something that Peter Shaffer also agreed to.  To find the right kind of place to recreate the Vienna of Mozart’s lifetime, Forman looked to his own native land and chose the city of Prague to be the shooting location for this project.  Prague in the early 1980’s was still behind the Iron Curtain of Soviet influence, so it wasn’t easy to bring a big Hollywood production to the city, even if the director was a native born son.  They did manage to get the Czechoslovakian government to grant permission, and shooting began in the very well preserved city, which Milos praised as being free of “all that modern shit,” as he described in the movie’s making of documentary.  Shooting in Prague instead of Vienna was not too out of character for a movie centered on Mozart’s life, as Prague maintains more of it’s 18th century architecture to this day, and it was also a place where the real musician did perform from time to time.  One of the places that the real Mozart frequented in Prague was the majestic Estates Theater, which the film makes incredible use out of in the staging of some of Mozart’s most famous musicals.  In every sense of the word, Milos Forman took a minimalist play and gave it the epic makeover that it deserved.

One other bold move by Milos in the making of the film was in the casting of the characters.  Typically, a high brow historical epic will try to give a sense of authenticity to the performances of the actors as part of their placement in their selective time period.  This usually means casting actors with affectations, or who just have British accents as that commonly seems to be Hollywood’s go to high class way of speaking.  For Amadeus however, Milos decided to cast mostly American actors in the key roles, and not have them put on an accent.  This would seem unusual if the movie were trying to be any other historical epic, but in Milos Forman’s hands, it worked.  The key was in finding the right actors who could convey the characters perfectly, to the point where the accents don’t matter.  For Salieri, Milos found the greatest possible choice in veteran stage actor F. Murray Abraham.  Abraham has to carry the film on his shoulder, conveying all the complexity of Salieri, while straddling that fine line between villainy and empathy.  And Abraham’s performance is note perfect, especially in the non-verbal way that he acts through just his facial expressions alone.  There’s a brilliant scene in the movie where Salieri attempts to humiliate Mozart with a comical entry music theme written just for him, and Mozart reworks it in front of him and turns it into something grander and the way Salieri’s expression sinks into depression is just a brilliant work of acting on Abraham’s part.  Of course, his performance is matched brilliantly by Tom Hulce’s turn as Mozart.  It was probably no coincidence that Milos Forman selected one of the stars of Animal House (1978) to be his Mozart, given the party animal nature of the character.  But there is a profoundness to Hulce’s performance as well, especially in the film’s latter half when we see Mozart deteriorate.  He perfectly captures this sense of stunted youth while at the same time portraying the seriousness he devotes to delivering his music.  And casting the very American Hulce in the role of Mozart in a way helps to contemporize the story a bit more, offering a more universal connection between the tragedy of Mozart’s life and how the perils of fame manifest in today’s society.  It’s a gamble on Forman’s part that pays off, and that’s very much a testament to the strengths of the actors.

For a lot of musical biopics it’s the music itself that mostly appeals to the audience.  Most of the bad musical biopics tend to put the famous songs front and center rather than exploring the complexities of the musician playing them.  What is special about Amadeus is that it gives us the explanation about why music affects us so much.  Salieri isn’t so much a great composer as he has the ear to recognize great music.  It’s a duel edged sword that defines his character; he can recognize greatness in music, but is incapable of composing it himself.  He complains to the priest that is hearing his confession, “We would God implant the desire in my head, and then deny me the talent.”  Not that Salieri was a bad composer by any means.  Historically, he was celebrated in his time and even found favor with the Emperor.  But, there’s another brilliant scene that defines the supposed curse that he believes he has.  In his confession, Salieri describes the brilliance of Mozart’s music, picking apart each instruments role in creating a sublime tune, and it’s all through just reading the notes written on the page.  He can understand the language and hear it in his head, but is incapable of creating it on his own.  It’s been said that this revelatory scene really helped people become fans of orchestral music, because cinematically the film broke down musical theory in a way that anyone could understand and relate to.  And it becomes a theme that runs throughout the whole movie.  Salieri cannot escape the adoration he has for the music even as he despises the man who wrote it.  He uses his influence to sabotage the staging of Don Giovanni and yet also attends every single performance as an act of worship.  It’s ultimately what makes the finale so profound, as the film reaches a climax where Salieri is in the position of having to dictate for an ailing Mozart.  In that moment, Salieri finally gets to participate in the genius of Mozart’s work, and as a result, finally find himself on common ground with him.  Very few other musical biopics can make the music such a crucial part of the character’s arc in the story.

For Milos Forman and Peter Shaffer, the narrative is much more than just a look into the lives of historical figures.  At it’s heart, it’s a story about human mortality, and how we devote our lives to being remembered.  Art of any kind is a great way to leave one’s mark, but as Amadeus shows, the way we create that art also matters.  It’s the thing that separates Salieri and Mozart in the end.  Salieri obeyed the rules, did everything he could to win favor and stifle competition, and what that got him was being forgotten to most of history.  Mozart on the other hand broke the rules constantly, burned many bridges along the way, committed a lot of self-damage, and is still remembered fondly to this day.  That’s the curse that Salieri feels that he has, that he does everything the right way and has nothing to show for it, and yet Mozart is able to stumble his way to immortality based on his raw talent.  But, Amadeus also warns us that fame is not the golden ticket that we all would like to think it’d be.  Forman and Shaffer posit this question to us through the different examples of the two lead characters.  Salieri lives a long and comfortable life, but is isolated through crippling regret.  And Mozart lives a rocky, often painful life and dies penniless, but is immortalized through his enduring art.  One desires to be the greatest, while the other wishes to not have the so many notes crashing around in his head.  While so many other biopics revel in the moments of genius that define their subjects lives, Amadeus stands as a cautionary tale about how ambition and fame can sometimes destroy the soul.  It doesn’t give us a how to of what made Mozart a genius.  It honestly never explains how he became so brilliant other than it was just something he was born with.  Of course, the movie itself never has the historical touchstones as things that matter in the story.  In the end, it is fictionalizing a theory about how someone like Salieri may have plotted against Mozart.  And through that we get the themes of jealousy, ambition, and the suffering through one’s art across in a captivating character study.  Also, the music is still fantastic to listen to.

The brilliance of the movie’s tackling of it’s themes comes across perfectly in one of the first scenes.  When the elderly Salieri first meets with the priest, he plays examples of his music, to which the priest confesses he is unfamiliar with despite how beautiful they sound.  Then, to prove his point, Salieri plays the opening notes from Mozart’s “A Little Night Music” and the priest immediately recognizes it.  In that scene, we see exactly what drives the character of Salieri; the tragedy of time leaving him behind.  But after Salieri tells his story to the priest, the movie ends with him feeling a bit unburdened and finally comfortable with himself; self proclaiming his presence as the patron saint of mediocrities.  In a way, that’s what the story of Amadeus has done.  It has put Salieri back into the narrative of Mozart’s legacy, and uses him as the counterpoint to what made Mozart so special.  No other musical biopics have made their central figures stand out as strongly as these archetypal symbols of human geniuses and human fallibility.  One of the great legacies of this movie is that it did help spark a renewed interest in classical music.  The movie’s soundtrack, which featured new orchestrations of original pieces composed by both Mozart and Salieri, became a best-seller and performed well on the charts alongside many contemporary pop artists of the time.  The movie also went on to sweep through the Oscars, winning eight including Best Picture, along with a career second award for Milos Forman for Best Director, a first for Peter Shaffer for his adaptation, and a win for F. Murray Abraham for Best Actor, which he won in competition with his co-star Tom Hulce.  Even 40 years later the movie still feels timesless and strangely even more relevant to today.  In an era of social media, the Salieris of the world have been given more of a voice and that has resulted in increased levels of online bullying and organized attacks like review bombing with the purpose of destroying one’s work of art as well as the artist themselves.  But, the movie shows a more complex portrayal of human fragility than anything else, and how someone like Salieri can be corrupted so easily through his own feelings of inadequacy.  The complaint leveled at Mozart’s music in the film is that he creates “too many notes,” but the movie itself manages to get every note right and creates a beautiful symphony of story and character that stands so much higher than any other musical biopic out there.

Alien: Romulus – Review

The Alien franchise has gone through a rocky history since it’s inception back in the 70’s.  The original Ridley Scott directed film from 1979 was a breakthrough in both horror and science fiction film-making.  A truly terrifying experience that lived up to the film’s tagline, “In space, no one can hear you scream.”  No other genre film looked like it and it completely raised the bar in how to make alien lifeforms a terrifying presence on the big screen.  Many would have thought that this kind of film would be a hard act to follow, but in 1986, James Cameron brought us a sequel to the original film called Aliens that not only matched it in popularity but was also in some ways superior.  What helped to make Aliens work as a sequel was that it didn’t just try to repeat the formula of the first.  Scott’s Alien was a haunted house movie in space, using atmosphere as a valuable tool in crafting the scares in the movie.  Cameron’s Aliens was an action film set within the same universe, still featuring the same scary xenomorph aliens but using a louder action heavy scenes to drive the thrills.  And it worked.  The thing that helped to connect the thread of both films was actress Sigourney Weaver’s performance as Ripley; the sole survivor of the first film and the main heroine of the second.  Weaver’s performance in the second film was so beloved that it even earned her an Oscar nomination; unheard of for a horror based sci-fi flick.  Unfortunately, the years after the success of these first two films wasn’t kind to the series.  The making of Alien3 (1992) was a production nightmare for everyone involved and almost prematurely ended the directing career of it’s then novice filmmaker, David Fincher.  And Alien Resurrection (1997) was an embarrassing misfire that killed the franchise for over a decade.  It might have been wise to potentially just leave the series as it was and move on, just so that the legacy of the original first two classics could be preserved.  But, as it is with every well known franchise, the end is never set in stone.

There was hope for a potential re-boot of the series being able to bring back the past glory of the Alien franchise.  In the 2010’s, it was announced that a prequel film set in the same universe as the original Alien was going to be made, and better yet, Ridley Scott himself was returning to direct.  This seemed like great news, because many believed that Ridley Scott would help bring the franchise back to it’s horror roots, though those hopes may have naive in the end.  Instead, Ridley was looking at making a film that was more sci-fi based than horror.  His film, Prometheus (2012) had all the visual hallmarks of the series, but was far more of an action film than a horror film; and it didn’t even feature one of the xenomorph aliens until literally the very last scene.  Suffice to say, audiences were mixed on the results.  Some liked the fact that Ridley Scott was doing more world building in this franchise and exploring the mythology a bit more; particularly when it came to the mysterious Sentinel being hinted at in the first film.  Others thought it was a dull, methodically paced movie that didn’t deliver on the thrills and was a far cry from the roots of the series that Ridley Scott himself established.  It didn’t help that the follow-up film to this one was a far inferior sequel itself, the universally reviled Alien: Covenant (2017), which was neither thrilling nor scary.  That film was also unfortunately directed by Scott as well, and it further tarnished his reputation as the shepherd of this franchise.  For the series to move forward, it needed to find an identity once again, because so many mediocre reboots and sequels were dragging the franchise down.  It would take a while though, as the franchise was put in limbo after it’s parent studio 20th Century Fox was being absorbed into the Disney Company.  Under new management, Alien had a chance to be looked at with a fresh perspective.  The only question was, how Disney would take the still valuable IP and work with it as a part of their cinematic output.  For some, it was pleasing to see that the plan was to bring the series back to it’s horror roots.  Horror film director Fede Alverez was brought on board to bring his own unique vision to the project.  The only question remains does the new film, Alien: Romulus, bring back the same chills that made the original so scary or is it yet another disappointment that falls far from the peak of this franchise.

Alien: Romulus begins on a remote planet that has been completely colonized and exploited by the Weyland Yutani Coporation.  Among all of the exploited workers, a young girl named Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is desperately trying to work her way off planet.  She is accompanied by her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), who is a synthetic humanoid drone that her late father save from the junkyard and reprogrammed to protect her.  After being rejected by her superiors for off planet privileges, she seeks the help of other space colonists  to give her passage.  She meets up with an old friend named Tyler (Archie Renaux) who is ready to take off from the colonized planet with his sister Kay (Isabela Merced), his associate Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and their pilot Navarro (Aileen Wu).  Just few days prior, they made the discovery of a derelict Weyland Yutani space vessel that has drifted into the orbit of their planet.  Their hope is to find still working cryo-chambers in the wreckage that can enable them to make deep space travel possible in the hopes of reaching a new inhabitable planet.  The only catch is that they need Andy’s droid clearance to access entry into the ship.  Rain and Andy agree to help them in exchange for their safe passage.  Once they reach the vessel, they find that it isn’t just a simple ship, but rather a full station, meant for research purposes.  Split into two sides, each one named Romulus and Remus, the station is a fortress and not so easy to enter.  One other complication, the station is drifting in orbit towards a ring system that encircles the planet, and they only have a short window to complete their mission before the station is destroyed.  Tyler, Bjorn and Andy make their way into the interior of the ship, finding the place to be a ghost town.  All the crew seems to have completely disappeared, and there are massive holes throughout the ship.  Some violent incident had to have happened and the crew decides to speed up their mission so as to not invite whatever caused the mayhem that destroyed the ship.  They find the cryo-chambers they need, but in the same room there are scary looking alien creatures that try to latch onto their faces.  These Facehuggers are dangerous, but as all the crew members soon learn, there are far greater dangers aboard the ship, and the mission soon becomes not just getting out of this world but just surviving long enough to get off the ship.

The bar for Alien movies can definitely be described by it’s extremes.  The original film and it’s direct sequel are absolute masterpieces of the genre where as everything that has come afterwards has been either disappointing or outright junk.  Alien: Romulus is seeking to bring the series back to it’s more grounded roots by leaning more heavily on the horror film side of the series.  The only question is if they managed to succeed.  Thankfully, I can say that Alien: Romulus is unequivocally the best Alien movie we’ve seen in almost 40 years.  But, even as I say that, I do also have to say that it is no where near perfect either.  The bar has been lowered so much over the years that being just better than average immediately puts the film in the upper half of the series.  There are flaws in this movie that did prevent it from being considered among the greats, but thankfully the pluses outshine the minuses.  For one thing, it is pleasing to see a film this in this series that actually is attempting to be scary rather than just being moody or grotesque.  There was effort towards getting this movie back to the simple horror of Ridley Scott’s original vision.  It helps that Scott is still slightly involved with this film as a producer, helping to guide this new generation in line with the legacy of what’s come before.  But make no mistake, this is thoroughly Fede Alverez’s movie, and you can tell that he put his own horror twist on this film that works very well, at least when it comes to making things genuinely scary.  For one thing, I really appreciated his use of sound in the movie.  Whether it’s the absence of it in outer space (including a very effective intro that is completely sound free) to the sudden bursts of loud noises once the mayhem starts.  You really have to appreciate how much the sound plays a role in generating the thrills, especially when there are monstrous creatures that could be lurking in the shadows.  It really is where I feel this movie definitely comes closest to getting back those roots that the series was built off of, and which have been lost ever since Scott and Cameron left their marks on this series long ago.

Unfortunately the flaw that I found with this movie is one that I see all too often with lazy horror movies.  It’s the cliché where your main cast of characters continuously make stupid decisions that end up getting themselves killed or attacked, all with the purpose of manipulating the plot.  There are a lot of out of character moments where the crew decides they are going to go into the obviously dangerous place for the flimsiest of reasons.  I don’t want to spoil too much, but there are decisions made where you know that the character is deciding to walk into a death trap and low and behold, they get themselves killed.  I have seen other horror movies do this cliché worst, but it is unfortunate to see this movie do it as well, especially after it gets so many other things right.  The other flaw of this movie is the way it shoe-horns fan service.  It takes you out of the movie when the film will suddenly throw an Easter egg at you, especially when a character recites a line that’s a catch phrase made famous by the other movies.  There’s no reason for the characters to say those lines.  It’s just there to make the audience laugh or cheer and it’s pandering.  I would have rather the movie just used it’s connection with being part of the same universe as the only thread between itself and the other movies.  Shoehorning in Easter eggs and catch phrases just seems like a desperate move to garner audience approval.  Like I said before, the movie stands well enough on it’s own without them.  Fede Alverez nails the atmosphere and the thrills of this series.  He doesn’t need the assist of fans service.  Thankfully, these elements don’t drag the movie down as a whole, and if you’re not a long time fan of the series and just coming to this film casually, these references will likely just fly over your head.  But, for someone that is familiar with the series, I did find them a bit distracting and it was one of the things that did knock the movie down a peg in terms of it’s place as a part of the series as a whole.

What does work wonderfully in this film is the craft behind it.  When I say that this movie marks a return to form for this series, that’s in response to seeing the return to old school tactics in the filmmaking process.  Unlike most other legacy sequels that we have seen, particularly in this franchise, this one is relying less on wall to wall CGI and instead uses a lot more practical effects.  Sure, there are plenty of CGI moments in this movie, but I was very pleased to see that whenever we got a close-up of the xenomorphs or the facehuggers, they were actually done with either puppetry or with robotics.  That was what made the original films so effective, that the aliens themselves were manufactured to be physically on set.  The xenomorphs themselves were sometimes even portrayed on screen with stunt actors in a rubber suit, and I was happy to see that they did that here are well.  Of course, the wide shots used for the aliens resort to CGI models, and I’m happy to say that those shots are done effectively as well.  It’s what a good action movie should do, which is to mix you effects so that it tricks the eye.  You use the CGI to show the agility of the aliens that otherwise would be impossible with practical effects, and then mix that with the up close shots of the physical puppets and you’ll get a better result in making the alien creatures feel real and threatening, which thankfully this movie does.  The movie also does a great job with it’s world building, especially when it comes to the sense of scale in the physical environments.  Fede Alverez does an effective job of conveying the epic scope of the Romulus space station, while at the same time making the tight corridors feel effectively claustrophobic and foreboding.  And there are some shots in this movie that are just outright beautiful to look at, especially towards the end when the looming ring system begins to near the orbit of the space station.  There are also some really imaginative moments in the movie that I thought brought something new to the series, especially one sequence involving the acidic alien blood.  In many ways, this film has felt the closest in a long time to being the best spiritual successor to Ridley Scott’s original classic, at least in terms of the visuals.

The performances in this movie are generally good as well, though the personalities of the characters are very thinly defined.  The easiest highlight of the film is David Jonsson’s performance as Andy.  The synthetics of the series have always been some of the most interesting characters in the series, dating back to Ian Holm’s Ash in the original film.  Jonsson manages to create a surprisingly complex character out of an android with many limitations.  He is shown to be partially functioning in the beginning, but when he is plugged, so to speak with the operating system of the Romulus station, he almost becomes a new character, and it’s really interesting to see the actor pull of those two different aspects almost like he’s playing different characters in each situation.  There isn’t a whole lot to Cailee Spaeny’s Rain; she’s pretty much there to be a substitute for Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley.  But, she does the best that she can do in the role, and she has excellent chemistry with David Jonsson in the film.  Their two characters are certainly the heart of the movie, so it is good to see the actors actually make that surrogate brother and sister dynamic work in the film.  The other actors in the movie are less well defined, but none of them are distractingly bad in their performances and for the most part are effective.  Let’s face it, these characters are just there to be lambs to the slaughter for aliens.  The movie doesn’t waste any time getting us to the gory parts of the movie so these characters don’t need to be particularly deeply defined personalities.  The movie does focus on the characters that matter and thankfully they are characters that we want to root for.  But at the same time, what we go to these movies for are the aliens themselves, and they’ve never been more complex than the deadly terror creatures that we’ve always known them to be.  The one caveat I will mention that I think might be divisive for many is the inclusion of a character loosely connected to the original film that they reference in this movie.  People are either going to love his inclusion here as an Easter egg or hate it and see it as pandering.  I was a bit iffy on it myself but it wasn’t a deal breaker for the experience as a whole, though it is another one of those things that does bring the movie down a peg.

In general, I would rank Alien: Romulus easily as the third best film in the series, though the gap between it and the two classics in front of it is vast.  The reason this gets the third spot is simply because we have been devoid of so many good films in this series that by being merely adequate enough it rises almost to the top.  What this movie gets right is it’s craft.  It has the look and feel of an Aliens film down, and it’s a great return to form for a series that sadly has lost it’s way over the years.  Just get things back to what works, which is scary aliens hunting humans in dark corridors, and that’s the bullseye that the movie manages to nearly hit.  The only thing that holds it back is the paper thin story behind it and the fact that it falls back on so many tired tropes.  I liked that the story was simple, but there has to be logic behind the characters’ motivations and sadly the movie just ends up making it’s characters look like idiots by having them resort to non-sensical actions to help propel the plot forward.  There are thankfully a couple characters that still garner sympathy, and thankfully they are the focus of the film.  I particularly was impressed with the work of David Jonsson, who brought a surprising amount of nuance to a character that otherwise would’ve been a tad bit unbelievable.  And what the movie does get especially right are the aliens themselves.  The xenomorphs are legit terrifying here, which is a welcome return to form after the unconvincing CGI versions that we saw in the movie Alien: Covenant.  It will be interesting to see what might happen next with this franchise; will it still lean into the horror aspect or will it become more action oriented.  I honestly would favor the former, because I’ve always associated Alien more with the horror genre.  My hope is that it stays in that vein in the future, but perhaps they can improve on it with a more grounded premise.  Perhaps a smaller cast of characters with which there will be more screen time devoted to building up their personalities.  Also, please refrain from shoe-horning Easter eggs and catch phrases into the film that don’t need to be there.  There are some frustrating fan service things about this movie, but I do feel that it does get a lot right as an experience, particularly in bringing back old filmmaking tactics that help to make it feel more timeless.  We’ll see what the future holds, and my hope is that Alien will hopefully become a franchise that once again brings out the terror of the unknown that awaits us in the vast darkness of space.

Rating: 7/10

D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event 2024 – Film Exhibition Report

It hasn’t been that long since the Walt Disney Company put on their last Expo in 2022.  But in those two short years, a whole lot of things have happened.  Mere months after the end of the expo, then CEO Bob Chapek was swiftly removed from his position and replaced by his predecessor Bob Iger.  In the aftermath, Iger has been working hard to fix all the problems that manifested during Chapek’s short but tumultuous tenure, and it’s been quit the mess they’ve had to clean up.  2023, which coincided with the company’s 100th anniversary, unfortunately turned into a difficult year for Disney with box office performance taking a big hit after a lot of costly misfires.  Through that economic uncertainty, which also resulted in a massive round of layoffs at the studio, Iger faced a lot of pressure to right the ship, which some investors were getting antsy about as the stock price began to tumble.  This led to a proxy fight that extended from late 2023 to early 2024, with Iger being threatened with termination by activist investor Nelson Pelz who was trying to buy his way onto Disney’s board.  Iger managed to hold off Pelz’s attack and maintain a board of directors that was on his side, but even with that victory, Iger still has a lot of work still to do to get Disney back on track.  There are positive signs though, especially at the box office with the massive success of both Inside Out 2 (2024) and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) this summer.  Overall, Disney appears to be using 2024 as a cool down year, allowing them to regroup and reassess their plans by not flooding the market with too many new movies or shows.  But, they also need to get people interested in what they have planned for the future, which makes it fortunate that they have their bi-annual D23 Expo event happening this summer.  Taking over the Anaheim Convention Center across the street from Disneyland, this is the Walt Disney Company’s biggest celebration, meant to get fans and interested parties alike hyped up about what they have planned for the future, but this year there are definitely changes happening that will make this one unlike any other Expo before.

Like all the other past Expos I have covered, I will be taking in all three days on the Expo floor.  But due to some ticketing changes, my experience will be significantly different than it has been in past years.  Seeing as how they have outgrown the spaces that made available to them at the Anaheim Convention Center, particularly for their main presentations which attract thousands of attendees, Disney has decided to add an even bigger venue to the mix to help give them both more show floor in the convention space but also a bigger home for the big shows.  This year marks the debut of D23’s use of the nearby Honda Center as the event space for their biggest shows; namely their Studios Presentation, their Theme Park presentation, and their Disney Legends presentation.  The Honda Center, situated about a mile away from the Convention Center, is the regular home of the Anaheim Ducks hockey team and is also used for various other functions like concerts.  With a seating capacity of about 15,000 it doubles the seating capacity of what D23 used to seat in their Hall D23 from past years.  Unfortunately, hosting in the Honda Center also requires reserved seating, so this made getting a D23 pass a lot more competitive this year.  I’ve lucked out in the past managing to get into most shows in Hall D23, but sadly I struck out in getting a ticket to the two shows I wanted to see; the Studios and Theme Parks panels.  Thankfully, I did get a 3-Day pass to the convention hall and a Honda Center ticket to the Disney Legends show, but it was not easy.  This year was the fastest the D23 has ever sold out, so I consider myself lucky, but sadly my priority picks were gone before I got a chance.  But, silver lining, I won’t have to spend most of my day waiting in the queue space to enter the main shows like I have in past years, which will give me a lot more time to take in the Convention floor as well as get an opportunity to see some of the other panels that I otherwise would miss.  And I’ll still have that one Honda Center show to close out my experience.  So, what follows is my day by day account of the newly re-christened D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event 2024, complete with pictures of all the things I see.

FRIDAY AUGUST 9, 2024 (DAY 1)

Going into the first morning of the event, there was very much a notable change in how they were handling the crowds for this year.  In past years, queues just to enter the convention center would begin well before the rising of the sun, filling up the sidewalks along Katella Avenue and Harbor Boulevard which border the convention center.  This year, there were two big differences that changed this dynamic.  One, with the off location venue of the Honda Center taking the big presentations, there was no high demand for a prime spot in standby lines at the Convention Center.  Second, with Hall D no longer being the host for the big presentations, the cavernous hall was no open to more show floor, and in addition to that, a new corral for early morning queuing.  As a result, there was a far more relaxed atmosphere getting into the venue to start off the convention.  The security checkpoints were easy to get through, with no one impatiently trying to rush their way in.  There was no running to the corral area; everyone just leisurely walk their way to Hall D and lined up peacefully.  This was a very welcome change, and the added bonus was that were weren’t all held downstairs this time in the lower ceiling basement of Hall D. It was an overall less oppressive atmosphere in general, which was a massive improvement over previous years.  The only stressful part of the corral area was the impressively long line for the coffee bar.  All the corral lines that people queued up in were directed facing a curtain wall, in the center of which was a large arch with a “Welcome” sing above the entry.  What shocked me the most was the moment once the floor was open to all of us guests.  The curtain was drawn back at the archway, and each line was moved in one by one.  And this was done in a surprisingly orderly and quick process.  The large mass of thousands of us were on the show floor within less than five minutes.  Major kudos to the D23 crowd control team for making this a painless experience, which is very much something we’ve needed for years at this event.

Once through, there were plenty of immediately impressive sights to behold.  With the extra show floor this year, there was a clear effort this year to go bigger than ever at D23.  All the booths were grander in scale than years past.  There was even space open for a whole lot of queue-less attractions.  Everyone enters through the newly opened up Hall D, where the seating area for Hall D23 would’ve been in the past.  Immediately to the right was the Walt Disney Studio Archives exhibit, which for this year was made into a Car Show.  There on the show floor was an open exhibit floor filled with vehicles from across the history of the Disney company.  I didn’t have time to stop and look, so I’ll give details later.  To the left of the entry was the D23 Member lounge, the Walt Disney Company store and the Spotlight Stage; a barrier less stage area where acts would be rotating continuously throughout the convention.  Of course the meatier attractions still laid ahead.  Amongst all the show floor booths, many dedicated to partnered retail brands selling exclusive Disney merch, the many different arms of the Disney company also had impressively sized booths that were each must see attractions.  One thing that this convention had that made D23 an extra bit of fun was a scavenger hunt challenge called “The Great Pin Pursuit.”  One of the most widely collectible things at past D23 events has been enamel pins, so it’s a great idea on Disney’s part to turn it into a game.  By doing this, they have incentivized all of us interested guests to explore as many of the booths as we can in order to collect all the required pins for the challenge.  The booths which were participating in this were all related to different media wings of Disney; namely Hulu, FX, Freeform, ABC, ABC News, Disney Channel, National Geographic, and of course Disney+, which is where the hunt begins as it’s the place to collect your pin lanyard.  A lot of the booths in question showcased a bunch of different hit shows on the different platforms within the Disney Company.  The FX booth for instance spotlighted the hit show The Bear with a mock up kitchen made to look like the one in the show.  Others had a spot where you could record special videos, like the one with the Disney Channel.

There was a lot of stuff available on the upper levels of the convention space as well.  The newer Northern section of the Anaheim Convention Center was where they were housing the Disney Consumer Products booths.  This is where Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars were showing off their new merchandise lines to the public, with each area featuring both sneak previews of merch, some of which was available to buy, as well as additional activities.  Star Wars hosted an arcade experience in their booth, while Disney Publishing offered a coffee bar with free tastings of their new Sorcerer Mickey blend by Joffrey’s.  But perhaps the best attraction of this section was the area dedicated to Pixar.  They built a small miniature golf course themed to the films of Pixar.  There were 9 holes in total, with each one dedicated to a different movie.  And this wasn’t a cheaply put together course; there was some creative effort put into these different holes.  Unfortunately to better give everyone a fair turn, we were only allowed to play 3 holes of the 9.  The ones that I played on were themed to Monster’s Inc. (2001), Ratatouille (2007) and Coco (2017).  I parred Monster’s, birdied on Ratatouille and bogeyed on Coco in case you were interested.  It’s not a huge course, but it was definitely a fun one, and I found that to be one of my favorite floor experiences.  The other holes were dedicated to Inside Out (2015), Turning Red (2022), Toy Story (1995) Finding Nemo (2003) and Cars (2006), and for an extra bit of creativity there was a Pizza Planet truck style golf cart out in front.  On the same floor, there was another room called the Inside Out HQ.  Essentially it was a large activity room themed around the new hit film Inside Out 2 (2024), which included a stand where guests could make their own friendship bracelet, take a picture at a photo op with the characters Joy and Anxiety, and perhaps one of the cleverest ideas of all, take a ride on Mood Swings.  Some of these activities had long lines so it’s definitely a time killer with not much else to it.  Still, for some casual fun, it’s was a fun little space.  Taking up most of the real estate on this floor however was the biggest retail spot of the convention, called the D23 Marketplace.  For a lot of the con exclusive stuff, this was the place to go, especially a hot item like the $300 interactive model of the Star Speeder from the Star Tours ride.

With a lot of my activity dedicated to just looking at the stuff on the convention floor, there was little time to attend the many panels going on at D23.  The one that I did manage to take in happened in the late afternoon.  It was a panel dedicated to the making of the cult classic A Goofy Movie (1995).  Nearly reaching it’s landmark 30th Anniversary, the movie starring the classic Disney goofball is receiving it’s own behind the scenes documentary, which this panel was meant to help promote.  The panel was hosted by Disney Legend and producer of films like Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) Don Hahn, and the participants at this panel were the new documentaries producers Eric Kimelton and Christopher Ninness.  In addition, people involved with the making of the original film were present including director Kevin Lima, story artist Steve Moore, editor Gregory Perler and the voice of Goofy himself, Bill Farmer.  The team of panelists all discussed stories about working on the film, but they also talked about what went into the making of the new documentary.  Apparently director Kevin Lima had saved tons of behind the scenes footage that he shot himself and it became a valuable source for documenting the story behind the movies making.  They showed us various clips from the documentary, and the most surprising thing is that a large chunk of it is animated.  What the filmmakers did was use the stories and anecdotes from their interviews with the participants and had a team of animators bring those to life.  But not only that, they did it in the style of the movie, with actual hand drawn animation.  With that, my interest in the movie skyrocketed and now I am very eager to see the full finished thing.  Sadly, we’ll have to wait a while as there is no announced release date yet, but you would imagine that it’ll probably be around the anniversary next year and available on Disney+.  It’s especially hilarious how they visualize Jeffrey Katzenberg in the film.  It’s a panel that I was very happy to have fit in.  I spent the waning hour of the first day walking the show floor.  You could sense the smaller crowd as many people were making their way to the Honda Center for the Disney Studios presentation.  Sadly, I was not going to be one of them, so I had to get the scoops on the announcements from my follows on social media.  Not much was announced that was already known before hand, but from what I heard it was still a very impressive show.  For me, it was a low key night getting ready for Day Two.

SATURDAY AUGUST 10, 2024 (DAY 2)

Going into Day Number Two, word got around the floor about all the announcements from the Studios Presentation.  Quite a few people I talked to in line were luckier than I and were able to attend the show.  I certainly would’ve loved to be in that room too, but a lot of the announcements did make it online immediately after so I was able to be up to date.  On this middle day of the convention, my focus was to explore the different experiences that I had yet to do on my first day.  I still had a couple stops to go on my Great Pin Pursuit challenge, and these I would say were well worth saving for last as they involved the longest lines.  One was a spin the wheel challenge at the Freeform booth, where you would have the chance to win a prize.  With it being a Halloween theme game, in promotion of their upcoming 31 Days of Halloween programming block, you either were rewarded a Trick, a Treat, or a special Oogie prize.  Naturally, I didn’t win the big prize, but instead ended up with a Trick, which was a plastic spider.  Still, I got my pin reward for participating.  The bigger activity though was at the ABC booth, promoting the sitcom Abbott Elementary.  This booth was a full blown fair set up on the convention floor.  Once inside, you had the chance to take part in a few activities, including a hit-the bell game and a stand where you could get your caricature drawn by trained artists.  They also offered a complimentary gift of either a tote bag or trucker hat with a patch of your choice.  Honestly, you could spend more than hour just in this booth alone, which I kind of did as the line for a caricature was pretty lengthy.  But, with this one last booth, I completed my set of pins in the pin pursuit, for a total of 10.  It was probably smart to get this activity out of the way early in the convention, as it would free up the rest of my time there for other things.  It was also worth it to get my shopping done early.  One of the smart things that was introduced at the last Expo and continued here was a virtual queue system for the stores.  This helped to eliminate the excessive wait in line it would normally take in favor of select grouping being called throughout the day, similar to what they do at Disneyland for rides.

One other thing they used to manage the lines was a reservation system for the panels.  This was introduced back in 2022, and it basically allows attendees to select preferred choices in what panels and experiences they wanted to have a reservation for out of all the available options, and then they would be assigned one randomly from the choices we made.  However, unlike last time, all guests were only given one total for the entire convention, as opposed to the one per day we got the last time.  This was disappointing, but at the very least the reservation that I did get was for a panel that I did want to see.  Even though I missed out on the exclusive sneak peaks at the Disney Studios Presentation, I did get to attend a sneak preview presentation for the slate of upcoming projects from Marvel Animation.  Marvel Animation has seen a major surge in popularity recently, especially from the success of the X-Men ’97 series that premiered to acclaim this year.  The newest season has just started production so there wasn’t anything new to show us at this panel yet, but the makers of the show did bring out special guests from the cast of the series; Cal Dodd (Wolverine) and Lenore Zann (Rogue), both of whom have been playing these characters since the original 90’s animated series.  They shared their favorite moments and lines from the past episodes and where they hope the characters go next in the upcoming season.  Next, the creator of the multiversal series, What If?, Bryan Andrews, came on stage to show us a sneak peak of the third and final season coming up soon.  In this clips they showed, we could see some interesting new concepts that looked exciting, including a Marvel western and an episode where the Avengers fight in giant mech robots like something out of Power Rangers  or Pacific Rim.  The next show we were presented with is a series set in the Black Panther corner of the Marvel Universe called Eyes of Wakanda, and it’s an interesting looking exploration of the history of the fictional African kingdom, showing us the origins of the Black Panther title.  Next was a Spider-Man series call Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.  The art style in this one was interesting, because it felt like a cross between the Spider-Verse animation technique, but applied to the classic Steve Ditko look of Spider-Man comics.  The other big scoop we got was that Norman Osborne in this series was going to be voiced by recent Oscar nominee Colman Domingo, who was there on stage to greet us.  Latly, we got our first glimpse of the event series Marvel Zombies, which is a spin-off of the What If? Season One episode based on the popular comic series.  It also was confirmed to be Marvel’s first TV-MA rated show.  The scene we were shown focused on Shang-Chi and his friend Katy (Simu Liu and Awkwafina both returning to voice their character) fighting off against the titular zombies.  Overall, an exciting panel to watch.

With half of my second day over, it was time to finally get in an experience at one of the largest and most elaborate booths on the show floor; the one belonging to Marvel Studios.  It was clear what the theme for this massive experience was going to be from the outside.  The outside wall made the booth look like the office of the Time Variance Authority, or TVA, which has been featured prominently in both seasons of the Loki series on Disney+, as well as recently in Deadpool & Wolverine.  The queue switchbacks passed what looks like the reception desk, and once at the front of the line the next stop was a holding room guarded by a uniformed TVA agent called a Minute Man.  The guard corralled a few of us into the next room where we would get our pre-show orientation.  There was a glass window in from of us looking into another office, and through the glass, we get an appearance from the character Ms. Minutes who appeared in the Loki series (played by voice actress Tara Strong).  After she gives us the opening spiel, the door to our right opens up and we proceeded into a set of hallways, each with “time doors” that we could peer into.  The various doors had costumes from various Marvel movies, recreating different milestones in the MCU.  One was the Mach One suit from Iron Man (2008).  Another was Captain America’s, Thor’s and Doctor Strange’s costumes from Avengers: Endgame (2019).  Another was T’Challa and Shuri’s costumes from Black Panther (2018).  And the last display was of Deadpool & Wolverine, with the costumes of the titular duo.  Around the corner there was another doorway where Rocket Racoon was interacting with people who were walking by.  Using a new live performance animation technology, the Rocket on the screen disguised as a doorway could capture a hidden actors’ movements and speech i n real time, giving us a very impressive looking and personal one on one experience in this part of the attraction.  We were then allowed to move further through an actual open “time door” into another section of the experience dedicated to promoting the upcoming Disney+ series Agatha All Along, with a nice spooky atmosphere meant to emulate the Witch’s Road that will play a key role in the show.  After that, we exit while collecting a souvenir pin at end.  It was one of the most impressive experiences I’ve ever seen put together for the show floor at D23, feeling almost like an actual attraction you would experience in the theme parks themselves.  The level of detail put into this was really impressive, and it actually for a moment made you forget that you were still in the convention center.  Maybe it’s a possible preview for what Marvel has planned for the future in the theme parks.

One of the benefits of being in the convention center while many people were leaving to make their way to the Honda Center experience is that you do get to see the show floor cool down a bit, with the lines starting to lighten closer to closing time.  As the day was winding down. I was able to get into one more panel in the Premiere Stage housed in the Anaheim Convention Center’s arena building; the same one that I saw the Marvel Animation presentation in.  Thankfully, the demand for seating wasn’t as high this close to the end of the day, so I was able to find a seat without much trouble.  The final panel for this second day in the Premiere Stage was a show dedicated to the Animation Domination line-up of prime time cartoon shows airing on Fox and streaming on Hulu.  The panel opened up with a round-table discussion with the four creators of the biggest shows in the line-up; Seth McFarlane of Family Guy and American Dad, Matt Groening of The Simpsons and Futurama, Mike Judge of King of the Hill, and Loren Bouchard of Bob’s Burgers.  The discussion was funny to listen to, given the participants involved and the fact that comedian Jason Mantzoukas was moderating.  It was also funny to hear these guys drop a couple of F-bombs during the discussion given that this is a panel at a Disney convention.  The discussion went on for half an hour before the next part of the presentation began with three more 30 minute segments devoted to each show.  First up, Loren Bouchard returned to talk more about the next season of Bob’s Burgers, with cast and crew from the show joining him.  Then Matt Groening and his Futurama team came next, which included voice actors John DiMaggio, Phil Lamar and Maurice LaMarche.  Finally, the last half hour was devoted to The Simpsons, with Groening joined by long time producers Al Jean and Matt Selman, director David Silverman, and the voice of Bart Simpson, Nancy Cartwright.  Each of the different presentations included Q and A’s with people in the audience as well as sneak peak showings of clips from the upcoming season.  The especially exciting news was that The Simpsons was going to be making, for the first time, streaming exclusive full episodes just for Disney+.  The animatic we were shown appears to be a parody of National Geographic documentaries, with the Simpsons characters portrayed as creatures from the animal kingdom.  It was an eventful and entertaining way to end Day Two, which sadly also meant that this was all going to be over soon.

SUNDAY AUGUST 11, 2024 (DAY 3)

The final day of D23, and you could feel the exhaustion in the air.  It was sad that so few minutes were left, but this was still going to be an exciting day, because I would finally get my chance to see the Honda Center set up they had with the closing Disney Legend ceremony.  Today I intended to finish all the experiences that I had yet to do up until then.  In particular, I had my sights set on the immersive National Geographic experience and the Lucasfilm booth, which put on display a real mock up of their breakthrough LED background tool called The Volume, which they have used on shows like The Mandalorian.  First up was National Geographic.  The massive booth they had built on the show floor was made for a film presentation experience called the Hexadome Experience.  Once inside, a group of guests are meant to stand in the center of the space with a ring of six large screens surrounding them.  When the presentation starts, all the screens have images projected on them from various different nature documentaries from the National Geographic library, including the Oscar winning Free Solo and the nominated film Fire of Love.  The experience was especially immersive, enhanced with a great surround sound element as well.  It reminded me a lot of the Circlevision attraction that used to be at Disneyland.  I hope this booth was done as a test for a possible return of the experience to the parks, because National Geographic would be a very valuable partner in that.  This was easily one of my highlights of the D23 experience and I was very happy to have not missed out on it.  Equally as impressive was the Lucasfilm experience.  Not only did we get a chance to see the groundbreaking technology behind the Volume that Industrial Light and Magic have invented to help make immersive background effects feel more lifelike, but guests visiting the booth were given the chance to have a special video made just for them filmed in front of the Volume.  Of course I took the opportunity, and I was impressed that they were doing this for D23 attendees in front of a working Volume, but with a real Digital Red camera, the same high quality camera used on the show, operated on a crane by one of ILM’s actual cameramen.  I got my short video shot, with a Star Wars droid by my side, and the results were pretty spectacular.  Of all the experiences of this D23, these were the absolute not to miss ones, and I’m glad I did not miss out.

One of the most interesting things about this D23 is the fact that it has attractions completely without a queue.  Most of the time, the lines will die down by the last day, but this year we had two main booths that people could come and go at their own leisure.  One of those was the Disney Studios Archives exhibit, which this year was presented as a Car Show.  in past years, the Archives exhibits would be these elaborate mini museums on the show floor which required lines to manage the capacity within it’s walls.  This year, no such walls were needed.  The cars involved in this showcase were parked out on the floor with no barriers around and you could walk among them and get up and close anytime you wanted over the course of the weekend.  Some of the cars on display were obvious choices; there were a couple of Herbie the Love Bugs there, as well as Cruella De Vil’s luxury cars, both from the Glenn Close version and the Emma Stone version of the character.  A lightcycle from Tron Legacy (2010) was also on display and a few vehicles used in Muppet movies, which included the open undercarriages that allowed the puppeteers to hide under the seats.  One of the other impressive inclusions was a Disneyland parking lot tram that was used back in the 80’s and 90’s, before the construction of Disney’s California Adventure took away the parking lot in front of the park.  For theme park fans, this was definitely an artifact that I don’t think many would ever see again.  The show floor’s other major exhibit without a line was the Imagineering Pavilion.  Here, the Walt Disney Imagineering employees were showing off all the new tech that they had developed for the theme park experiences.  Some of the neatest sights here were working Audio-Animatronic models, including a very life like one of Elsa from Frozen (2013).  There was also so really neat bipedal droid robots just walking around the exhibit, showing just how advanced interactive robots have gotten.  There’s also this neat new invention called the HoloTile floor, which was a type of tile that allowed movement without causing the thing on top to move out of place; something that could be revolutionary for VR experiences.  Like I said, this was an open ended exhibit, that is until the last day.  Because of the announcements made at the Parks Presentation the night before, a whole new room was opened up on Sunday, with new scale models of the announced attractions available for viewing, and of course the lines were long for this.  Sadly. I didn’t get word of this until after the line was cut off, but I did get a side view of the impressive new Encanto (2021) themed ride coming soon to Animal Kingdom in Florida.

Before I said goodbye to the Convention floor to make my way to the Honda Center for the closing night show, I did manage to fit in one more panel before hand.  It was a panel discussion celebrating the 90th anniversary of Donald Duck.  The panel was presented to guests in multiple parts.  Two people from the Disney Archives showed the audience a slide show of rare artwork from their vaults showcasing the history of Donald Duck, from his debut in the short The Wise Little Hen (1934) to the present day.  The second guest was a film preservationist who discussed his work at the Disney studio with restoring the old classic cartoons, and as a special treat we were given the premiere of the newest restoration of a Donald Duck short from the 1940’s called Donald’s Off Day (1944).  Finally there was an interview with two current Disney artists who have worked on Donald Duck recently; animator Mark Henn, who directed the short D.I.Y. Duck (2024) for Disney+, and the longtime voice of Donald, Tony Anselmo.  Anselmo shared some interesting stories about being trained by Donald’s original voice actor Clearance Nash, and how he approaches voicing Donald today and how it’s changed over the 40 years he’s been doing it.  At the end of the panel, the special guests and all of the audience sang a “Happy Birthday” song for the character, with Anselmo even singing in character, and of course a theme park Donald character ran on stage to take in that celebration.  A fun little panel that offered a great overview of the incredible 90 years of the character.  From there, I spent what little time I had left on the show floor to take in the who atmosphere and see if I missed everything.  In D23’s of the past, I usually would like to linger and catch the winding down of the convention, but this year would be different.  I had to get over to the Honda Center for my Disney Legends show, so sadly I had to leave the show floor four hours before it would actually close.  The Honda Center takes some time to travel to, so I needed those extra hours.  Thankfully, Disney was providing complimentary shuttles for all the guest who were attending the night time shows.  I got there about half an hour before showtime, and thankfully getting through security was a breeze, helped by the venue’s “no-bag” policy.  I took my seat in the massive venue, an I can definitely say just from that first impression this was a major upgrade from Hall D23.

Now began the finale to my three days of D23 and it was a far more elaborate show than I anticipated.  These ceremonies had always been special events in the past, but that was in the context of being part of a convention experience.  This time, Disney put some production behind this show, making it like it was a legit awards ceremony like the Grammys or the Oscars.  We got special guest appearances and live entertainment put on a really impressive show.  And it kind of makes sense that Disney wanted to make a bigger deal out of this, because this is the first Legends ceremony that was going to air for the public view via Disney+.  The honorees span across the Walt Disney Company’s history and represent it’s many different departments too.  The honorees this year were Harrison Ford, Jamie Lee Curtis, Angela Bassett, Martha Blanding, Colleen Atwood, James L. Brooks, James Cameron, Miley Cyrus, Steve Ditko, Mark Henn, Frank Oz, Kelly Ripa, Joe Rohde, and John Williams.  Each presentation of the award gave each honoree a big moment that included some neat surprises.  The highlights I would say were Jamie Lee Curtis leading a sing along with the audience of the Sherman Brothers’ “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow;” Martha Blanding, a theme park veteran who broke down so many barriers as a Black American employee who rose up the ranks of the Disney company; and Mark Henn, the animator of so many famous Disney Princesses, being honored by the voice actresses of his characters, those being Jodi Benson (Ariel), Paige O’Hara (Belle), Linda Larkin (Jasmine), Ming-na Wen (Mulan) and Anika Noni Rose (Tiana).  There were many special surprise guests as well, like Jodie Foster, Lindsey Lohan, Zoe Saldana, and even Danny DeVito.  But, the closing of the night was especially incredible as we got a live orchestra to perform the music of on of the honorees, the legendary John Williams, who sadly was unable to be there in person.  Naturally the medley of music was from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films and I definitely have to say that the orchestra was spot on.  The show ended after with a group photo of all the honorees and a blast of golden confetti from the rafters.  And that’s how my D23 experience came to an end, with a big finale.

This D23 generally had a much better vibe to it than the last one in 2022.  The previous D23 came at a time of uncertainty for Disney as it was at the peak of dissatisfaction with the Chapek regime at the company.  The most notorious story to come out of D23 2022 was that Chapek was booed during his brief appearance at the Legends ceremony of that year.  It was very different this year, as I could very much hear a huge roar of cheering from the crowd when Bob Iger walked on stage.  All of the announcements at this convention seemed to get the warm reception that Disney was hoping for.  From what I heard from a lot of people they were especially excited about the upcoming stuff they saw at the Parks Presentation.  I feel bad about missing out on the big shows, but I’m happy I did get to have one experience inside the Honda Center.  The new venue is definitely a better place to be holding these presentations and I hope they continue using it in future D23’s.  In general, there seemed to be a much bigger effort to impress this year than in past D23’s.  The more room on the show floor gave us bigger experiences to enjoy.  I was especially impressed with the Marvel and National Geographic experiences, which felt like full blown attractions worthy of the theme parks; which makes me think Disney was using them as test runs for feedback in their future plans.  I also love the introduction of the Pin Pursuit game, which gave guests an extra incentive to try out more of the experiences on the floor.  Even the third party booths were more elaborate than usual.  I just hope that in the future they can make the ticketing easier for their biggest shows.  Or maybe I was just unlucky and had to settle with what I got, which is still more than most.  Thankfully, I was still able to spend all three days there and have fun time.  The best thing was that I had more time in general to do as much as I could, because I wasn’t spending half of my day waiting in line for the big shows.  And at least I knew going in I wasn’t going to see two of them, so I didn’t have the disappointed feeling like the last D23 where I barely missed the cut off.  Overall, I am psyched about the future of the D23 experience and my hope is that the next on in 2026 will be just as grand if not better.  Thank you once again Disney, and in the words of the late great Richard Sherman, “Have a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”

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