Monthly Archives: August 2025

Movie Previews

The Movies of Fall 2025

It’s been an odd summer season this year.  While the narrative going into the Summer season was that people were growing tired of comic book movies and remakes, lo and behold those two things ended up being the biggest winners, showing that nothing is ever certain at the box office.  As far as remakes go, Disney managed to soften the box office failure of Snow White (2025) from last Spring by seeing a massive turnout for Lilo & Stitch (2025), producing the only billion dollar grossing film out of Hollywood this year.  And while Universal’s How to Train Your Dragon (2025) remake didn’t do nearly as well, they still had a respectable worldwide gross over $600 million.  The comic book movie genre was also showing signs of strength.  James Gunn’s DCU launch got off to a pretty solid start with Superman (2025) becoming an undeniable hit.  For the first time in over a decade, DC managed to outdo their rival Marvel in direct competition, as the once mighty MCU was overall soft this Summer.  While neither Thunderbolts*  (2025) nor The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) were flops at the box office as both managed to recoup their production budgets, they still fell short of the average that Marvel used to hit in their prime.  But, the upside for Marvel is that their films are receiving critical praise once again, which hopefully is a sign that quality is returning to the studio.  In fact, critically speaking this has been a strong Summer season.  Of the top 10 movies at the box office this summer, only one had a negative rating on Rotten Tomatoes (Jurassic Park: Rebirth).  Otherwise, both critics and audiences have approved the output of Summer tent-poles this season, even if it’s not always reflected in the box office numbers.  One other interesting trend is the strong performance of the horror genre over this Summer.  With strong box office for movies like Final Destination; Bloodlines (2025) and Weapons (2025), we’re seeing the horror genre having a Golden Age at the moment.  The only flop of the year in horror was the disappointing MEGAN 2.0 (2025).  And to show just how unpredictable the Summer 2025 box office season has been, the #1 film at the box office this weekend was an animated Netflix movie that played for only 2 days, even after being available on their platform for 2 months before hitting theaters.

With the Summer season in the rear view now, it’s time to look at the year’s third and final act as we head into the Fall.  This is the time when Awards season starts to ramp up, but there are also a fair share of tent-poles on their way to theaters as well.  Like all the years past, I will be spotlighting a few of the movies that I believe will be among the most noteworthy of the Fall season.  They will be split between the Must Sees, the ones that have me worries and the ones to skip.  Keep in mind, I’m not picking winners and losers, as my track record can be a bit spotting in that regard.  These are the movies that I believe are worth talking about based on the strength of their marketing as well as the buzz surrounding them.  So, let’s take a look at the Movies of Fall 2025.

MUST SEES:

WICKED: FOR GOOD (NOVEMBER 21)

Last year, I didn’t have a lot of high expectations for the big screen adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked (2024).  But after I saw it for myself, I was surprisingly won over.  Wicked was a very pleasant surprise that really transcended it’s Broadway origins and delivered the goods for audiences of all kinds; even those who are not the biggest fans of movie musicals.  I believe that a large reason why I ended up warming up to the film is because of the excellent performances from the cast.  The leads, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande both did amazing jobs embodying the roles of Elphaba and Glinda, and they both received Oscar nominations based of the strength of those performances.  The plan was always to have the musical split up into two films, with the musical’s original intermission point being a natural point to split the story in too.  And with the help of the iconic “Defying Gravity,” Part One ended on a spectacular cliffhanger.  Now with Wicked: For Good, we get to complete the story.  From what I heard, Act II of Wicked isn’t quite as strong as Act I, but director Jon M. Chu and his team made a lot of creative changes in the first movie to help flesh it out into a fuller length, and a lot of those changes were for the better.  Hopefully, the same holds true for this film, and that the changes help to overcome the shortcomings that were there in the original stage musical.  One of the interesting things that this movie will be tackling is the introduction of Dorothy into the story.  This second part of the story takes place in the same time frame that the story of The Wizard of Oz is taking place, so it will be interesting to see how all that incorporates into the film itself.  The Wizard of Oz from 1939 is as iconic a film as Hollywood as ever made, and people are going to have expectations about that going in.  But, one thing for sure is that the Wicked franchise was given a solid foundation with the first movie’s success, and hopefully Wicked: For Good lives up to it’s title and then some.  Given that this was made at the same time as the first movie and retains all of the same actors and behind the scenes talent, it’s safe to say that this movie is in good, capable hands.  We will undoubtedly be off to see the Wizard one again.

ZOOTOPIA 2 (NOVEMBER 26)

Last Thanksgiving, the holiday box office turned into a competition between the musical Wicked and an animated sequel from Disney.  One year later, we are about to see history repeat itself.  Both Wicked and Moana 2 (2024) opened days apart, and instead of cannibalizing each other’s box office, both films managed to ride the wave of holiday audiences to equally strong grosses.  For Disney Animation, the success of Moana 2 was very well needed, as they had been struggling to generate a hit in the post pandemic theatrical market.  It not only was successful domestically, but it also got Disney above the billion dollar mark worldwide for the first time this decade; the last being 2019’s Frozen II.  Thankfully, coming up on the heels of Moana 2‘s success is another sequel to one of their biggest hits of the 2010’s.  Zootopia (2016) was not just a financial success for the animation giant, but it also won praise for it’s surprisingly nuanced social commentary.  It’s going to be hard to do something like that again given how the first movie managed to be such a surprise, but there’s still a lot of potential to be explored in this world.  One of the interesting ideas being presented in this trailer is the concept of the city of Zootopia dealing with the first arrivals of a new type of animal in their city; reptiles.  In particular, there is a snake that seems to be at the center of the story named Gary (voiced by Ke Huy Quan).  This could be a very interesting angle to explore.  Given that the first movie was an allegory for institutional racism in the the justice system, this story about reptiles arriving in the city of Zootopia may end up being about immigration, and how one side is unfairly judged as being outsiders when they are just looking to make a new home.  If that’s the angle, then this movie couldn’t be more prescient for our times, and it would be great for Disney to continue to use their Zootopia franchise to deliver these important messages in a way that audiences of all ages can pick up on.  Also, it will be great revisiting these characters again, especially with Jason Bateman and Ginnifer Goodwin both returning to their roles as Nick and Judy from the first film.  It would be hard to imagine this film not clicking as well as the first one did, especially with it’s ideal holiday season release date.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (SEPTEMBER 26)

Director Paul Thomas Anderson puts a lot of space between each movie project he works on, so you know when he finally has a new film coming out that it’s going to be something special.  His last film, Licorice Pizza (2021), was a nice return back to P. T. Anderson’s San Fernando Valley roots, telling an entertaining story about the denizens of the famous Valley who are on the outskirts of Hollywood.  His newest film also looks to be set in the heart of Anderson’s SFV, but the story is clearly very different.  While little in the way of plot details have been delivered in these early glimpses, it appears this is a story about revolutions and revolutionaries in a near future scenario.  This is actually going to be the first P. T. Anderson film with a production budget over $100 million, so it’s going to be interesting to see what kind of scope this movie has in it’s production.  He’s no stranger working with epic stories, as movies like Magnolia (1999) and There Will Be Blood (2007) have already shown, but those movies made the most out of limited budgets.  This is going to hopefully be something big for Anderson as a filmmaker if it’s been given a budget of that size.  One of the other exciting aspects of this film is that it’s going to be shot entirely with a film format that’s seeing a surprising resurgence: Vistavision.  After last year’s The Brutalist (2024), Vistavision seems to be in vogue once again, and I’m excited to see what a filmmaker of Anderson’s caliber does with this large format film stock.  It’s also going to be interesting seeing him work with an actor like Leonardo DiCaprio for the first time.  DiCaprio has been choosing some very interesting rolls in recent years, many of which like his part in Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) that challenge his previous matinee idol image and allows him to play some truly oddball characters.  It’ll also be interesting to see him work off a cast that includes heavyweights like Sean Penn and Benecio Del Toro.  It’s been a long wait for another P. T. Anderson movie, and it hopefully is worth it given the size of the meal he’s been preparing.

FRANKENSTEIN (OCTOBER 17)

One of the positive things that may come out of the surprise #1 box office weekend for Netflix’s Kpop Demon Hunters (2025) is that it may loosen the streaming giant’s notorious resistance towards theatrical releases for their slate of movies.  One other film that may loosen that even further is this new adaptation of the famed horror classic from one of Hollywood’s greatest directors; Guillermo Del Toro.  Guillermo already has had experience working with Netflix, as they were the distributors for his stop motion animated version of Pinocchio (2022), and that collaboration helped lead to an Oscar win for Best Animated Feature that year.  This prompted Netflix to greenlight his next film, a live action feature adapting Mary Shelley’s genre defining horror classic, Frankenstein.  But part of that contract with Netflix was that the movie had to receive a theatrical run before premiering on their streaming platform.  Del Toro makes movies intended for the big screen, and this was I’m sure a high demand on his part.  From what I’ve heard, this movie will be getting more than just a limited run, as it’s going to play in a healthy number of screens and for multiple weeks.  Given the strength of Del Toro’s name and the timely release of this movie just before Halloween in theaters, Netflix might not just have another #1 movie at the box office again; it could indeed have a true blockbuster success.  Even still, it’s great to see a visionary filmmaker like Guillermo Del Toro casting his eye on this classic story.  It’ll be interesting to see how distinct he makes his version from all the others.  We know already that he’s a devoted fan of the classic Boris Karloff version, but it appears that he’s sticking closer to Shelley’s original story with his adaptation.  Oscar Isaac is a perfect choice to play the role as the tortured titular scientist who decided to play God.  And though we haven’t seen his face appear just yet in the trailers, it will be interesting to see what statuesque actor Jacob Elordi brings to the role of the Creature.  Also, all of the typical Del Toro visual flourishes should make this a spooky feast for the eyes.  Let’s just hope that Netflix makes this theatrical run as special as it should be.

WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (DECEMBER 12)

Speaking of Netflix, they have another hotly anticipated film coming out this holiday season that may or may not get a theatrical run.  Rian Johnson’s trilogy of mystery movies continues with Benoit Blanc set to unravel another whodunit.  The original film was a huge box office success, but Netflix bought out the rights to the franchise from Lionsgate and since then limited it’s theatrical presence.  The second film, Glass Onion (2022) got a limited one week run in theaters, where it did quite well, and then quickly ended up on Netflix right after.  A lot of critics insist that Netflix left a lot of money on the table by not allowing Glass Onion to have more of a run in theaters like it’s predecessor.  Even still, the movie found it’s audience and did quite well on the streamer.  Now we get the third film in the series, with just a date announcement so far indicating when we’ll see it.  It doesn’t tell us any more than that, and it’s uncertain if that’s a theatrical date, or it’s streaming premiere date.  My hope is that we’ll still get a chance to see this film on the big screen since these Knives Out movies are ideal to watch with a full audience.  It’s great to see Daniel Craig returning to play the central sleuth once again, which has been a role that he’s very much made his own, and a wonderful departure from his years as 007.  And in the tradition of classic Hollywood whodunits, including the other Knives Out movies, this has a killer cast of famous faces.  Joing Craig here are Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Josh O’Connor, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, and Jeremy Renner (ironic given a great visual gag from Glass Onion).  It’s also quite interesting that this movie’s tone seems so completely different from Glass Onion, which was definitely a lot more comical in nature.  Wake Up Dead Man seems a lot more dark and gloomy, but then again that just may be the marketing of this movie.  Rian Johnson’s films thus far have been fun romps that actually offer up genuinely engaging mysteries.  I really do hope that Netflix gives this a theatrical run like the other two films and allows for audiences to experience the fun together.

MOVIES THAT HAVE ME WORRIED:

AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH (DECEMBER 19)

Let me be clear, I have no doubt that this third film in the Avatar franchise is going to make all the money when it releases over the holiday season this year.  It’s just that the franchise may also end up not performing to expectations either.  Both Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) came to theaters after a decade in development for each, which granted filmmaker James Cameron the time he needed to refine the movies to the way he wanted them, especially when it came to the visual effects.  And that resulted in both of them becoming among the highest grossing films of all time.  This will be the shortest gap we’ve seen yet in the franchise (just 3 years), and there’s a worry that this one won’t come into theaters as refined as the other two.  Now, to be fair, this movie was shot simultaneously with Way of Water, so all that Cameron has been working on in these last 3 years has been the post production, so hopefully it’s been a sufficient amount of time.  While the Avatar movies have been visually stunning without question, Cameron’s shortcomings as a screenwriter are still noticeable, and the movie may still underwhelm in terms of plot.  The novelty of the franchise also wears thin the longer a series goes, and not only is this not the end of what he has planned, but the movies themselves are getting longer.  Way of Water was a staggering 3 hours and 12 minutes in length (just two shy of Titanic), and it sounds like Fire and Ash is going to be another behemoth as well.  There are some things that do look interesting from this trailer.  The introduction of a new tribe of Na’vi, a volcanic region one that is antagonistic to the heroes of the story, is an interesting wrinkle to bring into this ongoing plot.  What this story-line needs is added stakes and more danger, and this sinister tribe seems like a good addition to do just that.  Also giving us more glimpses of the world of Pandora that we still haven’t seen is another way to keep this franchise fresh and interesting.  We know James Cameron will deliver on the visuals.  The only question is, can he still make us care about this story, or is the glow of the franchise finally starting to die out?  Cameron has managed to defy gravity before; let’s see if he can do it again.

TRON: ARES (OCTOBER 10)

It’s hard to believe that Tron has managed to survive so long as a franchise.  Started in 1982 with the groundbreaking original (a pioneer in computer animation), Tron remained dormant for decades until Disney decided to revive it with a long in the making sequel, released 28 years later.  Tron Legacy (2010), while not a runaway hit at the box office, still made enough to prove that the cult status of the original classic could indeed carry the Tron name into a lasting franchise.  It would, however, take another 15 years to decide the next move for where this franchise would go.  Now, we finally get a third Tron film and this one finally delivers on something that we wished we had seen before from the other films.  As Tron and Tron Legacy showed it’s characters being taken out of the real world and transported into a digital one, now we are seeing the reverse play out, with the digital world with all of it’s intimidating future tech coming into our world.  That’s a premise that does have a lot of potential, and credit to the filmmakers on this one for making the weapons of war from “The Grid” look extra intimidating.  But, this is also Tron we’re talking about; a franchise that has always been more style than substance.  Can this movie back up it’s darker theme and visuals with a story that is actually strong enough to make us feel the danger of this threat on humanity.  One of the biggest red flags coming with this film as well is that it stars Jared Leto as the titular Ares. Leto has been, to put it mildly, a somewhat controversial figure lately, and that may end up reflecting badly on the movie.  On the plus side, we do get Jeff Bridges returning once again, as he’s been the mainstay of this franchise from the very beginning, and it’s great to see him still involved.  Also, in keeping with the legacy of it’s predecessors, Tron: Ares is also getting a major contribution to it’s soundtrack from one of the most legendary rock bands of it’s generation: Nine Inch Nails.  It’s not just Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross doing the score; no, Trent got the whole band back together for this one.  Given that Tron Legacy’s Daft Punk score is one of the best from the last decade, NIN has big shoes to fill.  Hopefully, the movie is able to be more than just a soundtrack and cool visuals and manages to be something even better than the legacy it’s supposed to be a part of.

THE SMASHING MACHINE (OCTOBER 3)

Benny Safdie has proven alongside his brother Josh that they can take an actor not known for doing gritty dramatic work and give them the opportunity to show surprisingly deft acting.  They did it with Robert Pattinson in the groundbreaking Good Time (2017), helping him to shed off the sparkly vampire image he had from the Twilight films.  Then they gave Adam Sandler of all people the role of a lifetime in the chaotic Uncut Gems (2019), a movie that made us shockingly declare that Sandler was robbed of an Oscar nomination.  The Safdie’s unfortunately are not making films together as a team anymore, and both brothers are instead going solo this year.  Josh Safdie has his Timothee Chalamet starer Marty Supreme coming out on Christmas Day, while Benny has this biopic starring Dwayne Johnson coming out first in October.  The movie follows the story of pioneering UFC icon Mark Kerr as he becomes a star in the still fledgling and at the time still illegal in most places fighting league.  There’s an interesting story to explore with this figure, and Safdie definitely looks like he’s making it with a very grounded and gritty portrayal.  The only question mark is how well Dwayne Johnson is going to play the lead role.  Dwayne has been a movie star of note for some time, but dramatic work is a field we have yet to see him crack into.  Truth be told, his physical transformation into Mark Kerr is pretty impressive, and it’s a fun bit of irony for this icon of one wrestling league getting to play the part of an icon from another.  But, this could also turn into an exercise in ego that may end up reflecting poorly on the movie for all it’s good intentions.  While Johnson’s intentions in telling this story may be good, it’s also obvious that he’s using this as a way to get into the Awards contention, perhaps as a way to be seen as more than just an movie star but as a real actor.  Sometimes that can turn movies like this into a vanity project and unfortunately make it seem like pandering to the Academy.  I hope that’s not the case and that Dwayne Johnson actually does deliver a special performance here.  Like I said, the Safdies have a special gift in bringing out unexpected performances out of the unlikeliest of actors.

BUGONIA (OCTOBER 24)

Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the least predictable filmmakers out there.  Sometime he can be infuriatingly dense as a storyteller, and then other times he delivers a fantastic dream like experience.  I for one have responded to some his movies in both ways.  I absolutely fell in love with his Oscar winning films The Favourite (2018) and Poor Things (2023), but also loathed his work on the confounding The Lobster (2015).  His last film, the triptych Kinds of Kindness  (2024) had a little of both; some great moments and some not so great.  He returns to single narrative storytelling with this new, puzzling film Bugonia.  There’s not a whole lot to really tell us what this movie is going to be about, and that has me worried about what it may end up being.  I’m hoping that it’s Yorgos at his best, but it also could be another Lobster situation.  I feel like I enjoy his movies a lot more when it’s not one of his own scripts.  Thankfully, he’s working with another writer’s script here; that being writer Will Tracy.  However, Yorgos’ best films both came from the same screenwriter, Tony McNamara, and he’s not involved here, so I’m wondering if it’s not the direction of Yorgos that I enjoyed from those movies but rather McNamara’s writing that made those films great.  McNamara didn’t work on Kinds of Kindness either, and there were parts of that film that I did enjoy, so maybe there’s something to Yorgos’ direction that I like too.  Thankfully, this film includes one of the best elements of Kindness and that the talents of actor Jesse Plemons.  Plemons continues to be one of the most daring actors working today, and he seems to work well with these kinds of oddball movies.  Yorgos Lanthimos is also reuniting again with what seems to be his favorite actress, Emma Stone, on what is now their fourth film together.  Poor Things still remains a highlight for both of them, so we’ll see if they are able to deliver on that same collaborative chemistry yet again.  My hope is that I can continue to count on Yorgos Lanthimos delivering movies that a worthwhile to watch and that I no longer have a dreaded feeling that he may make something too alienating for me to enjoy.

MOVIES TO SKIP:

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 (DECEMBER 5)

One movie that I can comfortably predict will be a bad film.  The first Five Nights at Freddy’s made a shocking amount of money in it’s first weekend before quickly falling off a cliff thereafter, and unfortunately, it prompted a quick production of this sequel.  This new film doesn’t look like it improves on anything from the already lame first movie.  The one new gimmick is some brief moments that call back to the format of the original video game, but that’s it.  It’s just more of the same.  It’s a shame that this movie is going to be the one that closes out the year for the horror genre, because horror has had one of it’s best years ever, both critically and at the box office.  While the genre has been doing great as a whole, it’s been a different story for the once might Blumhouse Studio.  The horror movie picture house started the year soft with the underwhelming box office of Wolf Man (2025), saw M3GAN 2.0 fall flat in the Summer, and now they have this to finish this disaster year with.  Given the reception that the original movie got after it’s first weekend, I would imagine that this film will also be an underperformer for Blumhouse, and it’s probably going to make them reconsider the kind of direction that they’ve been taking as a studio, especially as places like A24 and Neon have been redefining the meaning of horror in the last couple years, as well as Warner Brothers who had a great year with their horror movies like Sinners (2025) and Weapons.  The novelty of a Five Nights at Freddy’s movie has worn itself out, and I would imagine that this movie is not going to reverse that fortune either.  Better to spend the holidays away from another mediocre scare fest like this one.

ELLA MCCAY (DECEMBER 12)

Every year there seems to be at least one of those trying to hard kind of Oscar bait movies, and I think this might be the one for this year.  There’s some wonderful pedigree behind it.  It’s from Oscar winning writer and director James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, As Good as it Gets), marking his first new film in fifteen years.  It also stars Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as a couple Oscar nominees like Woody Harrelson and James L. Brooks favorite, Albert Brooks.  Unfortunately, the result of all that talent seems to have delivered something annoyingly saccharine and lightweight.  Maybe this would have been a fresh take kind of comedy decades ago, but James L. Brooks doesn’t feel like he’s treading any new ground with this familial conflicts narrative, where the only new idea is that one of the characters is also the Governor of a state.  Brooks unquestionably a great filmmaker and the movies I mentioned before are undeniable classics, as well as what I believe to be his greatest film, Broadcast News (1987).  But, that was a long time ago, and it’s hard to regain that spark in your career in your twilight years.  Just look what happened with Francis Ford Coppola last year with the ill-fated Megalopolis (2024).  Please check out Brooks’ older classics first before you end up judging him on what I think will be an unfortunate pale imitation of his past work.

NOW YOU SEE ME: NOW YOU DON’T (NOVEMBER 14)

Another pointless sequel to a franchise that already felt superfluous.  I’m surprised that this franchise about magicians who also dabble in high stakes heists has lasted as long as it has.  And the plots aren’t getting any better.  They are just adding more to the cast.  In this we have all the returning characters from before, but in addition to them we get Justice Smith, Ariana Greenblatt and The Holdovers‘ Dominic Sessa joining the already crowded team.  I’m happy to see the always great Rosamund Pike here as their new mark, but apart from that, everything looks boring and also ran as a heist movie.  It’s very much a poor man’s Ocean’s Eleven (2001), and it probably would have served better to just let this franchise go away quietly.  I know for one thing, it’s box office window is very short because it only has a week to make a splash before the juggernauts of Wicked and Zootopia 2 take over the rest of November and beyond.  You will see this and then you won’t.

So, there you have my outlook for the Fall 2025 season.  One thing that I unfortunately don’t have the insight for at the beginning of this season is what will be the Awards season heavyweights coming out around this same time.  The Awards season really doesn’t begin to hit it’s zenith until after the Fall film festival circuit is complete.  We’ll have a better idea about what will be up for this year’s accolades after both the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival have completed, as they have become some of the strongest bellwethers for the top winners.  At least we know that this year should conclude with some strong box office.  Avatar, Zootopia 2, and Wicked are going to be some undeniable winners at the box office, even if one or two might perform under their predecessors.  Some of the films that I think have the potential of surprising us this season could be P. T. Anderson’s One Battle After Another and possibly even Tron: Ares, depending on the strength of the star power behind them.  I’m also really hoping that Netflix decides to make a change in their policy regarding theatrical runs for their movies, as they have a strong slate of Fall films this year, especially with Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein, as well as new films from Kathryn Bigelow, Noah Baumbach, and Richard Linklater.  That’s a lot of talent wasted by just sending their films to streaming.  As we’ve seen this week with Kpop Demon Hunters, if there’s demand for it people will flock to the theaters, even for a movie that’s already been streaming for over 2 months.  In any case, I hope that we have a strong finish to the year both in terms of the quality of the films as well as in box office returns.  I’ve shared my picks for some of the most interesting, but I’m also hoping for some surprises as well.  So, have a great Fall season and please keep showing up and supporting movies in the theaters.

Movie Reviews

Highest 2 Lowest – Review

It has been an interesting run for Spike Lee as a filmmaker.  The Georgian born and New York raised cinema icon became a pioneering voice in Black Cinema during the late 80’s and early 90’s.  He quickly developed a reputation as a talent on the rise immediately after graduating from the prestigious Tisch School of Arts at NYU with his first two features She’s Gotta Have It (1985) and School Daze (1988).  But it was his third feature that really grabbed the world’s attention.  Do The Right Thing (1989), Spike’s multilayered meditation on racial tensions in America was a bombshell movie when it first released, bringing much needed dialogue to an issue that for the most part Hollywood had been too afraid to tackle.  The film garnered wide critical praise, was spotlighted at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, and also earned Spike his first Oscar nomination for his screenplay.  However, the movie did not earn a Best Picture or Directing nom that year as some had predicted, and the top awards that year went to another movie about race relations in America, but in a more “safe” fashion: Driving Miss Daisy (1989).  Despite the snub, Spike continued to press ahead and didn’t slow down.  He made two more smaller films, Mo Better Blues (1990) and Jungle Fever (1991) before taking on his dream project; an epic historical biopic on the life of civil rights icon Malcolm X.  Malcolm X would be a monumental undertaking and it took everything he had learned up to that point as a filmmaker to pull it off.  One of the strongest assets he had at his side was an actor named Denzel Washington.  Washington had already won an Oscar for his supporting performance in the movie Glory (1989) and he got to work with Spike Lee for the first time on Mo Better Blues.  There would be no one better suited to bring Malcolm to life on screen than Denzel, and indeed it was a perfect match of actor and role, and a filmmaker to bring out the best in him.  Denzel would go on to earn his first Best Actor nomination for Malcolm X but would end up losing to Al Pacino that year.  Even still, Spike Lee and Denzel would prove to be a strong collaborative team that would over time span several films.

Though their career treks have taken different paths, both Lee and Washington have stayed good friends and this has resulted in three more films they have collaborated on.  There was the basketball themed He Got Game in 1998 and the bank heist thriller Inside Man in 2006.  But, after a long dry spell, the two are finally working together on a new film.  Denzel of course has remained a well respected fixture in Hollywood, finally winning that coveted Oscar for Best Actor in Training Day (2001) and becoming a consistent box office draw in films such as the Equalizer series.  Things have been a bit rockier for Spike Lee.  Though he has kept working all this time, both in narrative films and with documentaries, he hadn’t reached that high point he experienced in his early years with Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X.  That was until 2018, when Spike delivered a critical and box office hit with the racially charged crime drama BlackKklansman.  The film was a welcome return to form for Spike, delivering a tension filled narrative that also was provocative in it’s tackling of racial issues.  In addition to the critical praise the film also finally earned Spike Lee his first Academy Award for the film’s screenplay.  Though, of course, the movie lost out on Best Picture to another “safe” movie about race in America called Green Book (2018).  But even still, Spike Lee had a renewed creative spark that he would further put to good use with his next film; the Vietnam vet drama Da 5 Bloods (2020).  Bloods received a lot of praise from critics, including myself as it made it all the way to #2 on my best of the year list for that year, but it’s visibility was limited as it was released solely on Netflix without a theatrical screening, due largely to the pandemic.  It’s a shame that Da 5 Bloods didn’t get a bigger release, because in my opinion it was Spike’s best film since Malcolm X.  But, after a couple years, Spike Lee was ready to take on another film project, and this time he finally had the project that would be perfect for both him and Denzel.  It would be a new adaptation of the 1959 Ed McBain novel King’s Ransom, which was famously adapted by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa into the film High and Low (1963).  That Kurosawa adaptation is particularly noteworthy as it’s what has inspired Spike Lee to adapt his own film, even inspiring the title itself, Highest 2 Lowest.  The only question is, can Spike Lee’s version stand up on it’s own against the Kurosawa classic, or is it a pale imitation?

The film is set in New York City, across the two boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn.  David King (Denzel Washington) is one of the world’s most successful record producers, creating an empire that has launched the careers of many recording artists.  He lives the high life with his wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera) and his teenage son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) in their penthouse Brooklyn apartment.  Also in the King family orbit is David’s assistant and chauffeur Paul Christopher (Jeffrey Wright), who has a teenage son of his own named Kyle (Elijah Wright) that’s one of Trey’s closest friends.  While the family is living comfortably, David is beginning to make plans behind the scenes to try to buy back the company he founded so that it isn’t sold to a corporate conglomerate that he’s fears will destroy everything he has built.  He convinces many of his business partners to give up their shares in the company in order to stave off the corporate take over, but at the same time it’s putting his financial stability at risk as getting the money is putting him in serious debt.  At the point where it looks like he might succeed in his buy outs, something tragic and unexpected happens.  He receives a cryptic phone call telling him that his son has been kidnapped and that he’ll only be returned if a ransom is paid.  David and his wife quickly get the police department involved as they try to find his son.  Detectives Bridges (John Douglas Thompson), Bell (LaChanze) and Higgins (Dean Winters) set up operations in the King’s apartment, hoping to track down the kidnapper (A$AP Rocky) once David receives another call.  Miraculously, they manage to find Trey King safe and sound.  It turns out the kidnapper made a mistake and grabbed Kyle instead, believing he was Trey.  Now, David is in the difficult position.  Does he still go through with paying the ransom to save the life of someone else’s kid, even though it will put himself at incredible financial risk?  A lot is at risk, especially when media attention is cast upon the case.  Does David King destroy his reputation in order to save his financial gamble, or does he do the selfless thing and help save his closest friend’s only son.

It’s interesting to think about Highest 2 Lowest in regards to it’s status as a remake of a Kurosawa film.  Akira Kurosawa has probably had more remakes made of his films than any other filmmaker around the world.  Sergio Leone turned Yojimbo (1961) into his spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars (1964).  Hollywood would also adapt Seven Samurai (1954) into The Magnificent Seven (1960).  Even Star Wars (1977) has elements of Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress (1958) woven into it’s story.  So, it’s not surprising that Kurosawa’s High and Low would also inspire it’s own remake as well.  Truth be told, Spike Lee could’ve just said that this was just another adaptation of the original McBain novel, but giving it the title Highest 2 Lowest certainly is meant to invoke the memory of the Kurosawa classic.  Now there is the danger of doing a remake poorly.  There have certainly been many subpar adaptations of Kurosawa’s movies.  Also Spike Lee already has a bad history with remakes, given his misguided attempt to remake Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (2003) in a 2013 film starring Josh Brolin.  One thing that works in this remake’s advantage is that it includes the involvement of Ko Kurosawa as a producer; grandson of Akira Kurosawa.  But even without that connection, this is a remake that does indeed reflect back positively on the original film.  I would say that the movie works in the same way that Sergio Leone’s Fistful of Dollars adapted Yojimbo.  It’s tackling the same story and involves similar characters, but the film definitely feels uniquely tailored to the filmmaker working on it.  Make no mistake, this is a Spike Lee movie, complete with all the stylish editing and visual flair that he gives to all of his films, as well as his typical musings about race and class in society in modern America.  And that is what makes this remake work so well.  Spike Lee and Akira Kurosawa both were drawn to this story based on it’s provocative premise about class struggles, but their spins on the material are uniquely their own.  Kurosawa framed it through the lens of hierarchy in post-War Japan, while Spike Lee frames his story through the lens of racial identity and privilege in contemporary America.  Same story, and similar message, but in very different voices.

One of the great things to see in this film is how Spike Lee uses this particular story and makes it adhere to his own tastes.  He provides an interesting take on the material by making it a reflection about privilege in the African-American community.  David King lives a life of privilege that you realize over the course of the movie came from his commodification of black excellence for mass consumption.  Described as “the best ears in the business” he has indeed helped many black artists enter the mainstream, but over time it has also alienated him from that same community.  His take over bid for the company that he created is not about helping to preserve the cultural importance of the art that he helped create, but rather about him retaining his position as the gatekeeper of that art.  Sure, saving artistic integrity and keeping it in the hands of the black community rather than handing it over to a soulless corporation is a worthwhile thing, but in doing so, David King is also leaving many of those same black artists out of determining what they want to do with their music.  It’s a conundrum that comes to a head when David sees the faults of his own creed come back to bite him with this kidnapping plot.  When it becomes about saving someone who isn’t even his own flesh and blood, we see him fundamentally change, and that’s a compelling story no matter the story’s setting.  Spike Lee is telling more than just a story about wealth and power here.  He’s telling a story about black identity as well; how people in the community change once they do achieve wealth and success.  Whether or not David King goes through with paying the ransom or not is filtered through that perspective.  As a black man in America, he probably had to go through a lot more hurdles in order to become the tycoon that he is today, and that’s something that he doesn’t want to throw away so easily in response to this kidnapping.  That’s where Spike Lee finds his unique angle on the material, which helps to distinguish it from Kurosawa’s.  Both films still deliver on the crime procedural aspects taken from McBain’s novel, but they definitely hit their own outlooks on the themes of the story in their own special way.

Of course the main draw of this remake is undoubtedly the stellar lead performance of Denzel Washington as David King.  There’s a reason why Spike Lee and Denzel has had such a fruitful collaborative partnership over 5 films now; because they both bring out the best in each other.  Denzel is in top form in his performance here, completely commanding every scene that he is in.  It’s a very different performance than that of the legendary Toshiro Mifune in High and Low.  Mifune was very subdued in his role, brilliantly capturing a wide range of emotions with a great deal of subtlety.  Denzel is a lot more showy in his performance, but that works for this film and matches the kind of nature that this character needs to display.  Corporate culture is very different between Japan and America, with American CEO’s being more brash and flashier than their Japanese counterparts.  Plus, he’s the CEO of a music company, so he’s got to be someone who’s got to deal with a lot of clients who are as self-promoting as he is.  He is this way so that he can maintain his place at the top.  Denzel uses his magnetic charm perfectly in this role, and is able to make David King relatable while at the same time making him funny and intimidating depending on the circumstances.  It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of his performance involved a fair bit of improvisation.  But, Denzel isn’t the only standout in the cast.  Jeffrey Wright also delivers a solid performance as Paul.  His more subdued performance works perfectly against Denzel’s bombastic acting in the film.  He also perfectly conveys the internal pain that he’s dealing with, wondering if he’ll ever get his son back alive.  The trio of actors playing the detectives are also wonderful in their roles, which is actually an interesting change from Kurosawa’s version as their part to play in the story was only given to one character before, played by Kurosawa favorite Tatsuya Nakadai.  And though his onscreen role is pretty limited, rapper turned actor A$AP Rocky also stands out as the kidnapper.  His eventual scenes with Denzel near the end are definitely some of the movie’s highlights.

One of the things that Spike Lee likes to do in most of his movies is to pay tribute to his home turf of New York City, and this film is no different.  From the opening credits sequence that is entirely made up of aerial shots of the city, you know that this will be a love letter to NYC, and the city definitely becomes a character in it’s own right.  There are a great many glamour shots of city landmarks, particularly the Brooklyn Bridge, which becomes a pivotal setting at one point in the story.  The diversity of the people in New York is also an important factor.  One of the most pivotal scenes from Kurosawa’s film was the train sequence, where the money exchange takes place.  Spike Lee takes that same moment and does his own spin on it, utilizing all the flavors of New York to make the moment even more exhilarating.  Of course, the subway system of New York City is a natural substitute for the Japanese rail network of the original film.  But as Denzel’s David heads further down the line, a lot of Yankee fans start to fill up the train on their way to a game.  They start chanting and the film intercuts between this scene and the location of the drop off site, which happens to be where the Puerto Rican Day parade is taking place.  The mix of Puerto Rican music and the chanting of “Let’s Go Yankees” on the train makes for a beautifully chaotic sequence, and it’s a great testament to Spike Lee’s talents as a visual storyteller to create that atmosphere to set this pivotal moment in the movie within.  Lee works here with his frequent cinematographer Matthew Libatique, and they create some beautiful sweeping shots of the city.  They also do a great job with the interior spaces of the Kings’ apartment.  Composer Howard Drossin also gives the film a beautifully rich score, which also cleverly weaves in some of the melodies that would be associated with the work that David King does.  Also, Spike Lee goes the extra length in his stylish presentation by cutting scenes together with graphical wipes; some of which even include the logo of his company, which is a very Spike Lee touch to add.  Overall, a very visually inventive and beautiful movie to witness on screen.

If you are a fan of the original film, be rest a assured that Spike Lee’s remake is reverential in all the right ways, but also is different enough to make it stand apart.  Kurosawa and Lee are very different filmmakers, and these two versions of the same story make that very clear.  But, it’s a remake that compliments it’s predecessor.  I have a feeling that one of Spike Lee’s intentions with this movie is to also shine a light on the original.  If you haven’t watched High and Low, I strongly recommend you see that as well.  It’s a genuine masterpiece and easily one of the best crime thrillers ever put on screen.  I also strongly recommend watching Spike Lee’s version as well.  Between the two, Kurosawa’s is the one I’d prefer more, but I am glad that this one exists now as well.  For one thing, it’s a great showcase for Denzel Washington in his top form.  He is clearly making a meal of his performance here, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.  The movie itself is also well crafted.  I already knew the direction of the story because I had seen the original, and even yet there were several points in the film that left me surprised.  And like a lot of Spike’s movies it’s got a great soundtrack and a visual flair that only he can deliver.  It’s a wonderful thing to see these two titans collaborating again, and hopefully it’s not the last.  This is definitely a movie worth seeing in a theater with an audience.  Unfortunately like Da 5 Bloods, this is a film made by a streaming platform; in this case Apple TV+.  Thankfully Apple (in partnership with A24) is giving this a limited theatrical run before it goes on Apple TV+ in September.  It’s a very theatrical film, so I strongly suggest seeing it on the big screen while you can.  I just wish the theatrical window was longer and the roll out a lot wider than just a handful of arts cinemas.  It’s a shame that so many streaming platforms are taking away so many great filmmakers out of the theatrical market, but at the same time, they are indeed the ones putting up the money to allow for filmmakers like Spike Lee to have the creative freedom to make movies like this.  Regardless, Highest 2 Lowest is another strong film from Spike Lee, who seems to be on a roll with his last 3 movies.  It’s a remake that does justice to the original while at the same time manages to be a great movie on it’s own.  Definitely seek out Kurosawa’s original if you haven’t watched it yet, but also give this newer one a watch as well.  It is definitely delivers far more highs than lows.

Rating: 8.5/10

The Director's Chair

The Director’s Chair – James Cameron

We see a lot of filmmakers who become great names in Hollywood history, but never once create what the industry would consider to be a hit film.  These are the auteurs like David Lynch or Wes Anderson, whose movies develop sturdy fan bases, but at the same time never manage to crack into blockbuster territory.  And then there are the filmmakers who have managed to work their way up into favor with the studios and who can get $100 million plus budgets for their passion projects because they have delivered for the studios before.  These are filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino; all filmmakers who make films that become huge box office hits while still maintaining the director’s unique vision.  But there is one filmmaker in particular who not only manages to deliver big on his studio projects, but has also managed to set records multiple times in the process.  James Cameron is a filmmaker who is scary good at making money with his films.  Out of the top 5 highest grossing movies of all time worldwide, he has 3 of them.  It’s a track record that is insanely impressive, and quite surprising given how he started out in the business.  Going from building sets for Roger Corman to re-shaping not only the way that movies are made but also how they are exhibited is truly a career trajectory without parallel.  And he is not just content with being a filmmaker either.  He has also used his engineering brain of his to design and help build a submersible vessel intended for exploration of Challenger’s Deep; the deepest oceanic chasm in the entire world.  Oh yeah, and he also piloted that submarine himself, with cameras set up to capture the historic moment of course.  Few filmmakers have ever dared to challenge the boundaries of what was possible in the art of film-making as much as Cameron has.   Is he a perfect filmmaker?  Of course not.  Many people rightly point out his shortcomings as a screenwriter, which is a discipline of his that hasn’t improved much over the years.  And yet, what he lacks as a writer he more than makes up as a director; a filmmaker of massive vision and the will to see the impossible become possible.

James Cameron had a father who was an electrical engineer and a mother who was an artist.  With these two influences in his life, it makes a lot of sense what kind of filmmaker he would inevitably turn into.  His family moved from Ontario, Canada to California when he was just about to reach his college years.  He started to pursue studies in physics, but it wasn’t long before Hollywood would draw him in.  He left college early and worked a handful of odd jobs before eventually finding his way to Roger Corman Studios.  In his time working for the famed B-movie filmmaker, Cameron began to develop a knack for visual effects.  He built miniature sets, experimented with optical printing, and tried many other cutting edge tricks of the trade over this period of time.  He steadily rose up through the field of visual effects, and even got to work of some big films, like John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981).  But an even bigger brake would come a year later.  After the original director dropped out of directing the monster movie sequel, Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), Cameron was promoted to the big job.  Given that kind of start, I don’t think anyone could have imagined where his career was inevitably headed.  He didn’t waste his opportunity either, with Piranha II getting him noticed well enough to pitch his own project to Hollywood studios; a science fiction thriller about a killer robot from the future called The Terminator (1984).  James Cameron’s Terminator was a revolutionary film for it’s time, not just in it’s storytelling, but also with it’s skillfully done visual effects, which of course at this point Cameron was an expert at.  With every subsequent film, Cameron has continually tried to outdo himself.  He created one of cinema’s greatest sequels with Aliens (1986), revolutionized CGI animation in cinema with The Abyss (1989), and expanded on his own lore with Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991).  In addition, he also succeeded as a producer with films directed by his then wife Kathryn Bigelow, including Point Break (1991) and Strange Days (1995).  But, all of this was just a warm up to his greatest run as a filmmaker.  In 1997, James Cameron released his record breaking $200 million budget historical epic Titanic into theaters, and not only did it break every box office record in the book, but it also earned him an Oscar for his direction.  But even then he wasn’t going to rest easy, as he has spent the last couple decades immersing himself into a cutting edge epic universe called Avatar.  He’s a filmmaker with few peers, and there are several interesting aspects of his style of filmmaking that I will be sharing with you here.

1.

THE COLOR BLUE

If there was ever a trademark that defined James Cameron’s body of work, it would be the omnipresence of the color blue in the films’ visual palette.  It’s something that didn’t really come into his visual style until The Abyss, with both The Terminator and Aliens favoring more gray scaled palettes in their cinematography.  But when it came to The Abyss, Cameron really wanted to emphasize the cold, bleakness of deep sea exploration, and giving the movie a blueish tone was exactly the thing that did the job.  Ever since then, Cameron has utilized the color immensely in his films, to the point where it’s pretty much his film-making signature.  And the reason he has favored it so much probably has to do with how well it contrasts with it’s counterpart on the opposite end of the color spectrum; hot reddish orange, the color of fire.  Pretty much every fight scene that takes place at night in a Cameron film is cast in blue, which helps to make the pyro effects like gunfire and explosions stand out that much more sharply.  This is especially evident in the foundry fight scene at the end of Terminator 2, where the hot molten steel glows so intensely against the dark blue of the night sky shown in the scenes leading up to it.  His action comedy True Lies (1995) also had a lot of contrasting scenes between blue and orange to emphasize the explosive elements.  But blue also played a major role in crafting the look of Titanic.  Nothing emphasized the absolutely chilling frigid cold of that fateful night better than the blue light cast upon the characters.  In reality, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were wading around in a lukewarm pool in a toasty warm sound stage on the Fox lot in Century City, California when they shot their scenes after the ship sinks, but through the magic of acting and blue color grading, you really believed that they were freezing to death in the icy waters of the Atlantic.  But, it’s not just the contrast of color that appeals to James Cameron either.  He also seems to view the color as a symbol of nature itself, which is why it’s found so heavily in the alien world of Pandora, the setting of his Avatar series.  So much of the flora and fauna of the planet contains different shades of blue in their design, including the central Na’vi people themselves.   Whether it’s giving an alien world a distinctive look, or using the color to define tone or evoke a sense of the coldness of an environment, there’s no doubt that James Cameron has found this color to be one of his most useful tools in his style of filmmaking, and it has definitely helped to define his more than anything else.

2.

STRONG WOMEN

Another aspect that has come to define James Cameron’s body of work has been the presence of strong female characters in his story-telling.  While he didn’t exactly invent the idea of female driven action movies, he has nevertheless has helped to reshape the role women play in action films; making them more active agents in their own story rather than damsels in distress that the hero must keep safe.  It’s interesting that one of the pioneering female action film characters would actually be something he inherited from another filmmaker.  The character of Ellen Ripley from the movie Alien (1979), played memorably by Sigourney Weaver, was more of a creation of screenwriter Dan O’Bannon and director Ridley Scott, but when James Cameron was assigned to write and direct the sequel, he gave Ellen Ripley a far more bad ass role to play in the movie.  She’s no longer just a survivor; she’s also ready to jump into a mech suit and fight the Alien Queen head to head herself.  But, Ripley’s tough girl upgrade only could’ve been possible after James Cameron proved already that he could center an action film around a female protagonist.  The Terminator centers around the character of Sarah Conner, the soon to be mother of a revolutionary leader who will help guide humanity through a robot apocalypse, who must survive after being hunted by a robot assassin.  Played memorably by Linda Hamilton, Sarah Conner was a breakthrough character for women in action movies.  Though she has the help of Kyle Reese at her side, the film ultimately hinges on her outsmarting the titular Terminator and using her own grit and smarts to survive the day.  Terminator 2 sees further growth in her evolution as a bad ass character, with her role as a mother adding a whole different layer.  While not all of Cameron’s films center around a female protagonist, a strong female presence is still central to the stories he tells, and many of them definitely do a lot to change the perception of what kind of a role a woman should play in action movies.  Even in his more romantically driven film, Titanic, we witness the events of the story through the eyes of Kate Winslet’s Rose.  The movie also shines a spotlight on the unfair treatment of women in the year 1912, and how part of Rose’s story is her breaking out of the societal burdens that are placed on women like her in that time.  The same presence of strong female characters also extends into the Avatar series, with Zoe Saldana’s Neytiri being an especially strong female character.  It’s a pleasing thing to see a filmmaker like Cameron not only pushing barriers in the craft of filmmaking, but also allowing for barriers to be dropped when it comes to the role of women in his films.

3.

FASCINATION WITH TECHNOLOGY

Perhaps it’s something that he’s carried over from his days working in visuals effects for Roger Corman, but there’s definitely a fascination with the nuts and bolts of technology that characterizes the worlds that Cameron builds in his films.  James not only likes to show us incredible technology in his films, he also wants to show off all of the mechanics behind them too.  The T-800 robot in the first Terminator is a great example of Cameron going the extra mile to develop a futuristic robot that feels authentic.  Once it has shed it’s Schwarzenegger skin, we see all the gears, pistons, and wiring that powers the fearsome machine.  It’s also quite stunning when part of the outer skin is peeled off and we see the metal skeleton underneath.  There’s a great moment when the T-800 performs surgery on itself and Cameron makes sure we get good close-up shots of the pumps articulating the fingers.  He goes even further in Terminator 2, with the T-800 ripping the full sleeve of his skin off his arm to reveal the robot arm underneath.  It’s all a part of the illusion of blending his real actors with incredible physical effects.  But, his fascination with technology goes even beyond making scary robots.  He especially has an affinity for transport vehicles.  In Avatar especially, his team puts a lot of work into creating futuristic airships and watercraft that both look state of the art, but also grounded in what would be realistically feasible.  This is a man who designed his own submarine after all.  You can tell that love of engineering was present in the making of Titanic as well.  Not only does Cameron devote a significant part of the movie’s opening act to the deep sea exploration of the Titanic’s wreckage site, which he himself got to visit numerous times, but the actual reconstruction of the ship itself was done with incredible attention to detail.  And the movie devotes several moments to examining the inner workings of the ship, including the enormous engine itself.  More than any other filmmaker, Cameron seems to treat his movies as testaments to human ingenuity and engineering, and helps to bring a sense of awe towards the things we are capable of building.

4.

VISUAL EFFECTS LABORATORIES

While James Cameron is a filmmaker who values crafting hand made props and sets for his films, he’s also has used his projects as laboratories for the latest advances in optical and digital effects as well.  His movie The Abyss was one of the first Hollywood films to feature a fully computer animated character on screen; the alien water tentacle.  That breakthrough in CGI technology helped to pave the way for another incredible digital creation, the liquid metal T-1000 robot from Terminator 2.  Audiences were blown away by how this liquid creature could look like actor Robert Patrick in one moment, and then become fluid and maleable all in the same shot.  Throughout his career, he has worked with the the best digital effects houses in the business to take the next big leap forward in CGI technology, and many of those same effects still hold up decades later.  Industrial Light and Magic helped to create the aliens in Abyss and the T-1000 in Terminator 2.  Digital Domain helped to make the unsinkable ship sail again in Titanic, and Weta Digital has helped to bring the world of Pandora to vivid life in the Avatar series.  Of course, being the perfectionist that he is, Cameron takes his time with getting the visual effects to look the way he wants them too, and that has often involved him waiting many years between movies until the technology has caught up to his vision.  The first Avatar (2009) came out 12 long years after Titanic hit theaters, and that long development for the film was due to James Cameron and his team working out the technology behind motion capture; getting it to work exactly as he wanted it to.  It would be another 13 years after Avatar before he would make another movie, the sequel Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), but when it did come out, Cameron and Weta revealed another new advancement in visual effects; they had perfected the simulation of water in digital animation, one of the few things that CGI had yet to achieve.  Though Cameron takes his time to get the digital effects right in his movies, the long waits are worth it because his films always manage to deliver on the visuals.  And because of those breakthroughs, visual effects in general become more evolved and become more impressive as a result.

5.

FAMILIAR FRIENDS AND FOES

Because of his long spans between productions, Cameron doesn’t have an extensive filmography.  But in those few films, he has demonstrated his desire to work with people he likes over multiple films.  He of course helped to propel Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career to new heights with the two Terminator movies; both of which continue to define the action film icon’s on screen persona.  After those two films, James and Arnold worked together again on the film True Lies (1994), which was a more grounded action film compared to the sci-fi adventures of the Terminator movies.  Cameron also has gotten to work with his Aliens leading lady again as he cast Sigourney Weaver in the role of Dr. Grace Augustine and Kiri in the Avatar films.  But perhaps the most important actor/director relationship in James Cameron’s life was with the late great actor Bill Paxton.  Paxton appeared in three of Cameron’s films (Aliens, True Lies, and Titanic), but their history goes back even further.  The two knew each other way back when they were set builders at the Roger Corman Studios together.  To see their friendship continue through their different trajectories in Hollywood is really inspiring to see, and it was just as strong off screen as well. Paxton was the only one of the cast members from Titanic to accompany Cameron on a real deep sea exploration of the Titanic wreckage, a trip documented in the documentary Ghosts of the Abyss (2003).  Had Paxton not passed away at the two young age of 61 in 2017, Cameron would’ve probably offered him a role in one of the upcoming Avatar films as well.  Cameron has also forged long lasting creative relationships with his crew members as well, including cinematographer Russell Carpenter and Costume Designer Deborah Scott, both of whom won their Oscars alongside Cameron for Titanic.  He also had long working relationships with producer Jon Landau and composer James Horner, both of whom who have passed away tragically in recent years.  Even as his movies have gotten bigger and more popular, he’s still a filmmaker who remembers all of the team members that helped to carry him along the way, and he rewards that by allowing them to shine alongside him.

When we think of a James Cameron movie now, the word epic will immediately pop into mind.  Sure, his movies may be a bit corny when you pay attention to things like the dialogue, but no other filmmaker manages to immerse you into the action the same way he does.  When you watch Titanic, you really feel like you are on that ship as it’s sinking, with the sound field filled with all the creaks and moans of the iron ship falling apart under the pressure of water filling it’s compartments.  In the Avatar movies, the world of Pandora feels like a real living, breathing ecosystem, making us completely forget that it’s all crafted in the computer based on actors’ motion captured performance in a blue screened soundstage.  And a large reason we are fearful of the future of AI technology today is because of how vividly Cameron portrayed an apocalyptic scenario where the machines have taken over in the future with his Terminator movies.  But perhaps James Cameron’s greatest mark as a filmmaker is that his films have proven to be so revolutionary, that they even changed the business of exhibiting movies as a whole.  Before Avatar, most films were still screened in movie theaters using celluloid prints.  But, because of the high demand for more screenings of Avatar in Digital 3D projection, most movie theaters across the world converted to all digital projection.  It was a major sea change in how we watch movies in theaters, and another major contribution to the current economic woes of once powerhouse companies like Technicolor and Kodak.  Thankfully, James Cameron isn’t making us wait for another decade for his next film, as the third Avatar movie, titled Fire and Ash is scheduled for release this holiday season.  It seems like he’s intent on spending the rest of his filmmaking career devoted to his Avatar franchise, with at least two more films in the pipeline.  However, he also has expressed interest in a project called Ghosts of Hiroshima, based on a true story of a man who survived both of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bomb attacks, which would be his first non-Avatar film project in 30 years.  Though he’s starting to enter his senior years, having spent nearly 50 years in the film business, Cameron is still showing no signs of slowing down and resting on his laurels.  He’s already become the “king of the world” in cinema, but there’s still a fervent drive in him to keep pushing the medium even further.  And without a doubt, he’s still likely to continue making bank at the box office along the way.

Editorials

For All Ages – A Defense of Disney Adults and Other Grown Up Fandoms

You’ve probably heard about a group of people called the “Disney Adults.”  A Disney Adult is a super fan of anything and everything made by the Walt Disney Company, as well as someone who outwardly expresses their fanhood to world.  The reason some people have singled out this group by giving them a label is because a large part of what the Disney Company produces is primarily meant for younger audiences, and a Disney Adult seems to be out of line with the target audience for their products.  To outsiders, seeing this group expressing themselves through their Disney fandom comes across as bizarre behavior, making a lot of them feel like there is something wrong with Disney Adults.  But, being a Disney Adult is not any different than most other fan communities out there.  One of the reasons it seems that Disney Adults are being singled out and in some cases ridiculed is just because of the sheer enormous reach that the Disney Company has on our culture.  In reality, fan culture has reached maximum level within human culture in general, built up over decades of blockbuster entertainment in film, television and music and spread even further throw the internet.  The rise of the Disney Adult community has been a result of this new era of pop culture being brought to the mainstream and having fans brought together through online spaces.  A lot of people who grew up with certain forms of entertainment are more and more likely to retain that fanhood well into their adult years and beyond.  That’s why you see more people these days gleefully showing off their identity as a fan.  But there are many critics who look at this as something insidious, particularly with communities like Disney Adults, who outsiders think are behaving abnormally for someone their age.  Like all fan communities there are good and bad people among the Disney Adults, but the fact that some people find the very idea of there being a community like that at all being a negative is absolutely a very closed minded way at looking at it.

I should stress this from the outset that I myself would probably fall under the Disney Adult category.  Disney Animation was the first thing that I ever latched onto as a kid, and it’s followed me throughout my life all the way into adulthood.  If you have been following this blog over the years, you can tell that it still fills a big part of my life, given my reports from the D23 events in Anaheim and my many editorials, reviews, and Top Ten Lists based around the House of Mouse.  But, as I’ve grown older, I’ve also let in a lot more influences enter my life from all corners of cinema.  My favorite film isn’t even a Disney film anymore, but rather one made by Columbia Pictures; that being Lawrence of Arabia (1962).  But, even as I’ve branched out, Disney still holds a special place for me.  How that translates into me Disney Adult?  Well, my encyclopedic knowledge of the Disney Company’s history is extensive, and I do exceptionally well with Disney based trivia.  I’m also have every Disney and Pixar Animation film in my home video collection; and I’ve repurchased many of those same titles with every format.  I’m also a Disneyland pass-holder and a D23 club member, and I attend many Disney related events in the Los Angeles area, including the already mentioned Expos.  But, where is my bar in Disney fandom.  I’ll confess I do have blind spots when it comes to the company’s history.  I know almost nothing about most of the Disney Channel Original Movie library, nor do I watch any of the programming on that network as well.  I also am not afraid to call Disney out when they do something that I don’t like, such as their heavy reliance on remakes and sequels in recent years to cash in on nostalgia, as well as some of their anti-labor practices, especially towards their theme park employees.  I’m also a fan that doesn’t outwardly show off their fanhood.  I don’t wear mouse ears when I’m in the parks and I only own a couple of T-Shirts with Mickey Mouse on them, which I also hardly ever wear.  I’m subtle with my fandom, but I also don’t look down on those who choose to be more outwardly expressive with their love of Disney.

When I visit Disneyland, I do see the phenomenon of Disney Adults playing out in front of me.  There are a lot of adults who dress head to toe in Disney gear, and many are doing so alongside their children as a fun little thing they bond over, but there are adults without children who do it too.  And these are adults of all age types getting deep into their fanhood.  I’ll see people as young as college age all the way to seniors in their mobile scooters proudly wearing their Mickey Ears and lining up to collect that newly released souvenir popcorn bucket.  I’ll see just as many enthusiastic fans of all ages at club events as well, especially at D23.  And there is variety in the Disney Adult community, with other fandoms now being added to the mix like Star Wars and Marvel.  People of all walks of life: race, gender, sexuality, you name it, Disney Adults is a big tent community.  Are there bad apples in the group?  Of course, just like any other.  I’ve read accounts from former Disney Parks employees that they’ve had some bad encounters from Annual Pass Holders who felt entitled to special treatment and often took their frustrations out on them.  Internally, these bad apple park guests have been dubbed by some parks cast members as “Pass-holes.” Also, there is a part of the fandom that unfairly uses their privilege as a pass-holder or member to horde special event merchandise, making them unavailable to the casual buyers, and some even do this as a means of re-selling those souvenirs on eBay or other online marketplaces.  But these are less fans and more opportunists than anything, often taking advantage of fans who are less privileged than they are.  This also gets into another downside of this fandom, which is that some will become too deeply involved in this kind of fan culture, and it will cause them to spend outside their means, which is where the predatory practices of the re-sellers becomes a major problem.  And this goes to another issue that people can have with Disney, even amongst fans.  Disney, like most other corporations, wants to milk as much money out of their customers as possible, and that’s why they don’t put much effort into the oversight of this re-seller market and in some cases fan the flames of the situation by creating false scarcity.  This isn’t indicative of the fandom as a whole, but it does show that there are indeed some problems that need to be addressed, amongst fans and also with Disney itself.

To outsider observers, being Disney Adults seems to come across as a bit like a cult.  But, this is a very narrow view of what the community is actually like.  The bad apples aside, there is a lot of harmony and fun to be had when interacting with other fans, no matter the age group.  What a lot of people seem to mistake about the Disney Adult community is that they think this is Toxic fandom.  What I observe in circles at Disney events like D23 is the very opposite of toxic.  Everyone is open and welcoming in those spaces, and it’s a place that brings people together regardless of how strongly they feel about any given aspect of the Disney company.  This is honestly what most fan based meet-ups are like, from comic and anime conventions to simple table top game groups at your local comic book and hobby store.  True fandoms want to bring more people into their orbit and you’ll find so many people eager to share their time with outsiders and hopefully find common ground.  When a fandom turns toxic is when they practice gate-keeping.  Beware any fan who tells you that you have to follow certain rigid rules or believe the way they do in order to be considered a true fan.  There are the odd Disney Adult who looks down on others because they don’t have the same fan bone fides as they do.  But this is a very, very tiny minority of the people that I have encountered amongst the Disney Adult community.  Some of the best discussions I’ve had at D23 were when we were all just waiting in line to get in.  I get to share all my thoughts about what I liked and disliked from Disney in the last couple years, and the people I shared that with did the same, and never once do we ever shame each other for thinking differently.  Unfortunately, if you live in an always online world where toxic fandom seems to reign, these kinds of positive conversations never get to be seen, and it leads many so-called “fans” to position themselves as being authority on what constitutes a good and bad fan.  This is where the idea of Disney Adults being a toxic group of cult like man-children has taken fruit, from these online spaces that feed on negativity, and pass judgement from afar without looking at the community from a grounded point of view.

Disney Adults are not the first to face this kind of scrutiny from critics.  Many years prior, another devoted fanbase was also looked at as being abnormal.  They were called Trekkies; a term referring to hardcore fans of the beloved sci-fi franchise Star Trek.  Star Trek was a mainstream hit television series from the 60’s that everyone was familiar with, but over the years it’s fanbase developed into something far more elaborate than what most other pop culture phenomenoms had seen.  Trekkies began to show off their fandom by appearing at fan conventions in costumes based on the show.  People were giving the Vulcan hand gesture to each other, and quoting lines like “Live long and prosper” in their everyday life.  Some even went as far as to learn the entirety of the Klingon language, and could converse with other Trek fans in that language fully if they wanted.  Back when the Trekkie community was beginning to become a larger presence in fan circles, many outsiders found a lot of this extreme fandom a little unsettling, believing that this was cultish behavior.  For a while, Trekkies were looked down upon.  A lot of critics would falsely assert that Trekkies were lonely and friendless, and probably virgins as well.  A famous Saturday Night Live sketch, in which Captain Kirk himself William Shatner appeared, had the actor speak in front of a group of Trekkies, telling them to all “Get a Life.”  This condescending attitude towards Trekkies changed over the years however as not just Star Trek fandom became more mainstream but also fan culture as a whole.  Now, people of all walks of life proudly declare themselves a Trekkie, including even some heads of state.  And fans of all sorts of other popular culture properties likewise freely express their love for the things they are drawn to.  It’s all part of the cultural shift over the last couple decades, where what was considered the lower artforms like comic books, TV shows, and video games are now getting more recognized as high art.  It’s no longer childish to be considered a fan.

But, some will still associate extreme expressions of fanhood with immaturity.  At the moment, the Disney Adult seems to be the type of fan that many people spotlight as the epitome of immaturity.  One complaint that I hear a lot is that many people consider adults without children visiting Disneyland as a sign of creepy behavior.  It follows the misconception that spaces like Disneyland are meant for families with children only.  Disneyland, nor any other theme park for that matter was never meant to be just for kids and their parents only.  Walt Disney himself scoffed at the assertion that his company only made stuff for children.  Walt intended for his movies and his theme parks to be for people of all ages; as he put it, “the young and the young at heart.”  The reason Disneyland exists today was mainly because he wanted to share in the fun with his own children, and not just watch them have all the fun on the rides.  That’s the great allure of all the best things that have come out of the Disney Company; they remain timeless, and you never grow out of it.  But the best thing that has come out of this multi-generational appeal is that the community of Disney Adults has grown out of it.  Just like Trekkies and many other fan communities, Disney Adults have found fun together through their own modes of fanhood.  At Disneyland, there are special fan organized events that have risen up over the years, such as Dapper Days where people dress up in retro, dapper style clothing when they visit the park.  Disney doesn’t put on these events, but they allow them to go on within their parks as long as the fans don’t break any park rules.  One such event, the annual Gay Days where LGBTQ Disney fans gather at the parks, became such a big deal each year that Disney itself embraced it and now they organize their own Pride Event in the park alongside the unofficial Gay Days that fans put on.  Sure, theme parks are a great place for families to vacation and have fun together, but adults who are there by themselves are just as deserving of having fun there too.

For a lot of adult fans of family friendly entertainment, a major reason they are drawn to these things is because of the way that it helps to soothe the soul.  For a lot of adults, these types of fandoms are an escape; a way of holding onto something they cherish at a time when life can be hard.  We work long hours and have to deal with the hardships of growing old and seeing a lot of the things that we took for granted suddenly turn into a problem.  When things like that happen, it becomes therapeutic to cuddle with a stuffed animal that you kept since childhood, or re-watch that cartoon you liked from years back that brings back warm memories.  It’s more than just finding comfort in nostalgia; it’s keeping a part of you grounded in the things that make you happy.  Sure, people can sometimes take nostalgia too far and become obsessive with it.  But for the most part, being a dedicated fan of something that was special to you in childhood is not a signifier of immaturity.  A person is not regressing into a childlike state just because they still like things from their childhood.  If anything, fandoms are showing a remarkable amount of complex ingenuity in how they go about showing  their fandom, particularly in lengths they go in contributing to the economy.  There are adults out there that are perfectly willing to spend lots of money shopping for toys on eBay that they remember having when they were young.  Also, a lot of toy companies cater just as much to adults as they do with children.  LEGO produces special lines of model sets just for the adult crowd alongside their ages 3 and up toy sets.  Also, the Funko company sees the majority of their sales coming from adult collectors for their vinyl figure dolls.  It’s a positive sign that the culture no longer looks down on fan communities but instead is actually finding ways to cater to them.  You will still see the occasional YouTube channel try to shame one fan base over the other as a means of stirring controversy as clickbait.  But, in general, adult fans of cartoons and the like are just as mature as any other group.  From CEOs who have action figures displayed in their office to a construction worker who spends their break time playing Pokemon, every adult has that little piece of their childhood they hold onto for comfort in their personal spaces.

So, while Disney Adults are currently finding themselves ridiculed by corners of the internet, they should not be discouraged from continuing to love the things they love.  If anything, they have been unfairly maligned for the perceived sins of the Disney Company itself.  Sure, Disney has it’s fair share of things to be scrutinized and condemned for in it’s history, but none of that should reflect back on the people who still consider themselves devoted fans.  A lot of these Disney Adults are aware of the bad things that happen in the orbit of the Disney Company, and you will find that a good many of them will be among the first to express their displeasure at what Disney has done.  It doesn’t make them any more or less a fan as a result.  Disney Adults are not naïve people, nor are any other fan communities like the Trekkies or several others.  I’ve seen it myself as a Disney Adult, with Parks fans in particular always being suspicious whenever a ride gets replaced at Disneyland or any of the other theme parks.  What I don’t see in the Disney Adult fan base is immaturity.  If anything, there is actually a greater showing of sophistication coming out of the Disney Adult community than I have seen with most other fandoms.  Disney Adults are well informed and active, often showcasing a wealth of knowledge about the entertainment industry as a whole, framed through the lens of Disney.  With my own positive experience within this fan community, it has allowed me to avoid judging other fandoms that I am not a part of harshly.  I am far from being a devoted fan of the Star Trek franchise and will probably never become a Trekkie myself, but I would never begrudge anyone who was one themselves.  In fact, I actually do admire the Trekkie community itself, even as I don’t understand it.  And that’s what fan culture as a whole should be; free of tribalism.  Even when we don’t belong to a certain fan community we should never look down and shame anybody who does belong.  There are so many worthwhile fandoms to be a part of, and in many cases you might find a community that actually helps to make your life better as a whole.  I’ve been a fan of Disney since childhood, and it’s given me a great many memories to cherish, like my first visit to the Disney Studio Lot in Burbank when I was 12, or the many times I’ve gone to the D23 Expo and met other fans just like me.  The best part of fan communities is finding that you are not alone and that there are many people out there who will share that enthusiasm with you.  So, this Disney Adult hopes to convince many of you out there reading this that you should be proud of the things you love, even the stuff that makes you come off as a little childish.

Top Ten Lists

Top Ten Robots in Movies

There are many types of characters that have come to define the stories we find in cinema.  Some are fun and lovable, while others are dark and menacing.  One particular type of character that can fall into either one of these categories are the artificial lifeforms known as robots.  Whatever type of robot they be, a toy, an android, or a cyborg, these characters have made an impact on the big screen, even going back to the earliest days of cinema.  These characters have particularly been a favorite staple of science fiction.  There’s nothing more futuristic in nature than the creation of artificial life, and robots have been central to that.  Of course we have seen stories where a robot is treated more humanely and they develop personalities of their own which ignites debates about the nature of creation itself, when the very idea that an individual can be manufactured and have a will of it’s own thereafter.  There are also just as many movies about the dangers of robotics, when artificial life turns against humanity and leads to it’s near extinction.  Either type of story has it’s own place in cinema history, but what both have done together is create a vast number of memorable robotic characters over the years.  These iconic character range from the friendly, to the menacing, to even that strange neutral ground in between.  For this article I am putting together a list of the most memorable robotic characters that have appeared in the movies.  There are some ground rules that I have to set for this list, just to be clear which types of robot characters count.  One, these have to be self-reliant robots, meaning they can’t be piloted or puppeteered by another character; so the Jaegers from Pacific Rim (2013) won’t make the list because they are more human powered mechs than actual robots.  Also, these have to be actual physical robots and not a AI program with it’s own sentience, unless it has also created a robotic body for itself.  So, no HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).  Other than that, any type of robot qualifies.  So with all that laid out, let’s take a look at my picks for the Top Ten Robots in Movies.

10.

THE TIN MAN from THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

Played by Jack Haley

Here we begin with one of the better examples of a friendly robot in movies.  A character straight from L. Frank Baum’s original story, the Tin Man is very different from most typical robotic characters in movies.  What sets him apart is that his creation is more magical than mechanical.  He lives because the Land of Oz is a magical place, where scarecrows are also alive and lions can speak.  Still, as he tells his story, he shares that he was built by a woodsman for the purpose of chopping wood, so by that account he still would a robot.  There’s just one thing that the woodsman forgot; a heart.  It’s an interesting character trait for the Tin Man; that desire to have a heart, which means that he desires to be more human.  Of course, on his adventures with Dorothy, we know that an actual physical heart is not what’s key to being a human.  The Tin Man shows he has a heart through his compassion and devotion to his friends.  The portrayal of the Tin Man in this movie is particularly special, thanks to the performance of Jack Haley, an experienced song and dance man long before his role in The Wizard of Oz.  His jerky, robotic movements, particularly in his introduction scene, really help to sell the idea that he’s made of nothing but metal.  The creation of the costume is also quite a feat, particularly in the make-up, which they had to redo to make it less toxic as it sent the Tin Man’s original actor, Buddy Ebsen, to the emergency room due to a severe allergic reaction to the silver paint.  Even after the changes, it probably still was uncomfortable for Jack Haley to play the character, but he does in the end shine through, much like his metallic skin after it has been polished.  A lot of the other robots on this list are more creations out of realm of science, but the Tin Man stands out as a more magical entity, and one that definitely fits within the world of Oz.  Much more than an empty kettle, he a man on his mettle, because he always had a heart.

9.

AVA from EX MACHINA (2015)

Played by Alicia Vikander

Now we move on to another type of robotic character; one with a darker side.  This cautionary tale about rogue AI from writer/director Alex Garland is becoming more and more prescient by the day as we are going through an AI boom at the current moment.  Oscar Isaac’s eccentric tech billionaire brings one of his young technicians, played by Domhnall Gleeson, to his secluded cabin in the woods to conduct a Turing Test with his new AI programed robot, played by Vikander, in this sci-fi thriller.  The film is more about human hubris than anything else, showing that creating life is more than just a mechanical exercise.  The film does a great job of creating this intriguing question about the nature of humanity.  AVA is an interesting character because she displays all of the outward appearance of a human being, but underneath she is all metal shells and wiring.  The Oscar-winning visual effects used to create AVA’s robotic body are pretty spectacular, making it appear that Alicia Vikander’s physical body is broken up into detachable parts.  It’s eerie to see the clear shells with all the wiring link up seamlessly with the actress’ real face.  The movie delivers it’s message in an effective way, with AVA nearly stripped down completely when you first meet her, making no mistake that she’s a robot, but as the movie keeps moving forward, she puts on more layers concealing that fact, like wearing more clothes and putting on extra layers of artificial skin, to the point where her robotic insides are completely obscured.  And while she does this, she increasingly manipulates Gleeson’s technician, blurring the line further between his conception of her as being a robot.  in the end, we learn that she’s been the one testing her human captors, and not the other way around.  It’s a movie that definitely makes one wary about the implications of making AI too true to life, because there’s always the danger of it becoming too smart that it’ll end up out-smarting us.  And even still, AVA is not as malicious an AI as you would expect.  Over the course of the movie, we see that it has learned the very human trait of survival, and that’s why she manipulates the humans around her; to finally escape and be set free.  Alex Garland leaves it open as to what AVA might end up doing out in the real world, but as the movie showed us, AI reflects back all the things that human beings have programmed into it, and unfortunately a lot of our own programming as humans is not without a few bugs.

8.

THE MACHINE HUMAN from METROPOLIS (1927)

Played by Brigette Helm

A lot of AVA from Ex Machina and many other robotic characters from cinema in general owe a lot to this pioneering depiction of a robot in the silent Fritz Lang masterpiece Metropolis.  This nearly century old classic takes place in an imagined city of the future, where among other technological advancements a mechanical human being has been constructed.  Inspired a bit by the creation of Frankenstein’s monster, this Machine Human is the work of a deranged mad scientist who’s choosing to play God.  But at the same time, the Machine Human’s creation is meant to be the first in a string of robotic workers who will replace the human drones working in the underworld of the city.  This movie is becoming even more prophetic every day, as tech billionaires are using AI to create more automation in society, which is driving out more and more of the human workforce.  And Fritz Lang saw this coming a century ago, making this movie well ahead of it’s time.  The Mechanical Human itself is very iconic, working it’s way into so much of the science fiction that we’ve seen over the years.  It’s design particularly had a major influence on the creation of C-3PO in the Star Wars movies for example.  Another interesting aspect of the Mechanical Human is that it is given a human disguise, showing how it’s purpose is to blur the line between human kind and artificiality, and through that make it easier to manipulate those who are unable to tell the difference.  In the movie, it takes the disguise of a woman named Maria, who has been leading the working class humans in resistance against the upper class in the city above.  This function of manipulating the human mind through an artificial imposter is very much in the same vein of what we saw with AVA in Ex Machina.  It’s also something we see playing out in our own real world with bots manipulating discourse online through social media. Though in terms of personality, the Mechanical Human is very limited, mainly just being the robotic arbitor that it was programmed to be and nothing more.  But even still, it is an iconic depiction of a robotic being that in the nearly 100 years since it’s creation now seems even more realistic than how it was first imagined; a sad reality about how we as a society have used robotics and AI in very bad ways.

7.

ROBOCOP from ROBOCOP (1987)

Played by Peter Weller

Moving away from both the positive and negative depictions of robotic characters in movies, here we find one of the best examples of that gray area in the middle.  In Paul Verhoeven’s dark ultraviolent satire of capitalism run amok, we see a story where Peter Weller’s human cop is transformed into the ultimate weapon of justice.  But, as we see, the more mechanical he becomes, the less forgiving he is to the average criminal.  The movie explores the idea of humanity being further consumed by a technological world, where things like law enforcement no longer serves in the public interest but rather becomes a tool for keeping things in order, mainly in the interest of corporate elites.  A true human police force is subjected to things like personal judgment and ethical review.  Replace that with a fully mechanized form of law enforcement and yes you have a system that doesn’t discriminate but it’s also one that doesn’t empathize either.  It’s a system that carries it’s own biases that purely exists to follow the law and doesn’t take into account the nuances of circumstance that leads to crime.  Verehoeven plays around with this concept in a very broad sense in the movie, leading to some very shockingly violent imagery for it’s time (which at one point earned the film an NC-17 rating).  Peter Weller’s portrayal of the titular Robocop is pretty iconic as well.  The shiny metallic armor he wears is something that everyone remembers about the film, but Weller also perfectly captures that struggle between his character’s rigid programming  and whatever is left of his humanity.  Whether he’s good or bad depends on who’s in the driver’s seat at the time, but eventually Robocop does come around to fighting against the corporate machine that made him who he is, and ultimately chooses his humanity in the end.  As police forces become more militarized and law enforcement becomes more about protecting moneyed interests rather that protecting and serving the community at large, a story like Robocop becomes a more potent satire of how the balance between man and machine being thrown out of balance creates a far worse world overall.

6.

GORT from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951)

Played by Lock Martin

Klaatu barada nikto.  These three words are the keys to the most powerful weapon the Earth has ever known.  This Cold War era Sci-Fi classic creates a powerful story about mankind’s first encounter with life from another world.  A flying saucer lands in Washington D.C. and the human like alien being that has travelled inside of it seeks to make peace with us primitive Earthlings.  However, trigger happy military personnel end up wounding Klaatu, the alien ambassador, and this awakens the Guardian sentinel that traveled with him; a massive robot named Gort.  Gort is without a doubt one of the most iconic robots in all of cinema, and an icon of this particular era of science fiction.  He’s limited in personality, more machine than anything else, but he still leaves a chilling impression whenever he’s onscreen.  With a laser blast from his cycloptic facial lens, he’s able to disintegrate anything that gets in it’s way, including unfortunate human beings.  But, he’s not a malicious mechanical being either.  His primary function is to protect Klaatu and the ship at all costs.  But, he also must obey anyone who uses the password I shared at the beginning.  The Day the Earth Stood Still was made at a particularly precarious time in human history, as nuclear proliferation and the tensions between the United States and the Soviet bloc were heating up.  Also the paranoia of the Red Scare was spreading across the country as well.  Gort is viewed by many as an allegory for nuclear deterrents; a weapon of immense power that proves to be so destructive that it fighting against it would mean one’s own destruction.  As the movie portrays him, he serves as a warning against the misuse of such weaponry.  The look of Gort is distinctively mid-century sci-fi.  He was played by 7’5″ tall actor Lock Martin, whose immense stature really helps to make Gort feel big on screen.  But his design is also sleek and simple, very much reinforcing his other-worldly nature.  When we think of mid-century science fiction, Gort will most likely be one of the first things people remember.  He may not stand out as a defining character of the era, but as a symbol there is no doubt that he stood out as an icon.

5.

ROY BATTY from BLADE RUNNER (1982)

Played by Rutger Hauer

Set in what was supposed to be Los Angeles in the far off year of 2019, this Sci-Fi neo-noir features a story about rogue androids known as replicants that are hiding in plain sight among us humans.  The replicants in Blade Runner are so human like that they require a complex exam called the Voight-Kampff test to identify them as the androids they are.  And the leader of these rebel replicants is a menacing and powerful replicant called Roy Batty, played memorably by Rutger Hauer.  The famed Dutch actor brings powerful gravitas to the role, creating a villain that really feels more soulful than a lot of other robotic characters that we’ve seen in the movies.  His portrayal strongly reinforces the idea put forth by the movie, which is the idea about artificial life being capable of having a soul to them.  As we learn in the movie, the replicants themselves are evolving and becoming more human like as a result; to the point where the Voight-Kampff can’t even detect all the clues, and this becomes a problematic dilemma for a society that has used replicants for purposes like hard labor and raises a profound question: Are replicants due rights for themselves, just like any other being.  As sympathetic as the replicants may be, there’s still no doubt that Roy Batty is a pretty bad guy as well.  He leaves a lot of bodies in his wake as he tries to infiltrate the Tyrell Corporation to meet his maker.  But, his time is also limited due to a built in flaw that makes the replicants live short lives as a necessity to allow for control over them.  Batty goes out in a harrowing final confrontation with Harrison Ford’s heroic Deckard, the titular blade runner tasked with hunting Batty down and terminating him.  Batty’s dying scene is one of cinema’s most iconic moments, as he shares his favorite “memories” to Deckard while his life slips away, all in a beautifully staged rooftop scene in pouring down rain.  Hauer often cited this scene as one of his proudest moments as an actor, and he has good reason to be proud.  In this moment, he does prove to us that even an artificial mind is capable of human emotion, and thus able to carry a soul, which sadly due to the flaw of his body will be lost “like tears in rain.”

4.

T-800 from THE TERMINATOR (1984) AND TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991)

Played by Arnold Schwarzenegger

We’ve talked about friendly robots in movies, as well as malicious and menacing robots in movies.  But here we have in the Terminator franchise an example of one character that has been both.  The original Terminator has the T-800 model be the film’s main antagonist, sent from the future to hunt down the mother of a man who will some day lead human kind in a resistance against a world conquering AI program known as Skynet.  In the sequel, director James Cameron made a very interesting creative choice by having the T-800 return, except this time he’s here to protect young John Conner.  Schwarzenegger’s film career was made by his role in this franchise, and he’s honestly perfectly suited for playing this character.  His robotic monotone helps to hide his true Austrian accent, and he is without a doubt a strong physical presence as well.  But that all works in the favor of the character.  The T-800 is a formidable cyborg with an unstoppable drive to complete his mission.  The purpose of his character in the first film was to be mostly intimidating and scary, which Arnold pulls of well.  But it’s in the sequel, where we see the T-800 turned into a guardian instead of an assassin, that more character nuances are revealed.  He’s not just a machine with mission, but also one that is capable of learning as well.  One of the best moments of Terminator 2 is when we see teenage John Conner (played by Edward Furlong) try to teach the T-800 phrases to make him more personable and human, like saying “Hasta La Vista, Baby.”  It’s a great transformation between movies that helps to define the T-800 as more than just a cold, soulless robot.  When he makes the ultimate sacrifice at the end of the movie, we are at that point just as heartbroken as John Conner to see him go, which is a testament to just how well Schwarzenegger and Cameron made us warm up to his character.  He started as a very simple villainous force in the first movie; nothing more than a scary monster to hunt down our heroes.  But by the end of Terminator 2, he’s grown into more than just a machine; he’s a friend to be missed.  And Schwarzenegger absolutely made him look all along the way.  He’ll be back.

3.

R2-D2 from THE STAR WARS SAGA

Played by Kenny Baker

There are so many types of characters that have gone on to define the magnificent ensemble that is the cast of the Star Wars universe.  But one of the most iconic types of these characters are the droids.  Often represented in these movies as practically built, on set robots, they have become some of the most popular characters in the entire series; not to mention also the most lucrative in the merchandising department.  A lot of droids have populated Star Wars media over the years, but there is no doubt who the most famous ones are.  They are the only characters to appear in all 9 of the mainline movies of the Skywalker Saga; the droids C-3PO and R2-D2.  While C-3PO is a great character in his own right, R2-D2 emerges as a much more important droid in the overall storyline.  He’s the one who carries Leia’s message safely to Obi-Wan Kenobi, as well as the one droid that accompanies Luke Skywalker on his mission to blow up the Death Star.  And he’s able to stand out as a memorable character even though he can only communicate through beeps and boops.  Legendary little person actor Kenny Baker was often called upon to play R2-D2 in limited moments where he had to move back and forth on screen in a way that a remote controlled robot couldn’t do on set.  Otherwise, that’s as much real acting that could be put into a character like him.  The rest is all accomplished via puppeteering.  While the filmmakers were limited by what they could do with a faceless and voices robot in their cast, it’s remarkable how much personality they are able to get across with R2.  And like with his frequent companion C-3PO, he set the standard for all the droids that we’ve come to know in the Star Wars universe ever since.  To this very day, nearly 50 years later, R2-D2 is still a fan favorite, and an icon of the franchise as a whole that remains central to it’s identity.  That’s a pretty incredible legacy to have for such a simple little robot that looks like a trash can on wheels.

2.

THE IRON GIANT from THE IRON GIANT (1999)

Voiced by Vin Diesel

If there was ever a cinematic robot that warmed the hearts of audiences, it’s the titular giant robot from this animated masterpiece.  The Iron Giant comes to Earth with no memory of it’s purpose, and as a result he’s able to forge his own purpose, which ends up involving a young kid named Hogarth.  Hogarth and the Giant form a bond, and that bond helps the Giant overcome the instinctual programming that he was sent to Earth with, which was to destroy.  One of the sweetest aspects of the story is that he learns to see himself in a different way thanks to his friendships with the humans.  After reading comics, the Giant sees himself identifying with Superman, which becomes a major plot point when he must save Hogarth’s home from destruction.  The movie ends with the Giant sacrificing himself in a dramatic encounter with a nuclear warhead, and in his final moments he think’s back to Hogarth’s words of wisdom telling him that he can choose who he wants to be.  In his last words, he says “Superman” and embraces his fate with the warhead.  It’s a profound moment that brought audiences to tears and endeared him as one of the greatest robots in cinema history.  A lot of credit should go to the surprisingly nuanced vocal performance given to him by Vin Diesel.  The Fast and the Furious actor managed to deliver so much soulfulness and personality into the Giant with very few spoken words, something that he would also put to great use as the voice of Groot in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.  And Diesel’s gravely voice sounds so perfectly matched for the character as well, even with the metallic filter put on it.  The animation of him in the film is also incredible.  He’s a CGI animated character that blends very well in the 2D animated style of the movie, and has a cool design that is very evocative of the 50’s era sci-fi style that fits with the period setting of the movie.  Though big and imposing, we quickly learn that this cinematic robot is one gentle giant overall, and one of the most lovable to ever star on the silver screen.

1.

WALL-E from WALL-E (2008)

Voiced by Ben Burtt

While there have been many great cinematic robots over the years of all types, none have perhaps displayed as endearing a personality as WALL-E from the Pixar classic film of the same name.  Like a robotic Charlie Chaplain, WALL-E is a lovable little goof that communicates so much through so many little gestures and quirks of character.  His design of course is perfectly constructed to make him instantly likable, with those binocular like eyes and stout box shaped body.  What is even more interesting about him is the setting that they chose to set his story within.  WALL-E has lived a solitary life on Earth after human beings abandoned it hundreds of years ago and all the other sanitation bots left to clean up the mess left behind have all shut down.  Somehow, WALL-E has managed to survive all this time and remains the last one left, dutifully repeating his directive every single day without end.  But over the centuries by himself, he has developed something unique.  He’s a collector, salvaging things from the planet wide junk yard that he finds interesting and adding them to his collection.  He also has developed a love for musicals, in particular 1969’s Hello, Dolly, which he likes to imitate the dance sequences of.  One of the remarkable things that the movie does is that it places us distinctly in WALL-E’s point of view from the beginning of the story, and because he is just a robot, the film tells most of it’s story early on without dialogue.  The first act is mostly wordless, making it more crucial to define WALL-E purely through pantomime.  That’s where the influences of great silent film comedians like Charlie Chaplain and Buster Keaton come in.  But even when the movie extends beyond it’s earthbound parts, the incredible portrayal of WALL-E still shines through.  The inclusion of a sleek, female coded robot named EVE also shows how the formation of WALL-E’s personality has made him a bit of a romantic as well;  another trait you don’t see in most movie robots.  Legendary sound engineer Ben Burtt (Star Wars, Jurassic Park) was largely responsible for designing WALL-E’s unique electronic voice, and even in the very few words that he’s able to say, it still fits the overall simple charm of the character.  Without a doubt, the most well rounded robotic character that we’ve ever seen brought to life on film.

There’s a tendency to view all robots in movies as limited in character.  For a long time, robotics were more science fiction than science fact, and for a lot of movies that featured a robot as a part of it’s story either had to make their creations limited based on what was capable within the scientific standards of the time, or have them be completely the creation of fantasy.  For a lot of films, robotics have been a part of many cautionary tales.  In the cases of Metropolis and Robocop, the idea of robots taking over our jobs comes across as a serious threat to humanity.  In the Terminator movies, we see the fruition of that fear, with mankind hanging on by a thread due to our foolish naivete in allowing artificial intelligence to take over every function of society, including our weapons systems.  But, there are many films that also show that robots can have a softer side, like with the Iron Giant and WALL-E.  And then you have the cyborg characters, who become almost human and wish to be regarded as equal in that sense despite being born artificially rather than organically, which is central to the story of Blade Runner (1982).  We are currently in a time period where AI is advancing at a rapid place, and some of the scenarios that seemed far off in movies from decades ago no seem to be a lot more relevant.  The worry is that AI will reflect back all of the bad aspects of humanity, and probably end up causing chaos as a result.  One hopes that the ones who are developing this new tech are not doing so recklessly, but then again, we’ve seen the worst case scenario play out in some of these movies.  Overall, there have many really interesting characters in the movies that are robotic in nature.  And many of them are not things to be feared, but rather a force for good in the end.  Good or bad, many of them definitely stand out as interesting and cool looking in their designs.  And their influence on science fiction cinema is particularly immense.  Whether those gears on the inside are turning or not, and the mind is thinking in ones and zeroes or something more complex, they make for some interesting characters in some of our favorite stories, and the hope is that many more in the future will stand out as well, even as robotics and AI evolve further over time.