All posts by James Humphreys

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales – Review

It’s an interesting world we live in today where it seems like anything can be turned into a movie.  In the old days of cinema, you merely had to look to literature or the latest headlines for inspiration when crafting a property for the big screen.  Television shows making the crossover was the next phase.  Now, all media of every kind is fodder for big screen adaptations.  We’ve seen movies based off of commercials (1996’s Space Jam), toy products (2014’s The Lego Movie), and later this year, a movie based on the way we text (The Emoji Movie).  But even more shocking than the sources of inspiration is the sometimes unexpected result of those movies ending up actually being good.  The Lego Movie is a perfect example of a baffling concept of a movie actually paying off, thanks to a smart script and beautifully executed animation.  But, there has been perhaps no bigger unexpected hit made from the unlikeliest of inspirations than Walt Disney Pictures’ Pirates of the Caribbean.  Seriously, when you first heard that Disney was taking one of their theme park attractions and turning it into a full length feature, you would’ve thought they had gone crazy.  And maybe they were a little.  But, it was a crazy idea that somehow managed to manifest itself into a box office and critical hit.  It wasn’t Disney’s first attempt at creating a film themed around one of their theme park rides (The Country Bears, 2002), nor their last (The Haunted Mansion, 2003), but it would be the only one that actually succeeded.  This is largely due to the fact that it was far more earnest in it’s execution and was carried on the shoulders of a career-defining performance from Johnny Depp, who created his most popular character here; the unforgettable Captain Jack Sparrow.

When Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) first launched into theaters, it blew all our expectations away.  It was adventurous, funny, visually stunning, and just all around fun.  It also turned Johnny Depp, who up until that time was seen as more as an indie film actor, into a bankable star.   It gave co-star Orlando Bloom a much needed post-Lord of the Rings boost, and helped to introduce Keira Knightley to the world.  It also featured a deliciously evil performance from Geoffrey Rush, who created an equally iconic character in Captain Barbosa.  Naturally, with the success the film achieved, sequels were destined to follow.  And Disney took the ambitious step of shooting two Pirates films back to back.  The over half a billion dollar project resulted in Dead Man’s Chest (2006) and At World’s End (2007), and both performed even better at the box office.  But, despite being praised for some of their aspects, like the villainous Davy Jones(played by Bill Nighy) and the amazing CGI technology that brought him to life, the sequels were received critically with a mixed reaction.  Some loved the movies, while others felt they were a let down.  Despite what everyone thought, it was clear that the latter Pirates movies suffered from the problem of a bloated production.  People felt that the films lacked the tightly paced thrills of the first movie and that they had become way too long; At World’s End clocked in at nearly three hours alone.  It was enough criticism to drive Disney to reassess the series in the next installment, which resulted in On Stranger Tides (2011), which was a disastrous disappointment.  It was a dismally boring sequel that retained none of the charm of the other movies, and just felt like a pale shadow of it’s former self.  From this, Disney took a long break from the series, but now we have another return to the seas with Captain Jack and crew in Dead Men Tell No Tales.  The question now is if the extended wait helped to calm the seas and right the ship for this series, or did it leave it shipwrecked and forsaken.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales reintroduces us to Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), who we last saw in At World’s End, cursed to command the doomed ship The Flying Dutchman for all eternity.  We see Will confront his son Henry, who vows to free his father of the curse and he tells him that he has searched all legends of the sea to find that answer.  Many years later, a grown up Henry (Brenton Thwaites) believes that if he can find an ancient artifact known as Neptune’s Trident, it might be able to end the curse forever.  His search leads him into an area called the Devil’s Triangle, where he’s brought face to face with a Ghost Ship that is commanded by the haunted presence of Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem).  Salazar tells Henry to deliver a message to Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), telling him that he means to take his revenge once he is out in open waters again, acting on the grievance of losing his life thanks to the trickery of Jack who had trapped him in the triangle many years ago.  Henry finds Jack on the island of St. Martin, along with what’s left of his crew, including the ever loyal Gibbs (Kevin McNally).  Also in St. Martin, they run across a fugitive named Carina (Kaya Scodelario), who is accused of being a witch purely because of her ability to read the stars.  They soon learn that she may have the knowledge necessary to find the location of the Trident, and together they set sail out into open seas.  But, in pursuit is a British warship under the command of the tenacious Captain Scarfield (David Wenham) as well as Salazar, who has allied himself with an old adversary of Captain Jack; the fearsome Captain Hector Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush).  It’s a mad rush to reach the Trident in time, because whoever possesses the trident commands the sea itself, and with it, can break any curse it has put on anyone.

Now that the series is up to 5 films total, one has to wonder if there is any new territory left to uncover with this world and these characters.  With Dead Men Tell No Tales, Disney was far more interested in cutting the fat out of the series and returning it to it’s more modest roots.  They brought on Norwegian directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, who had previously made the acclaimed Kon-Tiki (2012).  Their more adventure oriented tastes seemed like a good fit for the series and would be a welcome change from the bloat of Gore Verbinski’s back to back sequels and Rob Marshall’s limited vision.  But, was it enough to make us care again.  Well, here’s the thing; is it really a series that needs to be saved.  My feeling is that the series had played itself out in the original trilogy. Despite all of it’s problems, At World’s End was an adequate capper to the story-line, and had a great sense of finality to it.  Everything since has felt like nothing more than a shameless cash grab.  Dead Men Tell No Tales falls into this category unfortunately, but at the same time, it is not the worst we’ve seen from this series either.  On Stranger Tides had no redeeming value whatsoever, whereas this has the benefit of some moments that do merit praise.  For the most part, it still feels like it’s not needed at all, but it does entertain periodically.  The tighter plot helps out with the pacing (at a brisk 126 minutes, this is the shortest film in the series, by a long shot).  If only the plot didn’t preoccupy itself with a lot of unnecessary world building.  For a series that is based off of a theme park attraction, they sure have crafted a complex mythology around it.  And even over five films spanning 14 years, I still don’t think the filmmakers have fully grasped all of it.  That’s perhaps the biggest flaw of this film is the fact that it doesn’t streamline the plot mechanisms in any way, and that interferes with us trying to find enjoyment in the ride itself.  A movie like this doesn’t need to explain anything or have to make sense; it can just be a big, loud adventure and we’ll be happy with that.

Trying to balance the adventure plotting with complex mythological themes along with Jack Sparrow’s often slap-sticky shenanigans creates this often uneven tone to the movie, and it spoils most of the experience overall.  By the time the movie does reach the mythical Trident, it has gone through so many shifts and turns that you’re just exhausted trying to piece it together and become numb to it all.  I honestly didn’t care what was going on by the end of this movie, which is a shame because there are some plot developments late in the movie that should’ve carried more weight than they should.  The movie feels more successful in individual scenes than as a whole.  There is an especially great scene early on involving a guillotine that I found very entertaining.  It’s a physical comedic bit that would’ve done Buster Keaton proud, and I’m sure that it gave Johnny Depp an excellent moment to dig into character for.  That and other scenes like it help to lift this movie up from the disappointment of On Stranger Tides, which had maybe only one good scene in the entire film (the mermaid scene), and even that pales in comparison to some of the moments here.  What becomes apparent, however, is that nothing in this movie really justifies it’s existence other than some neat set pieces.  Nothing feels like it adds to the lore of Pirates.  It’s just more of the same.  It’s also clear that the character of Jack Sparrow has run it’s course.  Jack really just feels like a tag-along this time around, as he adds nothing more to the plot than a previous connection to the villain.  It’s not that Jack Sparrow can no longer be entertaining, it’s just that his adventures have long stopped being interesting.

That being said, the thing that does help keep this movie afloat for most of it’s run-time is Johnny Depp’s performance.  He still commands every moment he is on screen, and I managed to never grow old of his shtick either.  Truth be told, the character has lost some of the subtlety that we saw in Curse of the Black Pearl, but even in a more clownish version of the role, Depp’s Sparrow is still a welcome sight.  Depp just feels more at home as Captain Jack and it’s a role that still brings out the best in him.  It’s certainly far better than his awful Mad Hatter seen in the Alice in Wonderland pictures.  But, his routine only works at it’s best when it has other strong performance to work off of.  That was the failure of On Stranger Tides, because he had to do double lifting after bland performances from Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane gave him nothing to work with.   Here, he has Javier Bardem as the villain, who is a marked improvement.  Bardem’s Salazar manages to be both menacing and over-the-top ridiculous at the same time.  You can tell that Bardem loves chewing the scenery here just as much as Johnny Depp, and it makes for a perfect match.  The ghost effect they put upon Bardem is really effective too, and it makes for a striking effect that really sets him apart from other Pirates adversaries.  Geoffrey Rush also makes a triumphant return as Barbosa, reaffirming my belief that he’s the best element of all five films and my favorite character in the series.  Series newcomers Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario don’t fare quite as well.  They are improvements over the young couple from On Stranger Tides, but not much better I’m afraid.  It’s clear that they are just stand-ins for the original trilogy’s Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), and sadly they fall way short of the appeal of those two.

The visuals are also a mixed bag.  At some points, the movie does have some visual splendor to it.  One scene in particular, involving a run away bank (trust me, it makes sense in the film), has a great epic scale to it, and it did impress me that directors Ronning and Sandberg accomplished it with little to no CGI.  But, later on the film does tend to favor style over substance, and it turns into one messy visual effects extravaganza by the end.   The showdown at the Trident’s resting place might as well had been a cartoon, because it’s so clearly a green screened environment that looks too artificial to every be believable.  One thing that I lament being lost over the years in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is the sense of time and place.  Sure, these are special effects extravaganzas, but they are period pieces as well.  The first Pirates did an exceptional job of placing you in a different time period, allowing the movie to take it’s time and soak up moments that let us enjoy the beautifully detailed scenery.  I remember the blacksmith shop fight scene being a perfect example of that; where it was clear that period detail mattered as part of the story.  In Dead Man Tell No Tales, we get very little of that.  In fact, Ronning and Sandberg have almost stripped the movie down a little too much, making even the period details feel inauthentic.  The period sets look a tad too clean in this movie, like it’s clear that they were just built only days prior, and don’t feel lived in at all; much like a brand new production set would.  I prefer a period film to have a real, lived in feel, which previous Pirates films have done so well.  Here, the movie reveals itself as very basic and unwilling to fully commit, and it’s the thing that holds it back from feeling like a return to form for the series.

So, sad to say, but this is yet another indicator that the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise no longer has any wind in it’s sails. Truth be told, few of us ever thought more than one of these movies, let alone five.  Somehow, Disney managed to turn their park attraction into a viable franchise, which in turn has become of their most valued titles in recent memory.  Jack Sparrow is now one of Disney’s most popular characters, both in and out of the parks.  Johnny Depp still values the character himself, often appearing in costume at charity events and children’s hospitals, or even just to please the everyday fan unexpectedly (like he did in the actual ride at Disneyland earlier this year).  But, all good things must come to an end, and I think this franchise has overstayed it’s welcome a little too long.  Truth be told, it could have been worse, like On Stranger Tides which still stands as the worst in the series.  But Dead Men Tell No Tales does not make the case for continued adventures with Jack and crew.  Disney seems to think that there might be (an end credit sequence keeps the door open just a crack), but I’m not holding my breath in anticipation.  Honestly, let the series end on this little uptick.  It’s not a saving grace, but it didn’t dig the hole any deeper.  That’s the best that I can say for it.  If you liked all the previous Pirates films before, you’ll probably enjoy this as well. There are a number of serviceable scenes that do harken back to the series’ heyday, and a couple nice surprises as well (including a particularly unexpected cameo from a musical legend), but overall Jack Sparrow’s best days are behind him. Whether or not there is more on the horizon is likely to fall on the wishes of Johnny Depp, and I would suggest to him that it’s better to weigh anchor now before the series really starts to fall into irrelevance.  The only options that would be worth exploring now would be to take the world of Pirates and reinvent it through different mediums.  Maybe an animated film or series; I mean it’s Disney after all.  For now, Dead Men Tell No Tales proves that it’s best for there to be no more tales to tell.  Enjoy what we already have, take it easy, and drink up me hearties, yo ho.  Savvy.

Rating:  6/10

Focus on a Franchise – The Alien Quadrilogy

For as long as science fiction has existed as a genre in film-making, there has been a long tradition of movies centered around extra-terrestrial life.  The concept of life beyond our own planet is a compelling one, and there are certainly many avenues to explore with it as well.  There’s the peaceful visitor angle explored in films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and of course E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).  There is also the hostile threat angle explored in War of the Worlds (1953), The Thing (1982), and Predator (1987).  Oftentimes, the most popular alien based movies fall under the monster movie angle, making the creatures symbols of terror meant to frighten movie goers everywhere.  No where else have we seen this type of movie realized more vividly and more frighteningly than in the Alien franchise.  The brain child of writer Dan O’Bannon, the Alien series is among the most of sci-fi pictures ever made, taking the genre out of it’s goofy, B-movie past and turning it into the stuff of nightmares.  This was largely due to the completely earnest efforts of it’s filmmakers to never sugarcoat the terror and to fully immerse the audience in an atmospheric dread the likes of which we had never seen before on film.  The other interesting aspect of the Alien franchise is how it evolved over the years; sometimes in good ways like with the beloved sequel, Aliens (1986), and other times in bad ways, like with the two follow-ups there after.  In this article, I will be looking at what is called the Alien Quadrilogy, which is the set of 4 films that launched the franchise and were centered around the character of Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver).  So, I won’t be including the Alien vs. Predator spinoff series here, nor the recent prequel films, Prometheus (2012) or Alien: Covenant (2017), since they are unrelated to the Ripley story-line.  So, let’s head into the darkest reaches of space and learn why in space, no one will hear you scream.

ALIEN (1979)

Directed by Ridley Scott

It’s hard to believe now how daring a movie like Alien was when it was made back in the late 70’s.  For the longest time, science fiction was a pool of campiness and cheap special effects.  And only two years prior, Star Wars had revolutionized the genre with an emphasis on action adventure.  But, the makers of Alien had a different outlook on the genre that would end up making it really stand out in the grand scheme of things.  Dan O’Bannon’s original concept called for a vision of alien life that was far darker than anything we had seen before; a destroyer of civilizations and something far better left undiscovered.  While the concept was watered down over many subsequent drafts, the idea still struck a cord in Hollywood, and the film managed to make it’s way into 20th Century Fox, who were already hitting a high after the success of Star Wars.  Thankfully for O’Bannon’s script, Fox brought on board a director who could do justice to the bleaker vision of the story.  That director was newcomer Ridley Scott, a visual artist turned filmmaker with only one other film made before this (1977’s The Duellists).  Scott drew inspiration not from the sci-fi genre during his production, but from horror flicks that were beginning to become popular at the time, such as those from the likes of John Carpenter and Wes Craven.  As Scott saw it, this was a haunted house movie set in space, and it gave him the right frame of tone to craft his movie around.  And to make that vision feel even more effectively disturbing, he called upon the skills of artist H. R. Geiger to design much of the movie, including the alien himself.  Geiger’s neo-gothic designs in particular help to set the Alien movies apart, and their deeply unsettling nature is still iconic to this day.

But, all in all, Alien is an iconic film because it is so thoroughly is confident in it’s identity.  You never feel for once while watching the movie that your experiencing a compromised vision.  It is dark, disturbing, and relentless in it’s tension.  O’Bannon’s deeper mythology may have needed to be parred down, but it doesn’t ruin the experience one bit, and it even makes the film feel more mysterious as a result; making us ask who or what was the Space Jockey and how did this alien creature destroy so much life?  The cast of the film also help to fit within the tone of the film.  Since the story is centered around a group of space freighters, it makes sense that all of them have a grittier sense of character to them, and the movie does a great job of making them all feel authentic and personable, and more than just lambs to the slaughter.  And every death in this movie is more than impactful, especially the iconic chest-burster scene with the late John Hurt.   That moment in particular is probably the first thing that comes to mind when anybody mentions this movie, and really it’s the thing that cemented this film’s legendary status.  Ridley Scott’s direction also perfectly captures the atmosphere of the story.  It’s bleak, but oddly beautiful at the same time.  He not only set a high standard for the sci-fi genre hereafter for this movie, but with horror films too.  His use of oppressive darkness and misty steam filled corridors is amazingly effective.  Not only that, but he has the good sense to keep the “Xenomorph” alien creature hidden in the shadows until shown for maximum impact, like in the vent chase scene.  The first Alien alone is a compelling story of survival, and probably unbeknownst to Scott and his team, the lone survivor of this story, Ellen Ripley, would go down as one of cinema’s greatest heroines; but her time was still yet to come in this series.

ALIENS (1986)

Directed by James Cameron

The success of the first Alien left a strong impression on Hollywood, showing that audiences were willing to see darker films within the sci-fi genre.  It also set the bar pretty high thereafter, leading to a lot of pressure on Fox to make a follow-up sequel that could live up to the original.  After Ridley Scott passed, choosing instead to make films like Blade Runner (1982) and Legend (1986), Fox looked elsewhere for someone to guide the franchise.  James Cameron, who was hot of the success of The Terminator (1984), was tasked with the role of making a sequel to Alien.  To many people’s surprise, not only did he accomplish this, but some would even say that Cameron made an even better movie than the original.  Cameron’s sequel, Aliens, works as well as it does because he made the smart choice to not just copy what had been done before, but instead make a different kind of movie altogether.  Aliens is completely different in tone, style, and plotting than the original film.  Where Ridley Scott attempted to make a horror movie, Cameron instead made an action flick; just set in the same universe.  And it completely works.  The Xenomorph creatures are still just as terrifying, especially the monstrous Queen, but the film spends less time building the dread around them and instead finds it’s energy with the characters engaging these monsters in combat.  The plot is very different too, with less emphasis put on the different ways that the characters will die in the film, and more centered around how they can strategize their chances of survival and be able to destroy these creatures.  We are also introduced in this movie to the idea of the Weyland Yutani corporation as this antagonistic force (personified through a sleazy corporate representative played by Paul Reiser) who we learn are somewhat responsible for spreading the Xenomorph’s presence across the galaxy.  Here we find Cameron injecting some political subtext into the franchise, that more or less enriches a standard good vs. evil plot.

But what really makes Aliens an iconic film more than anything is then character of Ellen Ripley.  Though already established in the previous Alien movie, Ripley didn’t really come into her own as a character until this sequel.  We delve far deeper into her character, finding that she is far more than just a survivor, but a resourceful fighter as well.  Sigourney Weaver makes a triumphant return here, emboldening Ripley with far more grit and resolve than any heroine that we had seen in a movie up to that point.  Strong female protagonists have long been a common motif in James Cameron movies, like Sarah Conner in The Terminator or Rose in Titanic (1997), but Ripley is his true greatest achievement in writing character, and she has since become an influential character for all cinema.  Before, Hollywood didn’t believe that action films headlined by women could never work, and both Cameron and Sigourney Weaver proved them all wrong.  That alone is a great legacy for this film.  Weaver was praised so much for her standout work in the movie that it even earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, the first of her career.  At the same time, her performance is perfectly balanced with a strong cast around her.  Each actor in the ensemble manages to rise above the stereotype of tough guy space marines and actually become interesting individuals in their own right.  Particularly memorable are Michael Biehn as the noble Corporal Hicks and the late Bill Paxton as Private Hudon, who nails some of the film’s sillier lines (“Game Over Man!!”).  There’s also a tender, emotional performance from young Carrie Henn as the orphaned child Newt, who manages to turn into a surrogate daughter for Ripley.  Their relationship gives the movie surprising heart at it’s center, and makes us feel more connected with their plight.  It also gives more weight to the iconic confrontation between Ripley and the Queen, with Ripley uttering the now legendary line of “Get away from her, you Bitch.”  Captivating in it’s action, progressive in it’s themes, and unafraid of changing the course of it’s franchise, Aliens is a textbook example of how to do a sequel right.

ALIEN3 (1992)

Directed by David Fincher

Unfortunately, future installments of this series would fall way short of Aliens example.  A third film in this franchise wallowed in development hell for several years, with no one knowing quite what to do with it.  Several directors were brought on board at various times, including Ridley Scott mulling a possible return.  Eventually, Fox landed the project into the hands of commercial and music video director David Fincher, who was to make his feature film debut here.  Fincher unfortunately found that he had been saddled with a project that was doomed from the beginning.  The film started shooting without a finished script and the entire run of production found Fincher being inundated with a ton of studio interference.  Sigourney Weaver also made a lot more demands this time around as a condition of her returning to the franchise, and some of them (like the insistence of not having gun violence present in the story) ended up neutering the gorier vision that Fincher wanted to put on screen.  It all makes the film feel far more compromised a vision compared to it’s predecessors.  While some of the ideas present are interesting, like Ripley finding herself in an all male prison, which is a scary place on it’s own even without the Xenomorphs, the movie never gels into a compelling film overall, nor works as either horror or action adventure.   Sigourney Weaver is still okay in the film, but it gives her nothing worthwhile to do like Aliens did.   The film even alienated audiences further by killing off the beloved characters of Hicks and Newt right from the beginning, completely wiping all development for Ripley’s character, giving her nothing to fight on for. Fincher’s direction is unfocused, which is not surprising since it’s his first feature.  He has since disowned the movie and now looks back on it as a learning experience in how not to make a film.  Still, the movie does earn points with the extra polish given to it’s visual effects.  The Xenomorphs in this film are outstanding, and genuinely terrifying.  If only the film around them didn’t look so drab, and the story wasn’t so boring.

ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Several more years would pass before Fox decided to revisit the Alien well again.  This time, they were eager to return to the more horror driven thrills of Ridley Scott’s original.  And when you think of someone who can pull off a sci-fi horrorshow, you instantly think of the director of Amelie (2001), right?  Okay, French director Jeunet is an odd choice to give the reigns of this franchise over to, but no one can deny that he is a strong artistic eye, something that he showed off well in his earlier films Delicatessen (1991) and The City of Lost Children (1997).  In truth, there are some interesting artistic choices in Alien Resurrection too, but that’s about it.  Resurrection is a very fascinating failure, mainly in the fact that so many talented people involved managed to make such a horrible movie.  The story itself is pointless, finding Ripley revived centuries after her death in Alien3 thanks to genetic cloning.  But Ripley here is not the same Ripley as we’ve grown to love before, mainly due to the fact that her genetic code is mixed with that of a Xenomorph alien.  It could have been an interesting character element, but the movie never explores it fully, instead focusing too much on tired action scenes that we’ve seen a million times before.  Weaver in particular seems very disinterested this time around, and it’s clear that she returned just for the paycheck only.  The movie really is just a whole lot of unnecessary retreading of stuff already done better in other alien movies.  It’s surprising that such a unoriginal script would come from the likes of Joss Whedon, who’s clearly better off working with vampire hunters and Marvel superheroes as his subjects.  But, even with a messy production as it stands, the film does come off as a beautiful trainwreck at times, taking the series into some demented places, which is somewhat better than the dreary dullness of Alien3.  Still, it’s a big drop-off from the stellar heights of where this series began.

Despite the ups and downs that the Alien franchise has experienced over the years, it is still as influential today as it was when it first began.  Countless sci-fi horror blends made in the years since have the original to thank for showing Hollywood that it could work.  The series is also responsible for propelling the careers of two of our greatest filmmakers, Ridley Scott and David Fincher, although Scott looks back more fondly on his experience than Fincher does.  Scott in fact has managed to find his way back into this world and explore it even further with his prequel set of films, finally being able to explain more about this world that he could only hint at before in the original Alien.  Now, some would argue that he was better off leaving some of those things a mystery and that these new films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are unnecessary retreads, but that’s up to debate (personally I thought Prometheus was alright; not Alien or Aliens good, but not bad either; I have yet to see Covenant as of this writing).  The best thing about this franchise, however, is that it’s a series that pushed boundaries and changed Hollywood largely for the better.  The original showed that you could make a movie that was horrifically gory without being schlocky.  The franchise also showed that you could switch genres midway through and still retain the same identity.  And most importantly, it made Sigourney Weaver the first ever female action movie star, and showed that in an era dominated by the likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone that women could headline an action flick just as effectively.  That, in the end, could be Aliens’ most honorable legacy and female action stars today like Charlize Theron and Scarlett Johansson have Sigourney Weaver and Ellen Ripley to thank for that.  In addition, H. R. Geiger’s designs for the Xenomorph alien continue to be a work of pure nightmarish genius.  Honestly, if that design hadn’t captured our imagination as well as it did, there probably wouldn’t have been a franchise at all.  The Alien Quadrilogy stands as a truly iconic series, with daring visuals, one hell of a great heroine, and probably the most terrifying monsters we will ever see on the big screen.   

Chasing the Dark Knight – How DC’s Blockbuster Left a Dark Shadow on Cinema

Movies go through many different phases as the years go by.  As changing attitudes evolve in our culture, cinema reflects back those changes in the market place.  And usually what prompts the changes in the market is the presence of the unexpected blockbuster.  Sure, there are plenty of movies that end up being big hits that fall into the expectations of the audience and the industry itself.  But, then you have those other blockbusters that become unexplained phenomenons, tapping into a previously unseen element that ends up making the rest of the industry take notice.  These are the benchmark blockbusters that create a tidal wave of new perspectives within the film-making community, and with them, a slew of imitators and copycats, all trying to capitalize on what this new film has done.  You see films of this kind emerge in every generation and they are often what ends up the generation of cinema that follows in it’s wake.  Star Wars (1977) is a perfect example, because it’s the movie that launched the era of the blockbuster that would dominate much of the 1980’s, and a good part of the 90’s.  Before that, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather marked the beginning of an era where auteur driven, counter-culture cinema was dominate.  In the 90’s, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) created a boom for the independent cinema market, as well as sparking interest in a lot of dialogue driven action films.  Every era seems to have that one defining film that changes the direction of the industry, sometimes for the good and othertimes not so much.  The era we live in now is dominated by comic book adaptations, as well as the concept of shared cinematic universes.  And the movie that clearly turned the tide in this direction more than any other would be Christopher Nolan’s iconic Batman blockbuster, The Dark Knight (2008).

The Dark Knight is justifiably regarded as a masterpiece, not just of it’s genre, but of all cinema as well.  Made as a sequel to the also highly praised Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight continued to build on the Batman mythos through the unique and ambitious style of Christopher Nolan.  Up until this point, superhero films had been largely hit and miss as a viable genre in Hollywood, with some hitting the mark like Tim Burton’s original Batman (1989), while others failed miserably (the Ben Affleck headlined Daredevil from 2003).  After achieving modest success with Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan set out to create a Batman movie that fulfilled the full potential of the character, and he not only managed to do just that, but it blew away everyone else’s expectations.  Pitting Batman against his archnemesis, The Joker (played by the late Heath Ledger), had been done before, but never depicted in such a visceral, grounded way as seen in this movie.  Nolan’s Dark Knight transformed the genre, stripping away the comic book campy-ness that had come before and made his Batman feel as authentic as possible.  It was a bleaker, more complex superhero movie; one in which the stakes felt very real.  As a result, people responded to the movie very well, seeing it as a revelation compared to what they were used to from the genre.  Grossing half a billion domestically alone, The Dark Knight became one of the biggest success stories of it’s era, and when the smell of big money out there, you know that Hollywood will begin to swarm in.  Since it’s debut, The Dark Knight has since been imitated not just in the comic book genre, but in other unexpected places as well.  Hollywood seems to believe that the key to it’s success was a grittier style and bleaker story-line.  But, as we’ve observed over the years, what works for Batman might not necessarily work for everything else, and that has unfortunately led to a not so positive legacy for this groundbreaking film.

But, to understand what led to The Dark Knight’s bold statement, it pays to look back on what preceded it.  For years, comic book movies had been more or less been undervalued by the industry.  Studio execs recognized the potential of comic book characters as viable big screen icons, but never quite understood how best to translate them from the page to the screen.  Oftentimes, you would see a lot of compromises being made with regards to the characters.  Costumes would be altered to make the superheroes seem less campy and more “realistic.”  We have yet to see any of the X-Men don their brightly colored gear from the comics in any of their film adaptations for example.  Sometimes, the characters would luck out and be matched up with a filmmaker who believed in authenticity with the characters, like Richard Donner with Superman (1978) or Sam Raimi with Spider-Man (2002), but even their movies felt compromised in other places.  For most of the time, comic books and superhero movies never felt liked they belonged together.  This became particularly true with the Batman movies, which felt closer to being realizations of their director’s visions rather than a faithful adaptations of the comics.  Tim Burton’s style was serviceable enough for Batman, but once Joel Schumacher stepped behind the camera, Batman was buried underneath a colossal neon, overproduced mess.  After hitting rock bottom with Batman & Robin (1997), the Batman franchise went through an identity crisis, ultimately leading to the hiring of Christopher Nolan.  Nolan, best known then for gritty thrillers like Memento (2001) and Insomnia (2002), brought the character back to his roots, taking inspiration from Batman’s darker tales like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns series.  He in turn created a more acceptable, grounded version of Batman, which would hit it’s full potential in it’s middle chapter, The Dark Knight.

And while the success of The Dark Knight was warranted and deserved, the industry unfortunately took the message in the wrong way.  The movie was perhaps too good of a course correction for the genre, making it appear that the only reason that it succeeded was because it was a darker movie as a whole.  That’s not necessarily the case.  Yes, both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight had a darker tone than anything we’ve seen before in the genre, but it was a necessary change that needed to be made specifically for this character.  We had all but lost faith in the caped crusader because his last few outings had turned him into a cartoon character, and not a threat.  Christopher Nolan brought the character back to his roots; a crusader shaped by tragedy destined to right the wrongs of the world.  It also helped that Nolan’s re-imagining looked outside of the superhero genre for inspiration.  His movies are heavily influenced from crime thrillers of the 80’s and 90’s; in particular, the films of Michael Mann.  Just look at the opening bank robbery scene with the Joker, and tell me that doesn’t remind you a little of the movie Heat (1996).  It was a perfect way to revitalize the character for a new generation, and most importantly, it made Batman a character worth taking seriously again.  But, there in lies some of the issues with how the industry responded to the character.  Hollywood looked at the new Batman and believed that this is what they needed for their own franchise characters.  In the decade since it’s release, we’ve seen The Dark Knight become the inspiration point for what many call “gritty re-imaginings.”  But, not everything needs to have a gritty side to it, and yet that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from taking the opportunity for a cash grab.  All of this has led to an unfortunate legacy for this iconic film.

This kind of “following the leader” mentality has resulted in some unusual decisions in franchise reboots.  Did you ever think that goofy brands like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers were in need of darker tone?  Yet, somehow, we’ve seen these once colorful characters re-imagined in grittier, more action packed visions from the last couple years.  No where is this more evident than in the same comic book genre that The Dark Knight has risen out of.  To follow in the footsteps of the blockbuster film, several other studios have tried and failed to give their own characters a darker tone as well, including DC, the same people who started this in the first place.  Many people have complained that DC’s insistence of riding the Dark Knight coattails with regards to tone has zapped out all the fun from their favorite characters.  Many want a more warm-hearted version of the beloved Superman, but with Zack Snyder at the helm, DC seems to not only desire to move the Man of Steel closer to their Dark Knight, but also make his world even bleaker.  It’s even worse in other studios who completely miss the mark.  Sony failed to relaunch their Spider-Man character with their Amazing Spiderman series.  The problem with their adaptation is that they thought focusing on the character’s tragic backstory would deepen the experience, but instead it just made Spider-Man a moody and unsympathetic loser.  Even worse, however, is Fox’s tone deaf re-imagining of Fantastic Four (2015), which remarkably managed to be the most dismal and bleak super hero movie ever made, using characters that are by design supposed to be colorful and heartwarming.  If there is anything that all of these movies prove is that darker doesn’t always mean better.  It’s too easy to just look at Batman’s success and instantly think that it’s the magic touch to renew interest in your franchise.  Batman is dark by design.  The rest of these franchises shouldn’t have been so eager to rewrite the book in order to follow The Dark Knight‘s example.

It’s not only in tone where we see a long legacy of influence that The Dark Knight has left on the industry.  If there is any one thing in the film that you can see imitated the most throughout the industry, it is the depiction of it’s villain.  Heath Ledger’s Joker is iconic in every way possible.  He not only blew away our expectations and silenced naysayers who objected to his casting with his performance, but his Joker has since gone on to become the high water mark for all future comic book villains on the big screen.  His untimely death before the film’s premiere also raised the iconic stature of the role, and he earned a posthumous Oscar as a result.  This, however, has led many in the industry to view Ledger’s Joker as a template for creating the ideal, iconic villain.  The Joker in the Dark Knight is defined primarily by his nihilistic nature, as well as his obsession with Batman himself.  Not only that, but he is also characterized by his unhinged, demented state as well, and his ability to rationalize his insanity with meme worthy philosophizing.  Ledger redefined the character for a new era, but that unfortunately led to a slew of imitators; some of who are re-imaginings themselves.  Sometimes you would find an interesting imitation, like Javier Bardem’s Silva from Skyfall (2012), creating one of James Bond’s most interesting and dangerous foes.  And then other times you get the re-imagined Khan from Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), whose Joker like motivations feel slightly out of character based on past interpretations.  While not every version of this type is bad, it nevertheless feels like Hollywood is lessening the power of these villainous characters by sticking too close to the Heath Ledger Joker model.  The reason his role was so iconic was because it was so unpredictable.  Now, with the recent stream of imitators, nothing seems as random as it used to, making these villains feel far too familiar when they shouldn’t.

It’s one of the reasons why The Dark Knight’s legacy has become so problematic; because all the imitators are sapping the original film’s impact by reusing it’s formula way too much.  This is only just compounded more now that a different model has emerged in the last couple years.  If there has been any company that has bucked the Dark Knight trend, it is Marvel Studios.  While most Dark Knight imitators strive to be grittier, Marvel is embracing it’s more light-hearted tone; which has benefited them very well.  Still, Marvel isn’t immune from the same kind of pitfalls that has plagued the fallout of The Dark Knight.  With so many different companies now trying to launch their own cinematic universes to compete with Marvel’s, your seeing a new troubling trend of diminishing returns in it’s wake.  DC contains the worst of both trends right now, trying to play catch up to Marvel with their own cinematic universe that unfortunately is still adhering to the Dark Knight formula.  One would hope that Marvel is not undone by it’s own success, with audience fatigue setting in over time with the market continually being over-flooded with new cinematic universes being launched.  The only thing that helps to overcome this feeling of fatigue is variety.  As long as new films take inspiration from things like The Dark Knight and Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, but puts their own spin on it to make it still feel original, audiences will embrace it the same way.  In the end, the biggest problem is the lack of diversity in too many of these imitators.  The Dark Knight’s legacy was perhaps too strong for the industry and we found ourselves too overwhelmed by such a quick succession of imitators.

If anything, I think that the one negative outcome of the post-Dark Knight is that it created a generation of unnecessarily bleak and dark movies.  For a while, movies forgot how to be fun and entertaining.  That’s not to say that The Dark Knight ruined cinema as a result.  The movie still stands as an unparalleled masterpiece that holds up to this day.  The problem lies more with Hollywood, and how it responds to success.  What they thought was the key to The Dark Knight’s success proved to be exactly the wrong thing to exploit and that was the darker tone.  The Dark Knight, by design, is perfectly matched with a grittier tone, and trying to shoehorn it into other types of media only ends up leading to disaster.  Not every imitator fails, but to see the industry return to that well far too many times makes the original impact feel much less effective.  We don’t need to see a tragic, brooding backstory for every hero.  The villain doesn’t always need to be this unhinged psychopath with an unhealthy obsession with the hero.  It would also help if some of these movies added a little color to their design as well, and not have everything washed out in grays and dark blues.  Thankfully, companies like Marvel are proving that the flip side of the coin also works wonders for the genre, and hopefully this direction can help bring some balance to a super hero genre that’s still hung on trying to figure out the Dark Knight’s formula.  Overall, The Dark Knight is a great film that unfortunately has to be associated with a terrible legacy, none of which is it’s fault.  Hollywood should understand that movies are meant to entertain, and that entertainment doesn’t always come in one size fits all packaging.  The Dark Knight had grit, but the way it used it was what ended up entertaining us.  If you try to force a similar entree into a meal that doesn’t support it, then you ruin all of our appetites.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – Review

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the gift that keeps on giving to both fans and to Disney, the company responsible for making them.  Marvel’s track record has been the envy of the industry, with seemingly everything they touch turning into gold.  What I find most pleasing about all this is the fact that Marvel is not just succeeding on the backs of their most notable characters, but they are amazingly diving deep into their extensive catalog and giving the lesser known characters in their library the spotlight.  Who would’ve imagined a decade ago that characters like The Vision, or the Falcon, or even Rocket Raccoon would make it to the big screen and become popular in their own right.  Not only that, but long gestating films for some of Marvel’s more popular characters who had yet been given their own movies are now finally coming to us with great regularity; such as last year’s Doctor Strange (2016) and next year’s Black Panther (2018).  It seems like no subject or character in the MCU is unworthy of a cinematic treatment, because their brand is so strong right now that every ship they have is rising with this enormous tide.  That’s not to say that everything in the MCU has been flawless.  A few missteps have happened along the way, like Edgar Wright’s controversial departure from Ant-Man (2015), the disappointing plot twist of Iron Man 3 (2013), and from what I hear the entire first season of the Iron Fist Netflix series (I can’t judge yet, because I have yet to watch it).  But, for the most part, Marvel’s formula has worked amazingly well, and has managed to successfully launch new franchises into cinemas from some unlikely places.  And that is true no more so than in one of their crowning achievements to date; Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

When it was first announced that Marvel was turning their Guardians of the Galaxy comic book series into a film, it left quite a few people surprised.  Sure, Guardians had a fan-base, but it was a minor title in the Marvel catalog compared to say the likes of Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Captain America.  Not only that, but the one tasked with adapting the comic was a young writer/director named James Gunn, who had only directed two films before, and neither of which were huge in scale on the level that we’d expect from Marvel.  And yet, Marvel seemed pretty confident with their project, and when it premiered in the late summer of 2014, we finally saw why.  Guardians of the Galaxy was a transcendent hit, proving that even a more obscure title like itself could click with audiences when given an inspired and confident treatment.  James Gunn showed remarkable talent as a storyteller, making the movie feel both unique and fresh, even when given the requirements to stay close to the source material.  Even more impressive is the fact that Guardians is regarded by many to be Marvel’s best film to date, even exceeding the reputation of their beloved Avengers franchise.  That’s quite an achievement for a comic title that few people had even known about beforehand.  Now, people who had never read the comic are familiar with the likes of Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Raccoon, and of course, Groot.  It’s the broad appeal cross-over hit that Marvel was always hoping for, and one that would open the flood gates for so much more.  Which put’s enormous pressure on following that up with an inevitable sequel.  Luckily, James Gunn and crew are back with their ambitious follow-up; the appropriately named Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Picking up directly after the events of the first film, we find the Guardians working as mercenaries for hire.  After defending a high value target from a monstrous creature’s attack, the Guardians are rewarded by a genetically engineered super race called the Sovereign.  Unfortunately, Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) deceptively stole some of the Sovereign’s sacred treasure, which causes the Sovereign’s leader, High Priestess Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) to launch a warship attack on the Guardians.  The Guardians manage to miraculously escape once the Sovereign’s ships are destroyed by a mysterious being who calls them to a nearby planet.  There, he introduces himself as Ego (Kurt Russell) and reveals that he is in fact the father of Guardian member Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) aka Star-Lord.  Ego asks for Peter to accompany him to his home planet, which he reluctantly does along with Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Drax (Dave Bautista) by his side.  They leave Rocket behind to fix their broken ship, along with their prisoner Nebula (Karen Gillan), Gamora’s disgruntled sister, and Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), who’s slowly regenerating after sacrificing his adult form in the last film.  When they reach Ego’s planet, they soon learn that Ego is not only the man they see before them, but the planet itself, having been made from the same particles.  While on this living planet, Star-Lord learns more about his past, but Gamora and Drax begin to grow suspicious, especially when Ego’s only companion Mantis (Pom Klementieff) begins to worry for them.  Meanwhile, the Sovereign calls upon Star-Lord’s former employer Yondu (Michael Rooker) to hunt him down, which becomes more problematic when his own crew rises up in mutiny against him, because he still holds a soft spot for the kid he once raised up. With alliances coming into conflict, and Peter Quill becoming more aware of his destiny, everything begins to culminate into one cosmic adventure.

The first Guardians was not only a high water mark set by Marvel, but it could also be argued that it’s one of the best films of the last decade.  I for one put it at #2 on my list of the top films of 2014; only bested that year by Birdman, and believe me it was a tough choice between the two.  Which makes the bar extremely high for a sequel to clear, let alone match.  I tried to tamper my expectations somewhat, and would have accepted anything from this same team, just as long as it was entertaining.  Thankfully, it was more than just that.  I’m pleased to say that Vol. 2 is remarkably just as good as the first film, and even manages to improve upon it in many ways.  Everything that made the first movie great can be found here intact; the hilarious banter between characters, the often jaw-droppingly beautiful visuals, the often explosive action sequences, the subtle but always exciting Easter eggs to other Marvel entities, and of course the killer retro soundtrack.  Thus far, Marvel has done a fairly good job of making their sequels work as perfect continuations of what’s been done before, allowing the extra time spent with these characters work as a way of exploring new territory.  What is interesting here is that Vol. 2 does expand on this universe in some ways, but also reigns a lot of stuff back in.  Unlike the first Guardians, which devoted a lot of time towards establishing larger Marvel Universe elements like Thanos and the Infinity Stones, this Guardians actually leaves a lot of that out, staying more focused on the characters and their continuing stories.  This is a far more standalone story for the Guardians characters, and that’s somewhat refreshing from Marvel, given their whole leadup these last few years towards the inevitable Infinity War.  For the most part, this helps Vol. 2 feel freer than it’s predecessor, acting more as it’s own thing than part of a larger whole.

It’s hard for me to find any flaws to speak about in this film, since it gets so much right that any flaws feel really insignificant when looked at together with everything else.  If I were to maybe single anything out, it’s that some story-lines outshine others, and that’s largely due to some of those other plot-lines just feeling generic compared to the more creative ones.  For instance, the interaction between Star-Lord and Ego, while still entertaining for the most part, feels a tad too familiar, because it’s a plot thread that we’ve seen perhaps too many times in other movies.  To the movie’s credit, it still plays around with this plot element in a way that does make it feel unique, including probably the funniest spin I’ve seen on a game of catch in any movie.  The extended final climactic showdown also kinda feels a little bloated, but again, it is flavored with enough creative bits that you’ll end up not feeling bored at any time.  And that’s the biggest strength from this film, is it’s incredible sense of balance.  Any time you start to think that the movie is going to lose it’s footing, it manages to surprise you with an unexpected treat.  That’s a great testament to James Gunn’s abilities as a writer and director.  There is so much creativity thrown into every scene of this movie, with physical and verbal gags hitting their mark frequently.  One sticking point with some viewers is that some of the jokes and visual references might fly by too quickly, especially for those unfamiliar with the comics and their lore.  I’m sure that quite a few people are going to wonder why Sylvester Stallone is in this movie, and who he’s playing (classic Guardian character Stakar Ogord) for those who are wondering.  But, few, if any of these more confusing and weaker elements ever ruin the enjoyment of watching this film, which remains a consistent delight.

Of course, the strongest element of the film is the thing that also made the first movie great, and that’s the flawless cast that’s been assembled.  The returning cast is just as solid as ever, and are given even more time to flesh out their characters more fully.  I’m still amazed at how these movies manage to evenly divide time between all of their disparate characters, and never once make it feel like any of them got short-ended.  In fact, many of the supporting characters are even given an upgrade; in particular, Michael Rooker’s Yondu, who honestly is the film’s standout.  Yondu was a great character in the first movie, but here he plays a far more integral role that really endears him to the audience and brings him to his full potential.  Rooker’s performance is so good here, and it could even be the best work of his already stellar career.  He also delivers probably one of the funniest line deliveries I have ever heard (one regarding a famous British nanny), and it left me in stitches after hearing it.  The other returning cast are also exceptional, including Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana taking their career boosting roles to the next level.  The vocal work of Bradley Cooper as Rocket is also still top notch, and it still amazes me that Vin Diesel is able to get so much emotion out of a character who only speaks in three words.  Baby Groot, by the way, is as adorable as you’d expect, and even gets to feature in the opening credits dancing to an ELO song.  Of the new characters, Kurt Russell really shines as Ego, which is not an easy character to adapt to the screen.  How do you play a living planet?  Well, Russell found a way and it’s just by playing a version of himself; charming and quirky, but hiding many secrets underneath.  Pom Klementieff is also wonderfully sweet and innocent as Mantis, someone who disarms with her inner beauty, while repulsing with her outward appearance; something which Drax hilariously keeps discussing throughout the movie.   Guardians is defined by it’s great characters, and this sequel proves that more equals more with regards to it’s story.

One other thing that I love about this franchise is the incredible visuals that are on display.  James Gunn has shown that he’s just as adept at creating a visual feast as he is at writing a clever humorous bit.  The first Guardians wowed with it’s impressive space ship battles and this sequel gives us that as well.  But, it also delivers some really impressive elements that we have yet to see before.  The visuals of Ego’s planet, for example, are stunning; filling every space with Technicolor splendor.  DC and Warner Bros. should take note; not everything needs to be washed out and drab to make an action scene feel exciting.  Guardians of the Galaxy uses color and light as an essential tool of it’s world building, and it’s something that really sets it apart from the rest of the field.  There is one sequence in particular, with Yondu taking out his mutinous crew with his whistle controlled arrow, that is one of the most beautiful action scenes that I’ve watched in a while.  As the floating arrow moves through the ship, it leaves a neon trail of light behind it, creating a striking ribbon of destruction in it’s wake.  It’s one of my favorite moments in the entire movie, and one that I’m happy that the filmmakers devoted a good amount of time to.  The film also uses it’s CGI very responsibly, supporting the storytelling instead of just showing off.  With a film that’s no where near earthbound, it’s pretty much a necessity to use visual effects to make it come alive, but in lesser hands, this movie could have become more style than substance.  Thankfully, visual effects are abundant, but restrained here; only aiming for extravagance when needed.  And there’s some impressive effects work here too, like Ego’s manipulation of the planet late in the film, a hilarious over-the-top and surreal portal traveling sequence, and the fore-mentioned arrow scene.  Also, the animation used to create Rocket and Groot is still impressive, getting great expressiveness out of the two.  Like it’s predecessor, Vol. 2 is unparalleled in it’s visual splendor.

In total, there is little reason for you to not go out immediately and watch this movie.  If you loved the first Guardians, you are going to love Vol. 2 as well.  It’s amazing to think that this once obscure collection of comics is now the Crown Jewel of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.  Not only that, but it managed to maintain that same level of quality over two separate movies; hopefully with a third one on the way in the post Infinity War phase of the MCU.  I expected a sequel from this same team to be good, but I didn’t expect it to be as great as this one.  It will take me time to consider which Guardians I like more, because they honestly are really on par with each other.  I think the original has the benefit of novelty, but Vol. 2  does take smaller elements from the first film and expands on them in spectacular ways.  For one thing, it’s great to see characters like Yondu get more development this time around, as well as exploring new territory with some of the more central characters too.  Both die hard comic fans and casual viewers are going to cherish this film as well.  I know people who have never read a Guardians comic book who now consider the original their favorite superhero movie, which just shows you the transcendent appeal that Marvel has tapped into with these movies.  Just like our actual universe itself, the MCU is inexplicably speeding up in it’s expansion when it should be slowing down, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a prime example of it’s forward momentum.  It’s stellar cast, incomparable vision, and complete confidence in it’s own identity has made it the envy of the entire superhero genre and a franchise that stands strong on it’s own.  There’s little doubt that this will stand as one of the best sequels ever, and for right now, it is this summer’s must see hit.  I doubt very few of you need any coaxing from me to go see this movie, but I can tell you that personally it has been incredibly rewarding going ’round the galaxy once again with these Guardians.

Rating: 9/10

The Movies of Summer 2017

With a week to go before the Summer movie season gets underway, it makes sense to look over the year so far to see what the upcoming months will have to follow up on.  This year’s Winter and Spring movie seasons have been remarkably strong, both critically and financially.  Usually associated as being Hollywood’s dumping ground, we saw the early months of 2017 marked with some surprising quality efforts from unlikely places.  We got a shocking twist upfront when M. Night Shaymalan finally made a movie that everyone liked with Split.  Jordan Peele of Key & Peele fame made a remarkable directorial debut with his controversial thriller Get Out, which earned raves upon release that are usually reserved for Oscar nominated fare.  The Lego Batman Movie gave us even more hilarious fun with it’s plastic brick built world.  There was also solid thrills in movies like John Wick 2  and Kong: Skull Island and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was given an effective sendoff in the acclaimed Logan.  Ironically, the movie I liked the least from the first half of this year ended up being the highest grossing overall; the still loathsome Beauty and the Beast remake from Disney, which has grossed over a billion worldwide as of this writing.  Overall, it’s a solid start to the year, and one hopes that the upcoming summer season, where Hollywood makes room for their big guns, manages to keep the momentum going.  Like years before, I will be looking at the months ahead and tell you which movies are my Must Sees, the movies that have me worried, and the ones that I recommend you skip entirely.  Keep in mind, these are just my initial thoughts about the movies based on my expectations and how I respond to their marketing.  There could be some surprises and/or disappointments out there, and I admit that I’m not the best handicapper.  So, with that, let’s look at the Summer of 2017.

MUST SEES:

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 (MAY 5)

Let’s start this look at the summer by spotlighting how it’s going to begin.  Again, Marvel Studios is showing that they own this opening spot in the month of May, which has been so lucrative for them before with blockbusters like both AvengersIron Man (2008), and Captain America: Civil War (2016).  This year, they are launching the Summer with the sequel to one of their absolute best films.  Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) was a surprise hit when it debuted, taking a relatively obscure comic and turning it into a phenomenom thanks to a stellar directorial effort from James Gunn and star making performances from it’s cast.  The same team returns intact to take on another adventure, and the trailers are promising us more of the same, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Guardians stands out from the rest of the Marvel field and it’s strengths are worth elaborating on in a sequel, including stuff like hilarious banter between the characters, colorful worlds to explore, and a world-class retro soundtrack.  I’m especially excited to see the new faces added to the mix, especially the perfectly cast Kurt Russell as the father of Guardian member Peter “Star-Lord” Quill.  Making a sequel to such a beloved first outing is going to be difficult no matter what, with everyone’s expectations now up so high.  I have faith that James Gunn, Christ Pratt and the rest can pull off something special with this.  Even if it’s not as good as the first, most of us will still appreciate it if it at least leaves us entertained.  And one thing’s for sure, that Baby Groot is going to be everywhere this Summer, so buy those toys now before they’re gone.  Marvel’s win streak should comfortably continue with these Guardians in place.

DUNKIRK (JULY 21)

Christopher Nolan’s name at this point in his career is synonymous with the word “epic.”  Every film he makes now is big in scale and scope, and it’s to his credit that he continually focuses his vision onto many varied subjects, giving solid diversity to his body of work.  He revolutionized the super hero genre with his Dark Knight trilogy;  he explored the cosmos with Interstellar (2014); and he even delved into the endless possibilities within the human mind with Inception (2010).  With his newest film, however, he’s doing something very different, and that’s giving us a historical account of a harrowing event from World War II.  The Siege of Dunkirk is an interesting subject for Christopher Nolan to take on, though one that you would hardly expect.  The real life story is not one that’s about conflict, but instead about survival.  Half a million British soldiers were surrounded by German forces, trapped in the titular coastal town with the sea as their only window of escape.  Miraculously, most of the soldiers made it to safety in one of the greatest rescue efforts in modern history.  The scale of the event is probably what drew Nolan to the project, providing another opportunity for him to work with large format cinematography such as IMAX, which he’s used to great effect before.  My hope is that, like most of his other films before, he manages to balance the human emotion amidst all the spectacle.  More than anything, I’m just intrigued to see a director of his caliber working within this kind of genre.  This is sure to be one of the most epic scale war films ever made, and my hope is that it also stands as one of the best.  Anytime Christopher Nolan stands behind the camera, it signifies something eventful; something which few directors can do nowadays.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (JULY 7)

I know that a lot of you out there are probably sick of Spider-Man movies by now, especially now that it’s going into it’s second revival after the previous one fell flat.  But, the truth is, this may actually be the first “real” Spider-Man movie we’ll have seen on the big screen; not one that’s made by outside studio forces, but a true honest to goodness adaptation of the comics from Marvel themselves.  After getting the rights to the character back from Sony in a profit sharing deal, Marvel has quickly worked the webslinger into their Cinematic Universe, and he managed to already delight audiences again with his brief appearance in Captain America: Civil War.  Now, with his own film, Marvel is making the smart decision to not go all the way back to the beginning and start with another origin story, instead choosing to create a new story with an already established Spider-Man.  Tom Holland returns, and he looks to be just as charismatic here as he was in Civil War.  It works to the films benefit that here we’re finally seeing an actual teenage Peter Parker that’s truer to the comics than the late-20’s actors who have stepped into the role before.  The inclusion of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony “Iron Man” Stark is also a great inclusion for this film.  But, what makes me most excited is the casting of Michael Keaton as the villainous Vulture.  What a casting coup for Marvel, managing to to get cinema’s first Batman and having him cross the aisle, away from DC, to play a Spider-Man villain.  That alone is worth seeing, and Keaton looks so perfectly menacing in the part.  Overall, it should indeed be a very welcome homecoming for Marvel’s friendly neighborhood webslinger.

DETROIT (AUGUST 4)

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal have had a pretty good and lucrative collaboration over the last decade.  They both won Oscars for their landmark war drama The Hurt Locker (2009); a historic win in Bigelow’s case.  They then followed that up with a comprehensive historical account of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty (2012), an acclaimed and cntroversial film in it’s own right.  Now, the two have turned their attention to another interesting subject; the 1968 riots that tore apart the city of Detroit during one of the most heated periods of the Civil Rights movement.  Bigelow’s intense, documentary like style could be a great fit for this subject, putting us right into the thick of the event, helping us to see what it was like to live through such a moment in time.  Not only that, but with the tumultuous time that we are living in now politically, and with tensions between civilians and law enforcement growing even higher, this could be a very timely history lesson as well.  My hope is that Bigelow and Boal applies their no-nonsense style of story-telling to this subject and gives us a captivating and intense experience, allowing us to see an unfiltered look at American history.  The inclusion of Star Wars‘ John Boyega as a central character also looks promising, as the up-and-coming actor is due for a quality lead role outside of the big franchsie.  Historical films usually are a hard sell during the summer; especially ones that take on such a touching subject matter.  But, this one looks to be in some capable hands.

BABY DRIVER (JUNE 28)

Another director who manages to garner attention every time he puts a new movie out is Edgar Wright.  After a disappointing development cycle on the movie Ant-Man, where he famously parted ways with Marvel over creative differences, Wright returns with a new spin on the heist genre.  Instead of relying on his usual collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to fill out the cast, he’s instead going in a different direction, working with a largely American cast and focusing far more on an action style rather than a comedic one.  Sure, it’s still carries some of Wright’s trademark sense of humor, but what this movie is also showcasing is an added sense of creativity in the action set pieces.  This is Edgar Wright moving beyond the realm of parody and finding new footing in the high octane action world; an area that he may actually prove to be a natural at.  While he is trying new things, my hope is that some of Edgar Wright’s trademark visual flair, which he refined throughout his Cornetto trilogy, manages to translate over, and this stylish trailer has me believing that it did.  The supporting cast in this film also looks impressive, with Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm making an impression as two seasoned criminals, and Kevin Spacey as always commanding the spotlight whenever he’s on screen.  Hopefully the fresher faced leads (Ansel Elgort and Lily James) can hold their own against these veterans.  At the very least, it will be interesting to see Edgar Wright work out of his element in a promising new field of film-making.

MOVIES THAT HAVE ME WORRIED:

WONDER WOMAN (JUNE 2)

To be honest, I am cautiously optimistic about this one.  Sure, DC has been not very effective in launching their ambitious cinematic universe.  Batman v. Superman; Dawn of Justice was a convoluted mess, and Suicide Squad, while not a terrible film, did alienate DC even more from comic book fans with it’s messy execution.  Now, with Justice League on the horizon, DC desperately needs a solid hit in their stable, hitting the mark with both fans and critics.  And believe me, a lot of us want this to go well, because Wonder Woman is a superhero you don’t want to see cinematic-ally ruined.  On the plus side, Gal Gadot’s appearance as the titular hero in Batman v. Superman was one of that movie’s more positive aspects, and it did make me interested in seeing a full feature devoted to the character.  The trailers so far have done a fine job showing off the spectacle of Wonder Woman’s world, from the sumptuous locals of her island paradise home to the murky war zones of Europe during the Great War.  My hope is that the film manages to escape the studio interference that plagued it’s two predecessors and manages to define itself by it’s own merits.  This will be the first time that a female superhero has been featured in her own film, something that DC managed to do first before Marvel, so a lot is at stake with how well this feature performs.  Again, DC’s track record of late has tampered down many of our expectations, but hopefully this will be the film that finally rights the ship for DC.  Otherwise, the Justice League they’ve been so eager to form will be doomed before it even starts.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (MAY 26)

Fourteen years ago, Disney did the unthinkable and managed to turn a film based on one of their theme park attractions into a box office and critical success.  Largely thanks to Johnny Depp’s charismatic performance as Captain Jack Sparrow, we had one of the unlikliest of franchise born.  Unfortunately, it’s a franchise that also has lost a lot of it’s luster.  The two follow-up sequels (Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, which were shot simultaneously) did succeed at the box office, but were considered too convoluted in their plots to be considered better than the first film.  2011’s On Stranger Tides brought the franchise even lower, feeling unnecessary and frankly rather boring as a whole.  Now, Captain Jack returns for what might be one final gasp to save this tired franchise.  There is some hope behind this film project.  Acclaimed Norwegian directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, who won raves for their sea based adventure Kon-Tiki (2012), have taken over the reigns of this franchise, and have promised to put more emphasis on in camera stunts over CGI extravagance.  The casting of Javier Bardem as the villainous Captain Salazar is also a good thing, and I’m pleased to see Geoffrey Rush returning as my favorite character in the series, Barbosa.  On the other hand, Depp’s schtick as Jack Sparrow may have worn out it’s welcome over the years, and it might be time to put the character finally to rest.  I hope that this is an adventure worth taking, but my worry is that it’s one ride that no longer thrills.

ALIEN: COVENANT (MAY 19)

Ridley Scott has certianly never been a director to rest on his laurels.  Even into his late 70’s, he is still continuing to churn out film after film, working in all sorts of different genres.  His new feature finds him on familiar ground, returning to the franchise that he helped to launch back in 1979 with the iconic Alien.  In 2012, he tackled the franchise again, only this time exploring the origins behind the titular monster with Prometheus.  Prometheus received a mixed reception from fans and critics, some calling it too self-indulgent and not exciting enough to carry the Alien franchise into another chapter.  I for one was okay with the movie; it was neither a franchise highlight, nor was it one of it’s lowpoints.  It was a perfectly serviceable sci-fi picture.  Scott returns now with what is possibly meant to be the linking piece between Alien and Prometheus in Alien: Covenant.  My worry however is that after the two previous films, is there anything left for Scott to explore with this franchise.  It seems like this movie is just retreading the same things we’ve seen before; watching each of the cast members being picked off one by one by the dreaded Xenomorph.  It was terrifying in the first Alienwhen Scott was breaking new ground, creating genuine scares that would influence a whole generation.  Now, with too many tools at his disposal, I don’t know if Scott can do that again.  At least he was able to let the atmosphere make Prometheus stand on it’s own.  With Covenant, it just feels like we’ve seen this all before.

CARS 3 (JUNE 16)

It pains me to have to put low expectations on something from the Pixar studio, but I am less optimistic about their entry this summer.  Truth be told, I thought the first film in the Cars franchise was a pretty good flick.  Not Pixar’s best, but still a pleasing feature with a unique visual aesthetic.  Unfortunately, Cars 2 holds the distinction of being Pixar’s first real failure.  After a decade of nothing but glorious raves for all their movies, Cars 2 was panned across the board as both visually and narratively lackluster.  The main problem is that it took the focus away from the first film’s central character Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) and shifted it to the obnoxious supporting character Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy), putting him into a nonsensical spy movie plot.  It seems that the filmmakers recognized the faults of the previous movie, and have sought to right the course of the series by putting Lightning McQueen back into the spotlight, but is it really necessary any more.  It felt like his character arc was complete in the first film, so I don’t see what more they need to do with this franchise.  My guess is that they’re going for a “one last hurrah” kind of story-line with this one, which to be honest may not be so bad for this series.  It makes more sense than Mater the Spy from Cars 2.  My hope is that Pixar doesn’t drop the ball with this one like they did the second time around, but again, maybe this is a franchise that’s better left off the track.  For a studio as groundbreaking as Pixar, their efforts are placed elsewhere than trying to put a new coat of paint on a busted old car.

MOVIES TO SKIP:

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (JUNE 23)

For some crazy reason, Michael Bay’s increasingly moronic and over-stuffed Transformers franchise still manages to keep going.  Sure the franchise made a little improvement with the last film by swapping out Shia LaBeouf with Mark Wahlberg in the lead role, who is far more likable, but that was the only positive in the bloated mess that was Age of Extinction (2014).  The franchise now reaches it’s fifth entry, and I am struggling to find anything left worth caring for in this series.  The franchise resembles the original source cartoon and toy line very little now, and it still annoys me that the Transformers themselves are little more than supporting characters in a movie that’s supposed to be about them.  What we’ve gotten instead is Michael Bay throwing every cinematic indulgence that fits his fancy, and it makes all of his movies (especially these ones) nothing but convoluted messes.  What astonishes me about this one, however, is that he managed to wrangle in Anthony Hopkins for a role in the movie.  Hopkins, who is arguably one of the greatest actors of his generation, is too good to be in something like this, so I don’t know what kind of magic Michael Bay worked to bring him on board.  It might just be interesting to see how Sir Anthony does in this feature, but if it means that I’ll have to sit through nearly three hours of Michael Bay overkill just to get to his scenes, I don’t think it will be worth the effort.

THE MUMMY (JUNE 9)

In another desperate attempt to formulate a cinematic universe on the level of Marvel’s multi-franchise success, Universal Pictures has dug into their collection of movie monsters to build a collective universe around, to not as expected results.  Their first attempt was the very bland Dracula origin story, Dracula Untold (2014), which released to indifference with audiences and critics.  Now, it’s the Mummy’s turn to generate some heat in order to make their universe plans come to fruition.  The makers of this film did manage to land Tom Cruise is a key lead role, as well as Russell Crowe in the role of Dr. Jekyll (yeah, Jekyll meets the Mummy; wrap your head around that logic), but it doesn’t make the film feel any more interesting.  Like Dracula Untold, this movie just feels more like a studio mandate than an actual interesting story worth telling.  I think that it is worth revisiting The Mummy as a story again, but when it’s tied to this cynical cash grab attempt by a studio, it feels less exciting overall.  I would rather see something artistic done with the Mummy character, like a period piece or a more straight-foward horror remake.  This just feels bland, boring, and a waste of time.

THE EMOJI MOVIE (JULY 28)

Proof that not every cultural fad needs to be turned into a movie.  Now, truth be told, people scoffed at the idea of The Lego Movie (2014), and that film turned out to be a classic.  But, what benefited Lego was a witty script that did a brilliant job of entertaining while never feeling like a feature length commercial, effectively just turning the product into a cinematic tool rather than a marketing one.  This, however, looks to be nothing like that.  I’d say that The Emoji Movie has more in common with the recent Angry Birds movie from 2016, which felt like a rushed film project made to purely capitalize on a cultural craze while it was still popular.  I honestly don’t know where they can go with this project, and the trailer only indicates to me that all this movie is going to do is present a trivial story with a steady string of obvious visual puns.  Of course, visual puns are what emoji’s are all about, but no one wants to see a feature length film that does that.  Better to delete this unnecessary film out of any and all conversations in the future.

So, there you have my outlook on the Summer months ahead.  I’ll be sure to give you my thoughts on the big titles as the season goes along, starting with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which I plan to review next week.  Hopefully all my must sees are worthy of the hype surrounding them, but also I would like to see a few of the ones that worry me exceed my expectations and end up being better than I anticipated.  I’m pretty confident about where all these movies stand, but there have been years in the past when I’ve been way off.  In any case, my hope is that the movies this summer not only perform well, but actually stand out as exceptional cinematic achievements as well.  We’ve already seen some strong showings from the opening months of this year, so 2017 is already off to a good start.  I absolutely want to be dazzled by Marvel’s expanding cinematic universe with Guardians and Spider-Man, as well blown away by Christopher Nolan’s unparalleled vision with Dunkirk, and be genuinely entertained by new efforts from the likes of Edgar Wright and Ridley Scott.  At the same time, my hope is that some of the smaller fare this summer manages to shine through as well.  It’s always worthwhile to see the next Ex Machina (2015) or Swiss Army Man (2016) shine through amidst all the noise of the summer season.  In any case, I hope all of you have as much fun at the movies this Summer as I will.  Let’s hope that all of us won’t be disappointed in the end.

It’s Not Easy Being Green – Hollywood’s Lack of Compelling Environmental Movies

Today is Earth Day and for many of us it’s a day where we take time to actively do our part to help keep the environment clean and healthy in some way.  But, at the same time, it’s also a time where we worry greatly that not enough is being done to keep the water and air clean and the resources that we live on sustainable.  For many, getting the message out that the Earth needs saving is a chore in of itself.  At a time when a few people out there are less willing to accept scientific consensus about the state of our world today, we are finding ourselves in a perilous situation where ignorance is the biggest threat to our world.  But, how do you convince people of the facts when the science may sometimes be too complex to understand or the message too dire?  That’s when you call upon entertainment to help out.  Environmental issues have long been an important subject in the mediums of art, song, and film, and sometimes they have effectively managed to move and motivate people to want to take action and do what’s best for the planet.  The only problem is, when relying on forms of entertainment to get the message across, environmental movements can sometimes run the risk of minimizing their cause by turning it into a cultural fad rather than a lasting legacy.  Entertainment politics have just as much of a sway on the effectiveness of an environmentally conscious program as it would on any other subject, and it wouldn’t be all that crucial if the message weren’t so important.  When it comes to environmental issues as entertainment, we unfortunately have a very inconsistent legacy that sadly undermines the message in a way that in some cases does more harm to the world than good.

Not that it’s a bad thing that Hollywood tries at all to make environmentally conscious films.  Not trying at all to address environmental issues would be even worse.  What specifically is the problem with some of these so-called “green” films is that they have to adhere to commercial appeal in order to be made in the first place (especially if they are backed by a studio) and in the process, they unfortunately find themselves compromised.  This can happen in a variety of ways.  Either the message of the film becomes diluted down so much to childish simplicity that it no longer has any weight at all, or it is exploited in an effort to satisfy the studio or filmmakers’ own agenda.  As a result, few if any quality films are made that take environmental issues as seriously as they should.  There are many degrees in which a lot of environmental films fall short, but I think the greatest problem overall is that too few of them actually hold their audience to task for the problems they are addressing.  I know that few people want to go to the movies to be lectured to, and it’s often a sure fire way to turn your audience off to a film, but what a lot of filmmakers who take environmental issues seriously need to know is that their audience needs to feel the importance of the issue; not just have it presented as a story point.  An audience needs to relate to an issue just as much as it needs to relate to the characters.  It has to hit them personally, and make them see that the problem won’t be solved until they make the move to change it themselves.  Now, one person motivated like this may not be the agent of change, but a whole bunch of people can and that’s why it’s crucial to get the message right in a film.  And even more importantly, it’s crucial to recognize where the message is effectively getting through and where it is not.

Environmental issues on the big screen has been a long evolving thing, changing very quickly over time to observe the changing attitudes in society as a whole.  Social films have always been a part of Hollywood, but they were more centered on human conflicts and despair rather than dangers facing the world itself.  You can see this in films like The Grapes of Wrath (1940), which brilliantly documents the hardships facing a family of migrant workers heading to California after being displaced by the Dust Bowl of the Midwest in the 1930’s, without ever discussing the environmental factors that led to the famine in the first place.  Postwar Hollywood took on environmental issues more definitively in the 50’s, but it was from a place of Cold War paranoia, where nuclear annihilation was seen as the biggest threat to the environment.  Even still, environmental consciousness became more important in these years, and likewise, Hollywood found stories worth telling that could motivate millions of viewers to take action.  You can see this in allegorical sci-fi films like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), where an alien visitor warns the people of Earth to take better care of their world, or else face annihilation themselves.  It was pointed, but in a way that made audience take note that keeping the world a clean an orderly place was the best way to make their progress society as a whole.  You can also see this reflected in a slew of PSA films that were produced around this period, which among other things taught people how to keep their homes sanitary, how best to dispose of hazardous material in a safe way, and also how to avoid environmental hazards in their own backyards.  Some of these were pretty naive and sometimes completely absurd (“duck and cover” as a response to a nuclear blast for instance), but, Hollywood was finding out with these movies that taking on such issues in their movies could indeed affect social action.

It wasn’t until the 1970’s when Hollywood’s message machine and the call for action on environmental issues finally coalesced into one.  It was an era when it came abundantly clear that the Earth’s environment was in danger and that action needed to be taken.  Even President Richard Nixon, of all people, saw the importance of doing something to save the environment, which led to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Likewise, Hollywood made an effort to state that environmental issues were no longer just a minor thing, but instead the most important thing and that we as a species could no longer just ignore it.  In this time, you saw a lot of movies that discussed the effect of pollution in our air and water, the clear-cutting of forests, and the negligence of industry that allowed for environmental degradation to happen.  What is special about the movies from this era is that they weren’t afraid to be bleak, which surprisingly proved to be a more effective tool in getting the message across.  With Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), you had a noir thriller centered around a real case of corruption in Depression era Los Angeles, which showed how manipulation of resources could degrade a once vibrant landscape and destroy the livelihood of those who worked the land.  The China Syndrome (1979) showed how corporate negligence at a nuclear power plant could lead to a possible destruction of a city within the blink of an eye, and show that maybe nuclear power wasn’t the best option for our energy production.  And there was also Soylent Green (1973), a disturbing dystopian look into a future plagued by overpopulation and food shortages compounded by pollution.  It’s a film where even the solutions to the problem are the stuff of nightmares.  But, what each of these films managed to do was to wake up the population to issues about the environment that were starting to affect us.  For a while, people did make an effort to consume less, hold corporations accountable, and do their best to improve the environment.  But as society changes, the message also changes, and newer messengers don’t quite have the same urgency to get the message out as before.

Since the 70’s, new facts have about the environment have made the issues more complex and as a result, far more harder to stress to a larger audience.  As a result, a new trend of environmental films have arisen that unfortunately dumb down the issue in order to make it more appealing to a general audience.  In some cases, filmmakers come across looking like they don’t care about the issues they are addressing and just want to make it appear like they do care just so that they can win some credibility points from environmental groups.  Unfortunately, if the whole project becomes disingenuous, it trivializes the message as a whole.  Case in point, the films of Roland Emmerich.  Emmerich is a filmmaker notorious for making shallow statements in his films on a variety of subjects, but none more so than with his environmental films The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and 2012 (2009).  The reason his films come across as shallow is because it’s clear that he’s ignoring scientific reality in favor of creating his own outlandish scenarios in order to add extra spectacle to his films.  That’s how you end up with preposterous segments in his movies like John Cusack outrunning a supervolcano explosion in a Winnebago from 2012, or Jake Gyllenhaal literally being chased down a hallway by the effects of global warming in The Day After Tomorrow.  I don’t think that Roland Emmerich isn’t concerned about the environment, but his shortcomings as a filmmaker only makes the message in his movies seem ridiculous and as a result, easier to dismiss; and that in of itself is a big disservice to environmental causes.  If you want to help the environment, you need to deal with it honestly, and not trivialize it with your own indulgences.  It’s sadly something that far too many filmmakers do nowadays with environmental movies.  Spectacle only makes the issue seem smaller, because you are associating real environmental problems with Hollywood magic, and reality has no magical solution.

An even worse problem with environmental movies today is how they are sometimes exploited for the purpose of a different agenda.  In particular, one thing that I have noticed with some environmental movies is that they scapegoat all environmental problems on some corporate entity.  Sure, many corporations over the years have been contributors to environmental degradation, but taking an anti-corporate stance in your movie is no solution to the problem of fixing the environment.  As a result, you have a movie that is undermined by it’s own lack of urgency and it’s insistence of shifting the blame to someone else.  By doing so, you creating a sense in the audience that they themselves no longer have a responsibility to the environment, because they only see the evil corporation as the offenders and not themselves.  For an environmental message to work, it must put the responsibility on the viewers shoulder to do something about the issue, and not let them off the hook.  That’s why conventional black and white morality in environmental movies makes the message far less effective.  You can see this in James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), where he trivialized environmental issues by creating this corrupt straw-man corporate entity as an obvious antagonist within his story.  Had he presented a more even handed portrayal of the corporate characters, showing the complexity of their dilemma as well, then you might have had a more reasoned examination of the issue, with the environmentally conscious side standing up to scrutiny.  Instead, it just appeared that James Cameron wasn’t interested in a two sided argument, and that he wanted his beliefs presented without impediment.  Sure, he still managed to deliver a billion dollar hit movie, but it’s not the environmental arguments that we remember, and  it led to a less motivated audience because they were never able to connect with the issue.

There are many right and wrong ways to deliver an effective environmental story, and sometimes the best way to do it is to not appear on the surface like you are an environmental film at all.  That’s what made the films of the 70’s like Chinatown and Soylent Green so effective because they were compelling stories on their own that just so happened to involve environmentally relevant issues.  What I think to be one of the greatest environmentally conscious movies of all time does this perfectly; the Pixar-created animated film Wall-E (2008).  Wall-E is primarily just a love story between two robots, but as the story goes along, you see that it has a profound statement to make about man’s responsibility to his environment.  In the film, Wall-E the robot travels to the far reaches of space, and finds the remnants of humanity living on a space cruise ship, confined to lounge chairs and absorbed into distracting social media.  And all the while, their home planet is a garbage filled wasteland, which Wall-E has alone been tidying up.  If that’s not a compelling statement on our societal problems contributing to environmental degradation, than I don’t know what is.  And the movie has the intelligence to not let the viewer off the hook and asks us what is in our best interest going forward with environmental issues.  Contrast this with Illumination Entertainment’s adaptation of The Lorax (2012), which took every bad environmental movie cliche, and distracted it’s audience with trivial nonsense while at the same time pretending like it cared.  Dr. Seuss’ original story was about the dangers of over-consumption and it taught it’s audience to be more responsible with a compelling one word warning: “Unless.”  The CGI animated Lorax instead proved to be the most hypocritical of films by minimizing Seuss’ message and shamelessly cross-promoting itself with corporate sponsors, effectively promoting more consumption, which is an insult to Seuss’ intent.  This shows that a movie that sells itself as environmentally conscious may in fact not be, and that the more unexpected the environmental message the better it will affect it’s audience.

Overall, environmental movies should not be taken as just light entertainment, because the real problems we face are far too important to ignore.  For the most part, it’s a problem that is more closely associated with fictional environmental films than say something made in the non-fiction medium like a documentary.  But, even in the documentary field, it’s important to have a clear message that connects with the audience and makes them want to take action.  For Hollywood films, it matters to make environmental issues relatable, and that means not being afraid to take a few risks no and then.  I’m sure viewers became more concerned about the preservation of wildlife after they saw the death of Bambi’s mother from a hunters gunshot.  And I’m sure that Soylent Green made more people aware of their daily consumption, and that it was perhaps better to hold back a little, or else far worse things could happen.  Essentially, good stories told well can deliver a strong message on environmental issues, but the real change comes from not holding back and putting a sense of urgency into the minds of the audience.  When you trivialize the issue by mixing it too much with Hollywood style entertainment, then you create a passive indifference in the mind of the audience, leading them to take the issues facing the environment less seriously.  We’ve seen before that it can be done, but it must respect the intelligence level of it’s audience.  An audience will want to make a difference only if they’ve been moved and inspired.  And you can find far little inspiration in a movie that treats global catastrophes as spectacle, or presents a scapegoat that let’s the audience off the hook.  And you’ll find no more insulting environmental message than the Lorax hocking “green-approved” cars and IHOP pancakes.  Seriously, shame on that movie.  With our world growing increasingly fragile, it’s more important that we make environmental films that get real results and motivates more people to do the right thing.  It’ll be good when the fact that they are entertaining as well can be the only real by product in the end.

Evolution of Character – Jesus Christ

Icon, savior, prophet, rabbi, messiah, son of God.  Whatever your personal beliefs and your view of who this man from Nazareth was (or is), there’s no denying that Jesus Christ is a figure who has shaped the course of human history.  Some believe in his divinity, while others just view him as an influential historical figure.  But still, whether you accept belief in him or not, his influence is felt in all of our lives; sadly, sometimes in very negative ways.  Perhaps the most powerful influence of Christ can be found in art.  Pretty much every great and influential artist of the past millennia has taken their shot at depicting Christ in some way; in painting, sculpture, carvings, performance, and of course, cinema.  Jesus has proven to be just as powerful figure on the silver screen as he has been in any other artistic medium.  At the same time, he is also one of the trickiest roles to fill.  A lot of pressure falls on those who puts on the robes to portray Christ, because if they do a poor job, they run the risk of upsetting a multitude of the faithful, most of whom take the image of Christ very seriously.  Some movies sometimes even take careful measures to avoid any controversy at all by showing Jesus either from a distance, like in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) or from over the shoulder without showing his face, like in Ben-Hur (1959).  But, there are plenty of films that do take the risk of not only showing Christ on screen, but also delving deep into his story and analyzing what kind of person he was.  What’s most interesting is how different eras of cinema have incredibly different views on the figure of Christ.  In this article, I will be looking at a few of these, limited solely to depictions from Hollywood; so no international depictions, or TV movie adaptations, nor any Christploitation films the Christian film market.  So let’s look at Jesus Christ’s journey as a cinematic icon.

HOWARD GAYE from D.W. GRIFFITH’S INTOLERANCE (1916)

For an examination of Christ’s presence on the silver screen, it’s fitting to look back and see one of the earliest.  In D. W. Griffith’s now century old epic, we are presented with four interlocking stories depicting different eras in world history, all centered around the theme of intolerance.  The shortest of these story-lines is devoted to the story of Jesus, and his persecution at the hands of the Pharisee priests who are determined to silence his ministry.  The story is sadly limited, but the depiction of Christ is nevertheless interesting in the film.  Actor Howard Gaye certainly was cast based on his resemblance to the commonly accepted image of Jesus in centuries of artwork.  Through Griffith’s film, we see the icon of Jesus that was familiar to the world through it’s artwork brought to life through the magic of cinema.  Because of Griffith’s film, this image of a long faced, flowing hair, and white robed Jesus would endure into the realm of cinema and influence all future depictions from then on.  It’s an interesting aspect that Griffith chose to use the image of Christ in his grand statement on the nature of intolerance.  Though brief, Christ’s story is interconnected with stories of the fall of the Babylonian Empire, religious wars in Renaissance era France, and a present day story of religious zealots breaking apart a disadvantaged family.  What I think Griffith misses however in his film is the irony that the persecution that each of his main characters face is done in the name of someone who went through the same persecution.  I think Griffith was more interested in the cruel cycle of intolerance that humanity has faced over the years, and he viewed Jesus’ own persecution as one chapter of that.

H. B. WARNER from THE KING OF KINGS (1927)

Later on in the silent era, we were given a much more substantial portrayal of Jesus Christ on film, which came from a filmmaker who is now synonymous with the biblical epic genre; Cecil B. DeMille.  DeMille was already established filmmaker at this point in his career, and had already won praise for bringing The Ten Commandments (1923) to the big screen.  But, many consider his depiction of Jesus Christ in The King of Kings to be one of his greatest achievements.  Here we find a Christ that is both humane and divine; relateable and yet also ethereal.  It is certainly one of the more idealized versions of Christ that we’ve seen on film, with actor H. B. Warner giving a standout performance.  Warner fits the same image iconic image of Christ, but what he brings is more sophistication to his portrayal, making him feel more human and personable.  It’s clearly DeMille’s to utilize the cinematic medium to present Jesus is the most sympathetic light possible.  Here, Christ almost glows on screen, with DeMille using diffused lighting to spotlight Christ and make him standout from everyone else.  Even the Resurrection of Christ utilized some remarkable cinematic tricks, with DeMille inter-cutting a Technicolor sunrise into the scene (color photography was only recently introduced and was considered cutting edge for it’s time, making the shot all the more special).  Though old fashioned by today’s standards, DeMille’s epic became a gold standard for the depiction of Christ on film for many years to come, and it is still to this day one of the most cinematic-ally pleasing.

MAX VON SYDOW from THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965)

The 50’s and 60’s saw an booming industry in Hollywood for Biblical epics.  For years, it appeared that any biblical story was fair game for adaptation, leading to some of the most impressive cinematic wonders that have ever been committed to celluloid.  Included among them is this George Stevens directed epic about the life of Christ, depicting his baptism (with Charlton Heston as John the Baptism) all the way to his Crucifixion.  Like most of the movies of it’s era, The Greatest Story Ever Told was a star studded blockbuster, which was both a blessing and a curse; it unfortunately had the problem of miscasting several roles, including an awkwardly placed John Wayne as a Roman centurion, who utters the now infamous line, “Surely this man was the son of Gawd.”  But, the movie did strike it rich with the excellent casting of legendary Swedish actor Max von Sydow as Christ.  Sydow brings an intensity to the role that had never been seen before and it makes Jesus a compelling character throughout the film.  From the gracefulness of his gentle ministry to the intense anger that he displays against the money changers at the Temple in Jerusalem, to the quiet vulnerability that he displays while being crucified, Sydow is compelling in the role from beginning to end, and he carries this sometimes uneven film on his sturdy shoulders.  He also does an excellent job of giving the iconic look of Jesus the kind of expressiveness it needs to work in a more sophisticated cinematic outing.  The movie is an odd mixture of old Hollywood melodrama, mixed in with a more modern sensibility towards the role of religion in our lives and how the image of Christ fits into that, and Sydow’s Jesus is a perfect match for that more modern image of Christ in our changing culture.

TED NEELEY from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973)

The 1970’s yet again was another shifting time for cultural attitudes towards religion, and this was reflected in some of the interesting ways that religion found it’s ways into movies at the time.  In this Norman Jewison directed adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, we saw a completely different kind of portrayal of Christ brought to the screen.  Sure, it is kind of jarring to see Christ and his followers singing rock tunes out in the desert (shot on location in Israel), but the movie is still surprisingly respectful to the image of Christ, both scripturally and cinematically.  Christ remains a figure of intense spiritual purity in this film, but it’s the aura that surrounds him that defines his power.  Like the title of the film states, Christ’s persona gives him a superstar status among the people around him, giving him a cult of worshipers that he clearly struggles with.  It’s a superstar status that makes him beloved, but also reviled, and he finds himself at odds whether remaining the savior for humanity is really something he should have resting on his shoulders.  It’s a more conflicted side of Jesus than we’ve seen before, but one that still represents the spiritual power that we’ve seen before.  Ted Neely, who was brought into the film after playing the role first on stage, clearly fits the image of Christ very well, and his impressive pipes give an interesting new intensity to the character as well.  Funny how the image of Christ was not a huge leap to make from the usual aesthetic of the average hippie at the time of this film’s making.  Neely had little more to do than just put on a robe and he becomes Jesus automatically; which literally does take place in the film’s opening minutes.  It’s a product of it’s era, but still, an interesting new direction to take the persona of Christ into on the big screen.

WILLEM DAFOE from THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988)

Here we have probably cinema’s most human depiction of Christ, which itself resulted in quite a bit of controversy.  Adapted from Nikos Kazantzakis’ equally controversial book of the same name, Martin Scorsese’s film is an interesting spiritual examination of Jesus’ struggles with his own destiny.  In this movie, Chirst knows he’s the son of God and that his purpose is to die for all the sins of humanity, and this is a burden on him that makes him feel distant from the rest of humanity.  In his dying hours on the cross, Jesus asks God why he has forsaken him, and then the film stops to show what life would be like for Christ if he had denied his purpose and refused to sacrifice himself, instead choosing a normal life.  This section itself was what stirred up the controversy behind the book and film, because it shows Christ in what some consider a sacrilegious portrayal; getting married, having sex, fathering children, and denying his divinity.  But, many forget that in both cases these are just visions and not reality.  Christ still dies on the cross like he was destined too, and everything we see beforehand is just a final temptation by the devil to coax him away from his destiny.  Scorsese still considers himself a devout Christian, but he’s also an introspective filmmaker who wants to explore interesting concepts when it comes to religious themes, and that’s what attracted him to this film.  He made a very wise choice in the casting of Willem Dafoe as Jesus, who gives the character a remarkable vulnerability that we have never seen before on film.  Dafoe perfectly embodies a version of Jesus that is both frightened of his destiny and yet determined to see it through, and it’s that introspective view of the journey ahead that makes his performance so compelling.  When he triumphantly smiles in the closing moments of the film and proclaims, “It is accomplished,” it is a powerful depiction of a man who has conquered evil, both on the outside and from within, and that makes for one powerful portrait of Jesus Christ.

JIM CAVIEZEL from THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004)

The other most controversial depiction of Jesus Christ is also the one that strives for the most accuracy.  Mel Gibson’s often divisive portrayal of Christ’s torturous final hours is an interesting cinematic experiment, because it goes out of it’s way to recreate the period of time it is set in; even to the point of using dead languages in all of it’s dialogue.  Whether that makes it historically accurate is debatable since it’s source of story comes from the Gospels.  Still, it’s an interesting choice for a director to make in order to set their depiction of Christ apart from all the rest.  Mel also cast largely unknown actors in most of the film’s roles, except for a couple exceptions; one being Jesus himself.  The role of Christ went to established American actor Jim Caviezel, who took on the role based off of his own devout Catholic background.  And like the person he was portraying, his own experience would turn into a test of faith.  Not only did he have to endure long hours working outdoors in very little clothing, but he also endured some rather bizarre freak injuries while filming.  At one point, one of the whips used in the scourging scene missed the padded protection on his back and actually cut a real gash on his side.  And then during the crucifixion scene, he was struck by lightning in the middle of filming.  Not to mention he had to learn to deliver all his lines in Aramaic.  Suffice to say, this is a definitive example of an actor suffering for his art, but it does translate into a powerful performance on screen.  Caviezel embodies a quiet strength as Jesus, enduring such horror but still remaining steadfast in his resolve.  Whatever you think about the movie itself, you still have to admire the work that the actor put into it, making a determined attempt to be more true to the personage of Jesus than anything we’ve seen before.

EWAN MCGREGOR from LAST DAYS IN THE DESERT (2016)

Here we have one of the more recent depictions of Christ on the big screen.  The movie imagines a fictional encounter during Christ’s 40 days of fasting in the desert, where he is confronted by the devil and is told that he holds the fate of a family he has met on his journey in the balance.  It’s a tight, simple narrative that nevertheless offers an interesting window in understanding the psyche of someone like Jesus.  Ewan McGregor takes on the dual role of portraying Christ and the Devil (who is shown in the  film as a twisted reflection of Christ, confident and sinister while Jesus remains doubtful but pure).  His portrayal is a unique one, having his Jesus be someone who is still trying to understand his purpose.  What’s more, his Jesus is someone who knows of his disconnect from humanity, having grown up without knowing his true father, and feeling frustrated with the fact that he is unable to communicate with him.  This movie grapples with the notion of whether Christ was truly divine or not, and it’s dealt with in a very open-ended way.  Jesus sees God’s signs everywhere, and he imagines the Devil by his side as a manifestation of all his doubt and anger, but in the end he is unsure if God really has set him apart for a reason, or if he may possibly not be there at all.  And yet, the movie shows the eternal spiritual purity of Jesus, and how his journey would inform the spirituality of many more after him.  McGregor gives Christ a very subtle humanity, one that doesn’t have to marry itself to all other depictions before it, and yet still remains true to the character.  Here, he portrays a man seeking self discovery before his fully obtains the confidence to becoming the Savior of humanity.  It’s interesting that the movie chose to explore the often overlooked period of Jesus’ fasting in the desert, because it’s really the best point to examine Jesus as a blank slate, something that Hollywood has rarely dared to tackle before.

So, there you have some of the many depictions of Christ that we have seen on the big screen.  Interestingly enough, apart from these straightforward portrayals of Christ’s life on the big screen, you can still see his influence in a variety of other movies.  You see it very clearly in the common cinematic trope of the Chirst-figure character; a main protagonist who is specially singled out by some mystical prophecy or fate that makes him the only person capable of destroying evil.  Whether it is Neo from The Matrix (1999), Harry Potter from his wizarding world franchise, or Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, many of cinema’s most famous heroes have often fallen into this Christlike path of destiny.  The Lego Movie (2014) mocked this trope perfectly by referring to it’s hero as “the Special.”  Darth Vader from Star Wars can often be viewed as a Christ figure in reverse; a character of special significance whose destiny only leads him towards becoming more evil.  But, despite how Hollywood has exploited and made fun of the Christ figure in cinematic history, you’ll never actually see an actual mockery of Christ the person.  Even movies that do attempt it often do it through the misguided insanity of one of their characters, like “Buddy Jesus” in Kevin Smith’s Dogma (1999), which is representative of a ill-advised public relations campaign by a church to make religion appear more “hip.”  Even the always irreverent South Park, which includes Jesus as a regular character, portrays him as a pure soul and a force for good.  There can be many ways to do a bad portrayal of Christ on screen, but even some of the good ones can still draw the ire of some very devout followers.  Regardless of where anyone stands on faith, we still have to acknowledge the importance of Christ as a symbol, both in everyday lives and in our art.  He has remained a constant force on the big screen, and will so for many years to come, and it’s our responsibility as storytellers and filmmakers to make sure that his image is used only for the purposes of good in our world.

TCM Classic Film Festival 2017 – Film Exhibition Report

The Turner Classic Movies Channel (TCM) offers up one of the finest programming line-ups that you’ll ever find on cable television, especially if you are a classic movie fan like me.  Knowing that their fan-base is strong and growing, TCM has given those of us in the Los Angeles area a special treat in their yearly film festival, held in the heart of Hollywood.  Spread across several theaters on Hollywood Blvd. (The Chinese, the Egyptian, and the Cineplex of Hollywood & Highland), the TCM fest offers up four days of nothing but the best in classic cinema.  In addition to seeing these classics on a big screen, those who attend are given the added treat of having their films introduced by notable celebrity figures who have some involvement in the film’s making, or are themselves enormous fans of the films they are introducing.  Also, there’s also just the atmosphere of Hollywood alone that makes this festival unique.  More than likely some of these movies probably had their world premieres in the very same venues, so the festival is not just a weekend of entertainment, but a dive into the history of cinema itself, with each grand old movie house acting as a living museum to cinema.  This year marks the fourth in a row that I am documenting this festival for you, my readers.  However, unlike previous years, I tried to do something different for this year’s fest, which was to cover all four days of the festival.  I’m happy to say that I did get all four days in, having to manage it around my work schedule.  It unfortunately gave me little down time to do anything else this weekend, hence why I’m writing this on a weekday, as opposed to my usual Saturday posts.  Thankfully, with experience under my belt, I was able to schedule everything out in order to make it into all of my top choices each day, with only one roadblock in my way.  So, let’s look at the TCM Classic Film Festival of 2017.

DAY #1 (APRIL 6, 2017)

The festival runs a different theme every year to spotlight in their line-up of movies.  This year, the theme was Comedy.  Most of the marquee attractions this year were meant to be a good rundown of all the different eras of comedy in Hollywood, from Monkey Business (1931) with the Marx Brothers, to the work of Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and the Abrams/Zucker parody flicks.   Even the more recent Christopher Guest mockumentaries were spotlighted.  It makes sense that this was a running theme since the guests of honor at this year’s hand-print ceremony in front of the Chinese Theater were comedy legend Carl Reiner and his son, director Rob Reiner.  This festival was also significant this year being the first without iconic TCM anchor Robert Osborne, who has long been the face of the channel.  His passing a couple months ago could be felt across the board at this year’s fest, with several of the TCM staff sharing their fond memories.  Each of the opening night films included a brief memorial video of Robert that was very well done and appropriate as a way of stating his importance to the festival as a whole.  The opening night also included a special red carpet screening of In the Heat of the Night (1967), which celebrates it’s 50th anniversary this year.  In attendance for this showing, TCM brought in director Norman Jewison, composer Quincy Jones, producer Walter Mirisch, and stars Sidney Poitier and Lee Grant.  Unfortunately, standby tickets were unavailable for this showing, and since I was limited to standby seating the whole festival, I couldn’t go in myself, as much as I wanted to.  Instead, I opted for a screening of a classic movie I had never seen before; the Bette Davis film Jezebel (1938).

The early evening screening of Jezebel took place in one of the smaller auditoriums in the Chinese Multiplex theater in the Hollywood & Highland complex.  Because of the limited space, fewer seats were available, and I just barely made it in from the standby line.  All that were left were front row seats, which were not at a particularly good angle for watching the film.  They did however give me a good, up close view of the pre-show introduction.  Before the movie, TCM personality Tiffany Vazquez walked on stage to introduce the very enthusiastic (and flashy) guest speaker, Richard Skipper; an east coast journalist and producer who was invited to speak at this festival after winning a contest.  Richard spoke of his fan-hood for Ms. Bette Davis and his love of the movie, Jezebel, which we learned from his speech was a consolation film for Bette after she was turned down for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind (1939).  He also talked about how Bette got along with director William Wyler and co-stars Fay Bainter and Henry Fonda.  Interesting enough, we also learned from the historical background that Fonda had to leave the film immediately after it wrapped in order to be there for the birth of his daughter, Jane.  It was a thankfully information filled introduction from a true fan that helped us appreciate the movie even more.  For me, I enjoyed it, but couldn’t help but think of Gone With the Wind the whole time, and how much grander it is.

From there, I tried to rush my way down the busy, tourist filled sidewalks to the Egyptian Theater a few blocks away.  Thanks to a heads up alert from social media, I learned that the theater had a special screening of Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) planned, utilizing a brand new projection process that allows the theater to screen ultra-sensitive nitrate film stock.  That alone would have interested me, but the alert also indicated that director Martin Scorsese was going to be there to introduce the movie himself, and discuss the preservation of nitrate film, which is a particular passion of his.  I managed to make it outside the Egyptian, and received a number for the standby line.  When it got close to the start of the show, the festival crew let in only a small handful of standby tickets holders.  After twenty or so people, it was announced that there would be no more let in, and I unfortunately was among those left outside.  It would have been neat to have seen Scorsese in person, but this is the unfortunate outcome that you have to expect when you roll the dice waiting in standby.  It was worth the try in any case.  After that, I decided to skip all the other available screenings, and call it a night.  It was an opening night disappointment, but there was plenty of festival still left.

DAY #2 (APRIL 7, 2017)

Coming straight from work, I made my way to the Chinese cineplex again to catch a screening of James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News (1987).  I was thankfully there in time to get a good seat and it was also bless-fully in one of the larger auditoriums, making seats readily available for all standby tickets.  Before the show, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz arrived to conduct the opening introduction.  Now, I should point out that at this point in the festival, the souvenir guide books indicated that director James L. Brooks was going to be the pre-show guest.  But, in front of us on stage, there were three chairs waiting; one for Ben, one for James, and one for someone we didn’t know.  Well, that third chair was saved for comedian and actor Albert Brooks, who was a surprise last minute addition.  This surprise almost makes up for missing out on Scorsese the night before.  Both actor Brooks and director Brooks discussed their experience making the film, including the lengthy amount of research that went into accurately portraying the inner workings of a broadcast newsroom.  They talked about co-stars Holly Hunter and William Hurt, as well as how this movie reflects on the state of media today.  Albert naturally gave the audience quite a few laughs to enjoy, but James L. Brooks was equally as entertaining in this intro.  Seeing the movie itself was a first time for me, and I quite enjoyed it as a whole; particularly with the stellar performances.  It was a good start off to the day, but my primary goal was to make it into the nighttime showing in the Chinese Theater immediately after.

The reason I desperately wanted to get into this next show was because it was going to feature one of my all time favorite filmmakers; comedy legend Mel Brooks.  His spoof of Hitchcock films, High Anxiety (1977), was the featured show, but it was really seeing Mel live in person that interested me.  I had managed to catch an appearance of him several festivals back, but it was in one of the smaller venues and not from a great viewing advantage.  Thankfully, I got into this screening, which is thankfully in the very large Chinese Theater, and I managed to get a close up seat only a few rows from the front of the venue.  Mel Brooks, at 90 years old today, is in remarkable shape, and is just as full of comedic energy as he has ever been.  Ben Mankiewicz was there to conduct the interview, but Mel completely took control and did most of the talking himself, leading poor Ben to not know where the interview would go next.  Mel did offer up some interesting stories, like his meeting with Alfred Hitchcock and his pitch to him about the movie High Anxiety.  Hitchcock loved the final film by the way.  He also discussed working with his co-stars, including Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, and Harvey Korman.  More than anything, it was just fantastic to see a comedy legend still be able to make all of us laugh, and show that old age hasn’t slowed him down at all.  It was also pleasing to watch High Anxiety on a big screen.  I’ve watched the film before, but not like this, and never with a full audience either.  So, I went 2 for 2 on day 2 and my hopes were up for the rest of the festival.

DAY #3 (APRIL 8, 2017)

Because of my work schedule, I was unavailable to attend most of the morning shows, which included some very promising screenings I would have liked to have attended.  This includes a screening of This is Cinerama (1952) in it’s original format in the Cinerama Dome, and of The Jerk (1979) with director Carl Reiner in attendance.  I haven’t seen the 90 year old Reiner yet, and something tells me that fewer chances will come my way in the future, so this was unfortunate.  Still, there were a few more promising screenings that interested me on this day.  I got to the Chinese complex again and received my standby ticket for a screening of Christopher Guest’s 2000 classic Best in Show.  For this screening, we were privileged to have four members of the cast there to speak before the film.  On stage there were actors John Michael Higgins, Jim Piddock, Bob Balaban, and Fred Willard.  The longtime collaborators discussed their improvised style of comedy, which is a trademark of Guest’s mockumentaries, and what they brought to their own characters.  Higgins talked about what it was like playing one half of the film’s sassy gay couple (opposite Michael McKean), and Willard and Piddock talked about what it was like playing the hilariously mismatched color commentators in the fictional dog show competition.  Amazingly, we learned that their scenes were all shot in one day.  Balaban unfortunately couldn’t speak because he was battling laryngitis, but still his presence there was appreciated.  I had seen the movie before, but again, watching it in a theater with an audience gave it an extra bit of enjoyment.  From there, it was off to the Chinese again.

The nighttime presentation at the Chinese Theater on this third day was the universally beloved Mike Nichols film, The Graduate (1967).  Another film celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this year, the film was a popular draw this night.  Thankfully, my Best in Show screening finished with enough time for me to get in the standby line for this film.  I managed to get a pretty good seat in the theater; not too close and not too far.  It gave me a good view of the stage up front, and a good view of the screen, which is quite big (it’s built for screening IMAX).  For this show, we were privileged to be joined by the film’s screenwriter, Buck Henry.  Buck, while still witty at times, clearly wasn’t as spry as Mel was the previous night, but at the same time you can excuse him for that.  Ben Mankiewicz kept the interview moving along, despite the fact that Buck was giving him long stares most of the time (which were sometimes funny in of themselves), but some interesting tidbits did come out in the interview.  We learned about what it was like working with Mike Nichols as well as stars Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft.  We also learned about stars who nearly made it into the movie, like Robert Redford and Gene Hackman (who in fact was fired right before filming began).  It was pleasing to see a legendary writer like Buck Henry participate in this festival, even in his old age which has more or less made him a little more ornery than usual.  It wasn’t my first time seeing this movie, but again, on a big screen, it’s a whole other experience and what can I say other than this is still a classic for all times.  And with that, another day down, with one left to go.

DAY #4 (APRIL 9, 2017)

This final day gave me something that none of the others had, and that was a wide open schedule.  A day off work meant that I had the entire day to catch anything that I wanted.  So, to start the day, I made my way to the Chinese complex to catch a showing that I knew would have some significance at this year’s festival.  It was a screening of Postcards from the Edge, a movie written by the late Carrie Fisher, loosely based on her experience with drug addiction and growing up under the shadow of a famous mother.  Starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine as the fictional daughter and mother respectively, the movie is a fascinating window into Carrie’s relationship with her real-life mom Debbie Reynolds, who also shockingly passed away only hours after her daughter last year.  This gives the movie an added poignancy and for a first time viewing on my part, this film truly was one of the highlights of this year’s festival.  After the movie, Ben Mankiewicz welcomed on stage two special guests.  One was Todd Fisher, brother to Carrie and son to Debbie, as well as previously unannounced surprise guest, actor Richard Dreyfus, who had a small part in the film.  The discussed the film very little, and of course devoted most of the interview to sharing memories of the two legends.  Dreyfus, who was a close friend to Carrie, even broke down into tears during the interview, showing how the grief is still affecting him today.  Todd shared some interesting family stories as well, and stated how much of the film captured the essence of both of them.  It was a really enriching experience, and one that I felt great about choosing for this year’s festival.

From there, I made my way to the Egyptian Theater and had better luck this time getting in.  It was for a screening of the Ryan O’Neal and Barbara Streisand screwball comedy What’s Up Doc? (1972), directed by Peter Bogdanovich.  Bogdanovich was himself there to introduce the movie, and it was a special treat to see him in person, knowing his contributions to both film-making and film criticism.  He talked about what it was like working in such a different style of comedy than what he was used to at the time, just coming off of the Oscar-winning The Last Picture Show (1971).  He also talked about working with O’Neal and Streisand, as well as placing Madeline Kahn in her first ever screen role; one in which she becomes a scene-stealer.  He also talked about all the challenges he faced filming the climatic chase scene through the streets of San Francisco, which included several instances where they caused real physical damage to some of the city’s infrastructure.  He finished his interview by treating us to his Jimmy Stewart impression, which was not bad.  The movie itself was a first time viewing for me, and I’m happy to say that I enjoyed it.  I got more out of the supporting cast than I did from the main stars to be honest, but what really impressed me was the confident direction from Bogdanovich, which really captured the screwball style of comedy that was perfected so well in the 30’s and 40’s.  After that, there was only one film left to go.

I chose to remain at the Egyptian for my final film, mainly to experience a screening of one of these heralded nitrate prints that the festival was spotlighting so strongly.  I tried to the first night screening with Scorsese in attendance and failed, and the second and third nights conflicted with other movies I wanted to see.  Those other two prints were of the classic Otto Preminger noir drama Laura (1944) and the Powell and Pressburger technicolor classic Black Narcissus (1946).  The final night’s nitrate screening belonged to the Ginger Rogers musical extravaganza Lady in the Dark (1944).  This technicolor film looked very interesting on a nitrate print, which had a smoothness to the frame rate that was noticeably different than celluloid.  The colors also had a different hue to them, more muted than most other technicolor prints I’ve seen.  The film itself was a mixed bag however. Actress Rose McGowan arrived to introduce the movie beforehand and shared with us her appreciation for the artistry of the movie, particularly with the art direction in the dream sequences and the stunning costumes designed by Edith Head.  However, she did pre-warn us of some of the more outdated social attitudes presented in the film, which are a bit problematic.  Watching the movie, I can see what she meant, because the movie is hilariously old-fashioned.  The film is so blatantly misogynistic and ill-informed about the science of psychoanalysis that you’ll just laugh throughout at just how politically incorrect this movie is today.  Well, at least we were given warning beforehand.  That made for an interesting finish to my festival experience.  At least I got a sense of what nitrate film projection looks like and it’s something that I hope continues in future festivals.

And with that, the TCM Film Festival of 2017 comes to a close.  I honestly felt very happy to have finally gotten in the full four days of the festival.  Sure, I had to work it around my work schedule, which prevented me from seeing some of the films I was interested in, but for the most part, I did get to see what I wanted.  The only disappointment in the whole thing was not getting into that screening where Scorsese was going to premiere, and even there I still was almost successful.  Overall, I caught 8 movies total, which is not bad at all, and 5 of them were first time viewings.  Buying a festival pass would have given me better access and a better choice of seats, but my success rate was still good in the standby line, and was an especially good option for someone who’s on a budget like me. I was especially happy to see legends like Mel Brooks and Buck Henry live in person, as well as see other greats like the Best in Show cast and Peter Bogdanovich.  Also, the Postcards from the Edge discussion centered on remembering Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher was an especially worthwhile moment.  But, even apart from the movies themselves, I also just enjoyed talking to other people in line who like myself are huge fans of classic cinema.  I was talking to a couple guys in line just about stuff like the philosophical meanings behind the films of Stanley Kubrick, and in another line, I met an older couple who said that their first time seeing The Graduate was on one of their first dates in high school.  It’s a shared communal experience like that which make festivals like TCM’s so enriching.  I hope to get in a full experience in like this again next year, so until then, I hope you appreciated my lengthy report.  And please, watch and support classic cinema whenever you can.

 

A Fool’s Game – The Ever Changing Face of Comedic Films

Our traditional April Fool’s Day usually has us working towards making a fool out of someone else, whether it be through a cleverly worded joke or through an elaborate prank.  Regardless of the outcome, most of the fun comes from the realization that something genuinely hilarious has happened, and one hopes that the humor in each situation is shared by all.  Sometimes a joke will go too far, and then other times, a joke will not have gone far enough, and the end result of no one finding it funny may be the worst result of all.  What proves to be the best scenario for April Fool’s shenanigans is if both the fooler and the fooled both have a healthy sense of humor.  And in our culture, we have the movies to thank for giving us foundations on which to base our senses of humor.  Everyone may not be able to pinpoint what their favorite comedy might be, but they can usually draw upon their favorite moments or funny phrase as a demonstration of their comedic tastes.  How many of us out there have bopped their head to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” ever since first seeing Wayne’s World (1992)?  How many of us have used Bill Murray’s “Final Hole at Augusta” monologue from Caddyshack (1980) when playing a game of golf?  How many of us have at one time uttered the word “Ni” just to annoy our friends, or welcome them to join in?  Comedy has, more than probably any other genre, soaked itself into the cultural zeitgeist, to the point where we think about a funny moment from a movie sometimes without knowing where it originated.  But, comedy in movies is also a constantly changing thing that sometimes remains strong for years or can sometimes fade into obscurity.  For a comedic movie to have staying power, it first of all must stand out in the field, have character to it, must have something to say, and most importantly not just be comical for comedy’s sake.

Despite being ingrained in the culture, comedy also runs the disadvantage of falling victim to shifting, and often unpredictable attitudes.  What was considered funny yesterday might not be considered funny today.  Sometimes the changing responses to comedy are necessary, as different values become more important all the time, and it becomes understandable when one joke has lost it’s impact as a result of the change.  But, to disparage a comedy because of it’s outdated content isn’t a healthy attitude either.  Comedy over history is defined by how it has evolved with the times, and while some jokes of the past may seem quaint or even offensive to those of us watching today, understanding their context allows us to see how it has shaped the sense of humor of our culture as a whole.  Comedy has been around since really the very beginning of cinema.  You can see it all the way back to the short vignettes of the very first film images created by Thomas Edison and the Lumiere Brothers, who often called upon vaudeville acts to perform in front of the camera.  Since sound film had yet to be invented, you can understand that the dominant form of comedy in these days was physical in nature.  This was the era when slapstick and visual gags ruled.  In this era, you saw the emergence of the first true comedic movie stars, like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd.  Silent comedy had it’s limitations, but remarkably it has proved to be one of the most resilient and influential forms of comedy in all of cinema.  You can see the influence of all these pioneers in slapstick comedy today.  Some of the performers most outrageous stunts even hold up as remarkable feats so many years later, like Harold Lloyd’s harrowing dangle from a clock face in Safety Last (1923), or Buster Keaton’s stunts on a real moving train in The General (1926).  Talkies of course would take the comedy genre in a different direction, but there would always be a place for physical comedy in the years ahead thanks to these pioneers.

With the use of sound, comedy became more reliant on tools such as wit, innuendo, and word play to generate laughs out of their audiences.  But, there was still a place in Hollywood for both the physical and the verbal to coexist in comedy.  The 30’s saw the rise of the screwball comedy, with comedians performing on screen who both excelled at physical humor and joke telling.  In this era, you would see the emergence of Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, and most successfully the Marx Brothers, who managed to get away with more in their comedies than most others could.  Screwball comedies were so popular at the time that they even managed to attract performers not normally known for their comedic chops, like Cary Grant and Kathrine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938) or Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve (1941).  As films became more sophisticated over time, so did comedy.  Preston Sturges not only created comedies that were humorous, but were also socially relevant, like with Sullivan’s Travels (1941).  Comedy evolved even further in the 50’s and 60’s, with shifting social attitudes making an impact.  You had more comedies that addressed topics like sex (1967’s The Graduate), war (1964’s Dr. Strangelove), and even fascism (1967’s The Producers).  The 70’s in particular was a era when comedy was all about pushing boundaries, with filmmakers like Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and the Monty Python comedy team consistently testing the limits of broadness and taste in their films.  The 80’s began the era of satire, where self reflexive comedies like Airplane (1980) and The Naked Gun (1988) emerged.  By this time, television has left a strong influence on cinematic comedy, with a lot of crossover stars coming from shows like Saturday Night Live.  And all through these different eras, you can see a strong through-line of different generations inspiring what would come after.  All comedy in one way or another has shaped what we now find funny today.  And through the best of them, we can see what has worked over time, and what does not.

What is apparent from all the greatest comedies from film history is how well they stand apart from the rest of the field.  Despite the influence that comedies have on the culture and the business of film-making, it should also be understood that there are ten times more failures in the genre than there are successes.  Comedy has the disadvantage of being a heavily derivative genre, with so many copycats emerging in the wake of a success in the field.  The key to comedy is the element of subverting your audiences expectations and making them react to an unexpected and hilarious result.  The best comedies are all defined by how well they make their punchlines land.  Unfortunately, when another movie tries to copy that same formula, it doesn’t have that same impact, because the audience will already be aware of what it’s leading to.  Other times, some comedies just don’t even try to do anything special, and just coast along on the premise alone.  It’s the reason why you see something like a 21 Jump Street (2012) succeed and a CHiPS (2017) fail.  Even people who have succeeded with a comedy before end up failing when they don’t adapt their style.  You could see this with the comedic team-up of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, who landed a huge hit with Wedding Crashers in 2005, but failed to see the same repeat when they re-teamed for The Internship (2013).  We even see this in drawn out, tired franchises like The Hangover series.  Extra effort is what makes great comedies great, and the ability to share gags and jokes that no one has heard or seen before.  But, doing so comes with a lot of risk and Hollywood tends to not put their money behind unproven potential.  So, for any new progress to be made to change the face of comedy, it has to be something that stands out and hits hard with every punchline, and that’s why only the best comedies last throughout the years.

Another thing that helps comedies along on their road to greatness is in how well they are defined by their character.  Comedy falls into several subcategories, all of which have their own best and worst examples.  You’ve got the romantic comedy, the screwball comedy, the satirical comedy, the gross-out comedy, and even the dark comedy.  This all helps to make each type distinguishable from the others, so that there doesn’t have to be a set standard for all comedy.  But, even in the sub-classes, comedies still need to define what they are in order to stand out.  So, it helps for them to play around with genre tropes in order to either subvert them or conform them to a new direction.  You can see that in characteristically unique comedies like the original Ghostbusters (1984).  In that film, you had a mix of comedy and terror, mixed together in a surprisingly effective way.  The scary moments are genuinely scary, but they are punctuated by the witty sarcasm of Bill Murray or the goofy nerdiness of Dan Aykroyd.  Through that mixture, you get a comedy that by it’s very unique character is able to stand out.  Utilizing the comedic style of it’s creator, a comedy can also stand out.  You can see how the movies of Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis and Mel Brooks stand out from the crowd, because they are so tied to the comedy that those men are known for.  You can also see this in the work of directors who are comedians themselves, but are so comfortable working in the genre, like Judd Apatow and Edgar Wright.  Edgar Wright in particular has that special talent to make very similar movies, but they all feel fresh and hilarious, because he only ties them together by style and not by the routines; although a few running gags permeate his entire filmography.  Relying on your performers is also essential to finding the character of your comedy, especially if they are a scene-stealer like John Belushi in Animal House (1978).  You can see where a lack of character can sink a comedy, which can happen from miscasting a performer to just not finding an interesting angle to hang your jokes and gags on.  Comedy needs identity and the more broad it is, the better it will be able to make us laugh.

Having a statement in your comedy is also a helpful tool.  Movies have always been a powerful tool for changing people’s minds and affecting cultural attitudes, but no other genre manages to make a bigger impact in that regards than comedy.  This is especially true in the way that comedies often use their medium to attack authority figures through the power of mockery.  Oftentimes, the targets of comedy have been especially deserving of ridicule.  Charlie Chaplin famously attacked the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany with his film The Great Dictator (1940), which chronicled a buffoonish despotic dictator not unlike the Furher himself.  Chaplin’s response to Hitler was especially savage after the liberal-minded filmmaker learned that the notorious ruler had shaped his own mustache after Chaplin’s.  Stanley Kubrick addressed the absurdity of Cold War politics in the only way he knew how, with a screwball comedy where a cowboy hat wearing soldier rides a nuclear bomb like a bucking bronco as it’s dropped from the sky.  Mel Brooks tackled racial tensions from the 1970’s in a western spoof called Blazing Saddles (1974), where every racial and ethnic stereotype is lampooned relentlessly in often hilarious ways, all with the purpose of showing how ridiculous racial bigotry is.  Does every great comedy need to have a profound statement behind it?  Not necessarily, but it can help it stand out as a strong statement of it’s time.  That’s not to say that every comedy that tries to give themselves a political or socially relevant message works either.  I don’t know what the point behind George Clooney’s The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) was, but I know for sure it didn’t make me laugh.  Still, for a comedy to be remembered for more than just it’s jokes, it must also have something interesting to say, or push forward an unconventional idea that can have a profound influence.  Whether that ends up lasting long after remains to be seen, but a comedy will be notable nonetheless for doing it.

Also, it may be redundant to say this, but a comedy must try it’s best to be funny.  You would be surprised how few films actually accomplish this.  True, comedy is a subjective medium, and what’s funny to one person, might not be funny to another.  But, there are several so-called “comedies” out there that don’t even try to attempt to reach all audiences with their style of humor.  Oftentimes, there will be several comedies that are so insistent on throwing anything at the wall to see if it will stick.  You see this a lot in the spoof movies that have followed in the wake of Scary Movie (2000), all of which have the mistaken belief that movie and pop culture references equals comedy gold.  Probably the worst offender of the “kitchen sink” approach to comedy however is Adam Sandler and his Happy Madison production comedy.  Sandler seems to believe that rehashing the same tired comedy routines through consistently dumb premises is enough to leave your mark on comedy.  Well, it does, but probably not in the good way that Sandler believes is owed to him.  There was a time when Sandler’s comedic style was funny, but that was the late 90’s, and it’s now been 20 years since Billy Madison (1995) and Happy Gilmore (1996) managed to make us laugh.  What these movies demonstrate is that a comedy can’t just work on routine alone.  It has got to earn our laughter.  When you have Sandler movies that just poke fun at a character’s ugly appearance, or has animals defecating on another character, or throws in outdated and offensive tropes like gay panic or ethnic stereotypes, then you’re doing nothing to broaden your appeal as a comedic talent.  It’s cheap and lazy comedy, and audiences are too discerning today to fall for tricks like that anymore.  Just because these comedic bits have worked before doesn’t mean they’ll work for you again, and it’s a bad sign when 20 plus years in the business only leads you to do the same bits over and over again.

We all know which comedies we like and which ones we don’t like.  The only thing that remains to be seen is what we may find funny years from now, because comedy is a constantly movie goal line.  Our attitudes as a culture evolves and puts new values on things, so punchlines that made us laugh when we were young might not make us laugh when we are old.  It’s especially more difficult when we try to provide our own input into comedy as well, because not all of us find the same things funny.  And yet, some comedy does stand the test of time despite all the change.  Chaplin an Keaton still are praised as comedic geniuses, and it remains a marvel to watch modern audiences still laugh out loud watching comedies made nearly a century ago.  Some of this comedy does benefit from nostalgic value, but there are others like Blazing Saddles and Dr. Strangelove that still carry a punch to this day.  The biggest mistake that a movie can make is to chase after a punchline that no one will like.  And in a world that’s grown increasingly absurd, and where more and more people take a punchline way too seriously and miss the point entirely, finding comedy that results in a positive change is becoming harder to come by.  In the end, we need the positive influence of substantive comedy that’s not afraid to step on a few toes and mock those deserving of ridicule.  In troubled times, comedy is the best weapon that a culture can have.  And yes, there is even value in tough times to seeing absurd things like Bill Murray hunting down a puppeteer-ed gopher in Caddyshack (1980), or Adam Sandler fighting Bob Barker in Happy Gilmore, or Steve Carrell getting his chest waxed in The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005).  There is no better feeling at the end of the day than to have a good, full unencumbered laugh, especially when it is shared with someone else.  The only fools left out there are the ones who find nothing funny in the end.

Top Ten Opening Scenes in Movies

The best movies ever made are usually defined by the strength of their individual moments.  As many of them stick to the basic three act structure of storytelling, the viewer will commonly find that a movie hits it’s high points at crucial junctures in the story; sometimes with a crossroads for a character’s development, sometimes with a harrowing motivating incident, and also sometimes with a shocking twist at the story’s climax.  Some movies even find their best moments in charming plot sidetracks that reveal more about the characters.  But, one thing that proves to be a crucial part of a story’s success is not so much how it progresses, or even finishes, but rather how it begins.  A strong opening statement from the very first scene could itself be the very thing that makes a movie go from good to great.  An opening scene does the most important job of establishing tone and character into the movie.  It’s the point of the movie that tells the audience exactly what they are about to get into, even if much of what follows is not what they expected.  And there are so many ways that a movie can get off on the right foot.  A movie can throw us right into a hectic moment of action (like the opening of 2015’s Mad Max :Fury Road), it can shock our senses (like the murder opening of 1996’s Scream), it can throw a moment of absurdity our way (like the migrating coconut debate from the opening of 1975’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail), it can make a statement directly to the audience (Ewan McGregor’s “Choose Life” monologue from 1995’s Trainspotting), or it can soak us up into the atmosphere of it’s world (the prologue from 2001’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), all in the first couple minutes.  And it’s these moments that help to give a movie an identity.  What follows bellow are my top ten choices for what I think are the greatest opening scenes in movie history.  They run the gambit of being either just a fantastic opening shot or a full lengthy sequence, but what they all have in common is that they made a profound statement that set the bar high for each of their selective movies, and stand alone as singular great cinematic achievements in their own right.

10.

THE GODFATHER (1972) – “I BELIEVE IN AMERICA”

Francis Ford Coppola’s multi-generational epic begins not with a bang, nor a extravagant set piece, but rather it begins in a quiet, dark room where old men discuss business.  And yet, you could not have asked for a better start to one of the most compelling films ever committed to celluloid.  Coppola plunges us into this world of Mafiosos and the criminal underworld by showing us the characters in their own element.  In this opening scene, we meet Bonasera, a desperate man who has come to the home of Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), the “Godfather” of the powerful Italian Mafia family.  In his plea to the don of the family, seeking vengeance for the rape of his daughter, Coppola keeps the camera tight on his face and slowly zooms out to slowly reveal who he is speaking to.  It is a simple camera trick, but one that is beautifully executed by cinematographer Gordon Willis.  And it’s simplicity is what makes it so profound.  It’s made all the more powerful by how well Coppola and Willis use the light in the scene, or lack there of.  Beginning the speech with a complete blank screen also puts special emphasis on the opening words; “I believe in America.”  Subliminally it tells us the audience that this will be a quintessential American story, while at the same time revealing a world unseen to us as well.  It’s profound as a statement, but it also is one of the greatest character introductions we’ve ever seen in a film.  Without revealing Vito right away, we are able to learn from Bonasera the kind of power that Vito is able to command and the respect that he is able to summon.  Only after the long pull out do we see the man himself, and by then his legend is set.  It’s a deceptively simple moment and is iconic in every way.  It’s the kind of opening that you would expect to see from one of cinema’s greatest achievements.

9.

REAR WINDOW (1954) – WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Alfred Hitchcock always was a filmmaker who loved to show off all the things that could be possible in the cinematic medium.  Many of his films also like to build their mystery directly from the opening moments.  Without tipping his hand, Hitchcock leaves clues within a scene that will inevitably payoff later in the film.  You can see this in most of his greatest films like North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), and Shadow of a Doubt (1943).  But, if you were to find the greatest opening to a film in his whole oeuvre,  it would be the spectacular opening sequence in Rear Window.  In the opening scene, Hitchcock shows off the amazing courtyard set that was built especially for this film (the largest interior set ever built at the time).  The scale of the set is impressive on its own, but the special quality of this opening scene comes from the way that Hitchcock pans across the scenery, showing us a small window into the lives of all the people who live in this complex, and all the little side-stories that they are living in at the moment.  But, it’s a point of view that’s still from a distance, and we learn towards the end of the scene that we are watching all of this from the apartment of Jimmy Stewart’s character.  The shot continues, revealing that Stewart’s Jefferies is wheelchair bound with a broken leg, and the shot then scans across his own apartment, showing us more about his life, including the accident that left him with a broken limb.  It’s an immersive way to open a film, showing so much without a single line of dialogue.  Not only does it show off the amazing set in a spectacular way, but it gives us so much information right up front, allowing us the audience to understand the characters and the world they live in before the story itself begins.  Few others could use these kind of tools of storytelling as well Hitchcock, and it’s a scene that perfectly illustrates his very voyeuristic view of everyday life.

8.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) – THE JEW HUNTER

Quentin Tarantino is a filmmaker who especially puts special emphasis on his opening scenes.  For a man raised on international and exploitation cinema, you would think that the idea of a movie that starts off in a big way would be one that’s clearly on his mind.  And throughout his body of work, you can find plenty of great, unexpected opening scenes.  There’s the restaurant robbery from Pulp Fiction (1994), the airport arrival in Jackie Brown (1997), the diner conversation from Reservoir Dogs (1991); none of which are exactly bombastic scenes, but they nevertheless do an excellent job of announcing themselves to an audience the way that Tarantino wants them to.  But, out of all of opening scenes from Tarantino’s filmography, I don’t think there has ever been a greater one than the opening to Inglourious Basterds.  Like the others, it’s a dialogue driven scene, but one that is so profound and brilliantly written, that it easily stands tall among the rest.  It, for one, introduces us to one of cinema’s greatest villains, Colonel Hans Landa, and establishes perfectly everything that this character is about.  With his calm, pleasant demeanor, he breaks down this French farmer who’s been harboring refugee Jews in his basement, and does over a kind conversation with a glass of milk.  Christoph Waltz is absolutely compelling in this moment, and I knew immediately after watching this scene for the first time that he was going to win an Oscar for his performance (which turned out to be true).  Tarantino himself has even stated that this is one of his favorite scenes too, and that he’s especially proud of it.   Who would have thought that a calm, dialogue heavy 20 minute opening sequence would provide one of the most chilling, suspense moments in cinema history?  It’s Tarantino at the height of his powers and proof that he can open a movie up like no other.

7.

PATTON (1970) – THE GENERAL’S ADDRESS

Here we find a opening scene that breaks from convention completely.  In this biographical film about the famed World War II commander, we don’t find ourselves looking into the general’s history, nor do we instead find him already in the thick of battle, like so many other historical films would have.  No, instead, this Franklin J. Schaffner opens up with a sprawling American flag, a small platform stage, and George C. Scott center screen in the role of General Patton in full regalia.  For the next six minutes, we see nothing else but this, and Scott delivers a speech not unlike how the real man would’ve to his battalions of troops during the war.  It’s an iconic image that perfectly establishes the mythic aura of the General, showing how he presented himself to the world, and how he probably wanted others to view him as well.  The remainder of the film breaks down the person that he was and shows us the more human side of the general, which is why this opening scene is so crucial for the film.  The movie is a great examination in the differences between man and myth, and you will never find a scene that helps to make a man look more mythic than the opening one here.  Scott is remarkable in this scene, bringing fire to every word of the speech (which was compiled by screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola from dozens of real speeches the general gave over the years.  I especially love how Patton flavors some of the language, going from poignant to vulgar effortlessly (like the famous “crap through a goose” statement).  It’s an often parodied moment that still holds up well today.  You’ll rarely find an opening scene that manages to leave such an impression while at the same time shows so little.

6.

TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) – BOMB IN THE CAR

One of the most popular creative ways that some filmmakers like to open their movies up with is the single, long take.  What’s great about these shots is that it establishes the atmosphere of a scene far better than a more heavily edited sequence would.  The only problem is that these scenes are hard to pull off, especially when they get more complicated.  Some of the best examples of these complicated openings include the 7 minute introduction of the Hollywood studio from Robert Altman’s The Player (1992) and the 13 minute opening shot from earth’s orbit from Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity (2013).  But, if you were the find the greatest movie opening using a long unbroken take, it would be the granddaddy of them all from Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil.  With this 3 1/2 minute sequence, Welles set the bar high for this kind of cinematic trick, and all the other filmmakers who have used this technique have all aspired to come close to this scene, with only a few managing to match it.  It’s an astonishing complex scene for it’s time, starting on a close-up of the bomb itself, we see it placed within the trunk of the car, and from then on we follow the trek of the vehicle through the streets as it makes it’s way to the border checkpoint.  All the while, the camera also catches the introduction of our two leads, Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh, who follow close behind the vehicle, establishing them into the story and helping to connect them with what’s going to happen.  The camera finally cuts once the explosion is heard, and by then, so much groundwork has been laid for the unfolding mystery.  It’s an amazing cinematic moment and one that shows how well Orson Welles style remained strong over the years.  To this day, it is still the high water mark for this kind of opening shot.

5.

THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) – THE JOKER ROBS A BANK

Christopher Nolan had already earned raves for his first venture into the world of the Caped Crusader with Batman Begins (2005).  When a sequel was green-lit, and it’s was discovered that the iconic villain The Joker would be involved, you could understand why Nolan felt that he had to up the ante this second time around.  With The Dark Knight, Nolan insisted on shooting select scenes with IMAX cameras, which would bring even bigger scale to the already extravagant marquee sequences.  And of these moments, the real stand out is the opening bank robbery sequence that introduces us to the Joker.  It’s an all around amazing opening, utilizing the full potential of the IMAX image.  From the opening flyover to the final reveal of a caravan of school buses, it’s a sequence that takes us for a ride and perfectly sets up the adventure that we are going to have for the remainder of the film.  But the opening’s best element is how it builds up the reveal of the Joker himself.  Heath Ledger remains hidden behind a mask the entire scene, appearing anonymous with the rest of his crew, until he has ensured that all of them have been taken out, leaving him the last man standing.  Then, being confronted by the wounded bank manager (played by William Fichtner), he finally shows his grotesque clown face under the mask, giving us one of the most iconic introductions in cinema history.  It’s an amazing way to establish an already iconic character into this new retelling.  Nolan would also give the villain Bane a strong introduction in his follow up sequel The Dark Knight Rises, but this sequence is still the better of the two.  With a chilling performance by Heath Ledger and spectacular IMAX cinematography on display, this was perfect way to open up a movie in a big way.

4.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) – THE KOROVA MILK BAR

Stanley Kubrick is another director that puts special emphasis on the opening scenes of his movies.  Whether it’s using an atmospheric introduction like the “dawn of man” sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), or a scenic “god’s eye” view like the opening credits of The Shining (1980), or a non-sequitur moment like the haircuts from Full Metal Jacket (1987), he makes very deliberate decisions when it comes to starting off his movies in the right way.  But, for the greatest opening to a Kubrick film overall, you can’t find anything better than the opening shot from A Clockwork Orange.  This sequence is defined solely by one singular image, and that’s of actor Malcolm McDowall in the role of Alex DeLarge staring menacingly right down the barrel of the camera lens.  It’s an unsettling stare that remains unbroken for the entire minute and a half of the shot.  From the extreme close-up, the camera slowly zooms out revealing the full tableau of the Korova Milk Bar in one of Kubrick’s trademark camera moves.  Even while more of the scenery is revealed, the focus still remains on the central figure of Alex, spotlighting him in the scene and establishing his importance, which will play out through the movie.  Like Patton before, it’s an opening shot that stands out as an iconic image on it’s own, defining the movie we are about to watch right from frame one.  What is also so remarkable from this scene is how well Kubrick makes it work with such stillness, with the only movement being a sip of milk from Alex and the camera itself.  Add to this the chilling synth version of “Funeral Music for Queen Mary” and you’ve got one of the most unsettling and brilliant openings in movie history.

3.

THE LION KING (1994) – CIRCLE OF LIFE

Disney’s animated films have always tried to start off their films in a big way, usually through a lavish musical number.  Most are memorable in their own right, but I don’t think you will ever see a stronger opening than the one from The Lion King.  Even the very first frame of the movie is epic on it’s own, with the iconic sunrise being punctuated by the powerful “NAAAAHHH” chant of the chorus.  From that stunning image, we see what the sequences main purpose is all about, and that’s to establish a sense of place for this picture, which is the stunning beauty of the African Savannah, and all the amazing creatures that call it home.  The sequence is beautifully presented with the accompaniment of Elton John’s now legendary tune.  Even before we meet any of the main characters, this movie has already transported us and put us into another world.  Of course, the sequence saves it’s most epic moment for the reveal of the iconic Pride Rock, where the characters of Mufasa, Rafiki, and of course infant Simba are introduced.  And finally, it ends on one of the most iconic images Disney has ever brought to the silver screen; that of Rafiki holding the baby Simba up high for all to see, with a ray of sunshine beaming down on them.  No animated movie before or since has ever announced itself as strongly as The Lion King has.  It’s kinda hard to believe that in it’s early development, The Lion King was considered the B-picture at the studio.  When this sequence finally came together, I bet that distinction wore off quickly because this is an A-quality opening to a movie.  It’s almost too strong of an opening sequence, because Disney tried for many years after to replicate it’s success and failed.  With beautiful visuals, a stirring song, and a powerful statement right from the beginning, this is the animated opening that’s king of them all.

2.

STAR WARS – EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE (1977) – IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY

Director George Lucas had to prove a lot of naysayers wrong when he set out to create a return to the old sci-fi serials of classic Hollywood.  What seemed to be a silly space based adventure in the beginning  proved to be in the end a stellar cinematic achievement.  With earnest direction, groundbreaking visual effects, and a stirring John Williams score, Star Wars proved to be a great success, and all those successful features can be found right there in the opening scene.  After the triumphant theme starts with the opening title and the introductory crawl (a nod to the classic serials) we pan down from the vastness of space to the see the colossal horizon of a planet beneath us, and from above a small spaceship comes into from.  This alone would’ve been nothing too special for audiences (especially those who had already seen 2001), but what follows the ship is our first  glimpse of what we know now as a Star Destroyer; a massive fleet ship that is so vast that even the widescreen panorama can’t quite capture it’s true scope.  This is the moment that announced to the world that Star Wars was no silly B-Movie, but instead a true force to be reckoned with.  It’s an amazing combination of visuals, music and audacious vision, which thankfully continues all the way through the picture.  From there, the movie plunges us right into the action, with little time to waste explaining it all.  We soon are introduced to this world’s character which includes the droids R2-D2, C-3PO, the fearless Princess Leia, and of course the menacing Darth Vader, who gets the most iconic introduction of all.  You could say that an empire was built alone right here in these crucial opening minutes, and that is enough to put it near the top of this list.

1.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) – STORMING OMAHA BEACH

The other entries on this list are defined by either masterful cinematic techniques, exceptional displays of writing and performance, or through singular iconic imagery.  This scene makes it to the top purely just for the visceral impact that it leaves on the viewer.  Steven Spielberg opened his war epic with a 20 minute recreation of the D-Day invasion of Normandy by Allied forces.  We are put there on the ground, seeing the battle unfold from the soldier’s point of view, and witnessed mostly from the perspective of Tom Hanks’ Captain Miller.  In this sequence, we see the true brutality of combat, with soldiers dying left and right all around the periphery of the camera’s frame.  It captured war in a “you are there” way that no other film had managed to before, and this is how Spielberg chose to open his movie.  The reason it remains so powerful is because of this witness point of view.  Hanks acts as our eyes, drawing our attention to the horrors around us in the scene, some of which is still horrifically graphic.  But, apart from the impact it leaves, you also are left marveling at the way it is crafted.  Spielberg used handheld photography to give the movie a documentary like feel (much of which he shot himself), and every explosion and blood spurt feels genuine, and not like something done for a movie.  It blurs the line between reality and make believe better than any other war movie I’ve ever seen, and presents war combat in probably the truest sense possible; even capturing the triumph of winning the battle honestly.   To pull a scene like this off in the middle of a film alone would be quite an achievement, let alone having it be the opening to your film.  It’s one of the greatest cinematic moments ever and easily the greatest movie opening in history.

So, there you have my choices for the greatest opening scenes in movie history.  Despite the fact that these movies are elevated by the strength of their opening moments, it doesn’t necessarily mean that every great movie needs a great opening.  Can any of you recall the opening scene from Rocky (1976), or Casablanca (1943), or even Psycho (1960)?  Maybe you do, but you would never consider them one of the highlights of the movie, and honestly neither of those films needed to open in a big way.  Nevertheless, a great movie is still made even better by an opening scene that stands out.  You have scenes like the opening of Star Wars and the “Circle of Life” that already set the bar high for the rest of the movie to live up to and the fact that they do make you appreciate the film even more.  There’s also the openings that instill imagery that will never your mind like the opening shots of Patton and A Clockwork Orange.  And then you’ve got moments of just pure cinematic power like Saving Private Ryan’s Omaha Beach scene.  All of these did the best thing that a movie could have asked for which is to establish a strong foundation on which the rest of the movie could comfortably build from.  In many ways, your beginning may be the hardest thing to create for a movie, and these films in particular offer some perfect guides with regards to how to do it right.  If you grab the attention of your audience within the first few minutes, than you have a better chance of holding on to them for the remainder of the movie and there lies the value of great opening scenes in the whole of cinematic history.