Tag Archives: Christian Bale

Dec 13 2019
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Reviews

“FORD V FERRARI” Review (✫✫✫✫)

SOURCE: 20th Century Fox

Two men, a Mustang, and a wrench.

Ford v Ferrari feels like one of those epic underdog stories not unlike David and Goliath – and despite what the title suggests, Ford is not David and Ferrari is not Goliath. No, this story is about innovators versus CEOs, workers versus corporations, creators versus the companies who own creators. Five decades ago, two men, a Mustang, and a wrench beat not one, but two million-dollar corporations on the race track and in life. Yet, to this day the names we see imprinted on the side of cars are Ford and Ferrari, not Shelby and Miles.

If you ever met these men in real life, you’re prone to either love them or hate them, depending on whether you work on the creative or corporate side of the race track. Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) is a 40-year-old automotive designer and former race car driver who was forced to retire early after developing an intensified heart condition. Ken Miles (Christian Bale) is a hot-headed Brit who has just as much of Shelby’s talent behind the wheel and twice the temper. If these two were parts in a car, Shelby would be the pistons and Miles would be the fuel – when you put them together, combustion is imminent.

These two men are recruited by Henry Ford II (yes, that Henry Ford, portrayed by Tracy Letts) for one purpose: to beat Ferrari at the 1966 Le Mans Grand Prix, a 24-hour race held on a wildly turbulent track in France. Any other man would think Ford was out of his wrinkly, white-haired mind. But Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles are not most men. They take the challenge head-on, and they have to get past not just Ferrari, but Ford to build one of the fastest race cars in automotive history.

Ford v Ferrari feels like one of those classic American stories you should have learned at some point in high school – a classic longshot tale, not unlike Rocky battling it out with Apollo Creed or Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes. Yet, I have never heard of either Carroll Shelby or Ken Miles. I suspect you may not have either. That’s part of what makes their story so surprising, because they’ve contributed a big part to America’s industrial innovation. Not only did they develop the vehicle that would later become the GT40 Mustang, but they also helped unseat Ferrari as the Le Mans Grand Champions, a title they’ve held onto for nine years before Ford entered the race.

If nothing else, Ford v Ferrari illustrates a story of the everyman – the American innovator who wants to push boundaries, pave paths, and create new ways forward, but are constantly hindered by the people wanting to be stuck in the past. I was surprised to find that this film’s biggest antagonists were not Enzo Ferrari or his driver Lorenzo Bandini, but rather Henry Ford II and his scumbag senior executive Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas). Rarely do you see a face in film that is as punchable as Josh Lucas’. His character is as scuzzy and as filthy as they come, a greedy, self-centered cretin that cares only about the bottom dollar and not much for the people that helped get him there. If Jacob Marley ever saw this man in real life, he would give Ebeneezer Scrooge a pass on Christmas Eve and would send the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future on him instead.

As much as I despise his character, however, Josh Lucas serves a vital role in the conflict of Ford v Ferrari – it’s not the industry we’re fighting, but often the people who control the industry and the people within it. When Shelby and Miles are knee-deep into engineering their Mustang, they’re artists perfecting their craft. When Shelby and Miles are driving at dangerously high speeds, they’re in Heaven. When they’re arguing with a snobby auto exec on who belongs in the driver’s seat, their brakes are punched to a screeching halt.

These characters are very relatable not just because of their situation, but because so many of us have found ourselves in circumstances similar to Shelby’s and Miles’. Their conflict is not just written very well, but also portrayed very well. Christian Bale, in particular, can’t help but outshine the rest of his talented cast. He has the physique and the fighting spirit from his Oscar-winning performance of Dicky Eklund in The Fighter, but in the same sentence possesses the same introversion and comedic timing as Michael Burry in The Big Short. Whether he’s exchanging jabs with Carroll Shelby at a pit stop or sharing a sentimental moment on the road with his son, you’re invested in Miles’ story and his constant desire to go against the grain.

This film is directed by James Mangold, who has been on a winning streak as of late with some of his most recent projects. He previously directed the Academy Award-nominated Walk The Line and 3:10 To Yuma, and he more recently wrote and directed the last entry in Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine trilogy, Logan. Ford v Ferrari possesses all of the grit his previous films have with even more relevance and authenticity. It doesn’t surprise me that the film feels like an industrial western, because when Ken Miles steps out onto race track and gets in his car, it has the tension and anticipation that builds up like a lone cowboy stepping out of the saloon to take on the outlaw with a draw of his pistol.

Ford v Ferrari is an excellent film: dramatic, moving, exciting, riveting, and dripping with enthusiasm, like oil gushing from the exhaust pipe. If I had one criticism, it would be that the first act takes too much time to build up its stakes and doesn’t move as promptly as I felt it could have. But I would rather a film have too much interest in its subject rather than too little. Most men in life, like Henry Ford and Enzo Ferrari, are most interested in winning the race that’s ahead of them. Shelby and Miles are just grateful to be on the race track.

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Apr 04 2016
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Reviews

“THE DARK KNIGHT” Review (✫✫✫✫)

Two madmen at war with each other and themselves.

Editor’s note: I was originally going to hold off on publishing this review due to an upcoming in-depth article I’m working on. However, upon learning that today would have been Heath Ledger’s 37th birthday, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to honor the late actor’s magnificent work. So, without further adieu, here is my review for the magnificent superhero epic that is ‘The Dark Knight.’

The Dark Knight is a moral dilemma about two madmen trying to make sense out of their own worlds. One hides his madness with a mask. The other demonstrates it proudly with a crooked smile and a demented laugh. We define one as “good” and the other as “bad”, but really, what’s the real difference between these two? They are both traumatized by tragedies they’ve experienced at very young ages, and one was clearly more devastating than the other. Just switch around Bruce Wayne’s childhood with that of the Joker’s for a second. Is it really that far-fetched to think that they could have grown up to become the other person?

It’s difficult to draw such similar parallels between a film’s protagonist and antagonist, especially in a superhero movie where everything is supposed to be so cut and dry. But Christopher Nolan orchestrates his characters masterfully here in The Dark Knight, a film that feels more like a Shakespearean tragedy than it does as a superhero blockbuster. It isn’t a film that is driven by big-budget fights and special effects, although those technical elements definitely don’t suffer in the movie all the same. This is a movie driven by character’s ambitions, desires, loss, and pain. Rarely does a film reach into such dark depths and have such outstanding payoff.

This movie is, of course, the sequel to Nolan’s highly praised 2005 prequel Batman Begins, which too succeeds in showing Bruce Wayne not as a comic book icon, but as a human being, reliably portrayed by Christian Bale with his own complexions and regrets. The Dark Knight continues Bruce’s story, but takes focus off of Batman and puts a larger focus on Gotham, the city Bruce is sworn to protect. In doing that, Nolan inadvertently creates another character in the Batman story, and you only need to look at its citizens to see what the character is like. It’s manipulative, murderous, deceitful, selfish, and crooked, with the only evidence of decency in only a handful of citizens wanting to do the right thing.

Heath Ledger’s Joker, of course, sees the sick nature of Gotham and imposes his own version of justice upon the city. From a different perspective, could the Joker be considered the hero of the story? Both Batman and the Joker are vigilantes in their own ways. The difference is who they see as the main poison to Gotham.

Like any other superhero, Batman sees the criminals and mob bosses as the biggest culprits to Gotham’s decay. The Joker, however, sees it differently. He sees the city’s politicians, judges, police officers, and commissioners as the real criminals. Technically, neither is wrong. All of these people are responsible for the state that Gotham is in, and Batman and Joker are just picking two different sides to the same coin. Our instinct tells us to root for Batman, mostly because we are the everyday regular citizen he’s fighting to protect. But the Joker has been hurt day-in and day-out by regular citizens. So has Batman. His parents were killed by a citizen of Gotham. The Joker forces citizens to kill each other in The Dark Knight. In witnessing all of this murder and corruption taking place, you can’t help but ask yourself one question: are we even worth saving?

This gloomy idea of morality has been explored by Christopher Nolan before. Indeed, his career has been defined by character’s questioning ethics in 2000’s Memento and 2006’s The Prestige. Look at those films and how eerily similar they are to The Dark Knight. Look at the parallels not just in character and theme, but in tone and aesthetic. Look at how closely they are shot. Look at how tightly the action is edited together, yet coherent enough to understand everything we need to. Look at the character’s conflicts that test them and, in some cases, even break them. Look at their state of mind and security, and how quickly they decay in the midst of crippling loss, paranoia, and distrust.

This is why The Dark Knight is almost universally seen as the best comic book movie of all time: because it is not a comic book movie. Nolan didn’t film it like a comic book movie. He didn’t want to make a comic book movie, or at least, in the conventional sense. Everything involved with this movie, from the writing to the framing to the visual effects to the acting, was constructed with the idea that Nolan and Warner Bros. were making something much more than a comic book movie. They were making a crime film, a psychological drama, and a visual poem in disguise as a superhero blockbuster.

Just to clarify, I’m not knocking the superhero genre. Some of the greatest movies of all time spawned out of that genre, and if done right, it can be the best out of any of the other film genres. Christopher Reeve’s Superman and Superman II humanized a superhero that was anything but human. Spider-Man made an ordinary character extraordinary. X2 embedded a message of prejudice into an action-fueled sci-fi thriller.

Great superhero movies have come before The Dark Knight, and many more will come after. But what makes The Dark Knight unique is not its status as a quote-unquote “superhero” movie. It is its mirroring psychology that makes you question what is truly right or wrong. Superhero movies don’t normally do that. They normally provide our hero and our villain and have them go at each other in fun, comic-booky fashion. But that wasn’t enough for The Dark Knight. It needed to ask why they were going after each other, and what was at stake if they didn’t do so? This is one of the rare action movies that questions if our hero is actually doing the right thing, and if he’s fighting this labeled villainy in the right way.

In these characterizations, the performances are key, and Bale and Ledger alike to brilliant work in not just bringing their characters to life, but their beliefs as well. Ledger has received all the acclaim and the Academy Award for best supporting actor as the Joker, and he’s right to. He’s delivered a downright chilling portrayal of a mentally disturbed madman: a brilliant finish to a long and successful career up until his death in 2008. Yet, I don’t think many people notice Bale’s nuanced performance as a man struggling to know and do the right thing. That’s genuinely a shame, because the movie is a success due to their acting together, not just one performance over the other. Again, they treat their characters not as superheros and supervillains, but as competing complexions, battling each other not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of proving their own personally defined morality. At the end of the day, isn’t the battle of morality more powerful than any physical battle can ever be?

The film builds up to it’s highly-anticipated climax in classic Nolan fashion. The final battle, however, is not between our hero and villain, but instead between the two sides of Gotham. One side has been convicted by the law. The other has been convicted by God. And in their convictions, both sides are forced to make a choice. I won’t spoil what happens, but I will say this: they make the right one.

Batman and Joker are not two different people. They are two sides to the same coin. We too exist on a coin and have the equal potential of being either Batman or the Joker. It’s only a matter of what we choose to be.

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Feb 18 2016
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Awards Coverage, The Scope

Oscar Predictions 2015

“The Oscars: the white BET awards.”

                                           – Chris Rock

I think we can unanimously agree that the single biggest snub the Academy made in this year’s nominations was not with a motion picture, but with entire communities. 20 white actors were nominated for their performances this year. All eight best picture nominees featured white protagonists. All the screenplay nominees are white. The only major category to have slight diversity in its nominations is best director, where it has four white directors and one Mexican. To have 42 out of those 43 nominees belonging to a single diversity is just plain sad, and shows that in its own way, we still live in a segregated society.

A strong statement, I know, but the situation warrants it. How many wonderful stories were told this year by actors, filmmakers, and storytellers of color that the Academy chose to skip over? There was no best picture nomination for Straight Outta Compton. No acting nominations for Idris Elba or Jason Mitchell in Beasts of No Nation and Straight Outta Compton. No best screenplay nomination for Ryan Coogler for Creed. No acting, directing, or writing nominations for Sicario. No best picture nomination for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The worst part about these snubs is that it isn’t just entire communities that were disregarded: it’s that the year’s best films and performances weren’t recognized at all, period. And it’s not like the Academy’s hands were tied either: they literally had two open slots to include two more nominees for best picture, and they chose not to use them. Tell me, would it have really hurt to include Creed or Straight Outta Compton in there just to ease people’s nerves? It’s not like those pictures are undeserving, and I think people would be more excited for their nominations rather than they were for Brooklyn or Bridge of Spies.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first stupid mistake the Academy has made, and it won’t be their last either. We can only hope that with time and initiative, the Academy will be more fair and considerate of their nominations in the future. From my experience, though, they probably won’t be for quite some time.

In either case, the Oscars are still a few days away, and I still have to predict which movies are going to take home the gold. These are my predictions:

Best Picture: I’ll be honest here: I’m stumped. I’m absolutely stumped. Normally, this is one of the easiest categories to predict from the ceremony, but this year, I’m faced with three strong candidates in the running for best picture. What can I say? It’s been a close race this awards season. The Revenant won the Golden Globe and the DGA award. The Big Short won the PGA award for best feature film. Spotlight won best overall cast at the SAG awards. These accolades place each of them on equal footing in their reach for the night’s top honor. Who’s going to get it?

Considering the other accolades that it’s expected to get that night, my best guess is going to be The Revenant. Read on to find my reasoning.

Best Director: So nine times out of 10, the winner of the DGA award also wins the best directing Oscar at the Academy Awards. Call it movie science. There was only one time this decade where the DGA winner wasn’t even nominated for best director, and that was Ben Affleck for Argo in 2012. Every other winner this decade matches up with the Academy Award winner. Since this year’s DGA winner was Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu for The Revenant, he’s the most likely to win this year’s Oscar.

If he does win both best picture and best director, that will not only make him a five-time Academy Award-winner, but also the first director in film history to win best picture and directing Oscars in consecutive years. It’s an honor Inarritu deserves. The Revenant was not the most action-packed film of the year, but it is easily the most contemplative, compelling, and impactful. It would have been the best film of 2015, if it wasn’t released in January.

Best Actor: It’s already sickening enough that Johnny Depp wasn’t nominated for his mesmerizingly evil performance in Black Mass. If Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t win his long overdue Oscar for The Revenant, then all it truly lost for this prestigious category.

Best Actress: Ever since Room premiered in Telluride, Brie Larson has been racking it in for her portrayal as a traumatized mother seeking peace and understanding in a new world her and her son are only beginning to adjust to. To take the honor from her now would just seem ludicrous, as she seems locked for the award after winning the Golden Globe, the Critics Choice award, and the SAG award. Brie Larson is primed and ready to receive her Oscar. Root for her come Oscar night.

Best Supporting Actor: Did you know Rocky Balboa himself never won an Academy Award? It’s true that his movie did, with the first Rocky picture taking home best picture, best director, and best film editing at the 1976 Academy Awards. But Sly Stallone himself never won an Oscar as an actor or screenwriter, despite his career taking off due to the Italian Stallion. His time has finally come. Not only was Creed one of the best pictures out of the franchise, but Stallone himself gives one of the most pure and honest performances out of any other actor from the year. Give Sly his Oscar, guys. You could argue he’s just as overdue for it as Leo is.

Best Supporting Actress: I’ve flipped-flopped a ridiculous amount of times on this category, as there are once again three deserving candidates who have good chances at taking home the award. Kate Winslet was concerned and caring as an almost sisterly figure in Steve Jobs, while Rooney Mara was equally compelling in Carol as this star-crossed 1950’s teenager who was hopelessly lost and heartbroken by her love. There’s no denying, however, the outstanding year Alicia Vikander had, who besides starring in The Danish Girl had breakout roles in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Ex Machina. To make a decision between these three actresses is nearly impossible, but since the SAG award is on Vikander’s side, I’m going with her.

Best Animated Feature: Inside Out. It’s not only the best animated film of the year, but also arguably one of the best films of the year, period. Don’t bet against it.

Best Documentary Feature: I think it’s safe to say that Amy is going to take home the award for best documentary feature. Not only has its acclaim on the late British singer Amy Winehouse’s life been top-notch, but it was also a massive financial success, grossing over $22 million at the box office, a rarity for documentary films. Now even though box office numbers have never been a good indicator on how the Academy will vote, it does accurately show the public’s reaction to a film. Since it has fared so well with American audiences, it’s doubtful that Academy voters will vote against their preferences. It’s wise to go with Amy.

Best Foreign-language Feature: Son of Saul won this year’s Golden Globe for best foreign-language feature. Since the Golden Globe winners for best foreign-language films have been mostly consistent with the Academy Award for the past five years, it would be best to bet on that one too.

Best Original Screenplay: If we’re being really picky, I think we can all agree that the best screenplay out of all of the nominees here is Pixar’s Inside Out. However, since we’ve already decided that it’s going to win best animated feature, I don’t think that would be fair to the other nominees if it won in this category too, now would it?

My bet, then, goes to Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, which is not only the best live-action nominee out of the list, but also the most relevant. Sexual assault is a big problem in today’s country, and one that often gets overlooked. But McCarthy handles the subject with respect and urgency in Spotlight, ushering a call to action to end sexual violence wherever we may find it, whether it be in a neighborhood or a church pew. It is one of the most important films you could see in 2015. To not recognize it for its credibility would be an absolute sham.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Here’s the best thing I can say about The Big Short: it knows exactly what it is. It is an irreverent, funny, obscene, smirking, yet tragic adaptation of one of America’s biggest financial crises. It knows it’s based off of real events and people, and it uses that to its advantage in moments of self-awareness and quirky comedy. While it is debatable whether it is the “best” adapted screenplay of the year, it is without a doubt the most clever. For that reason, I’m going with The Big Short.

Best Film Editing: In order to correctly predict this category, you need to replace “best” with “most.” The movie with the “most” editing is The Big Short, as editor Hank Corwin cuts in between multiple perspectives, cameos, explainers, and B-roll footage that will make your head spin. Does that make his work the best out of the year, though? I would contest that it doesn’t, and I would put Spotlight in its place as the superior. While it had a steady pace and took time to build up big ideas, Spotlight followed through its story with precision and clarity. There was no wasted space in this movie, as we understood everything we needed to know at the exact moment we needed to know it. Such editing is difficult to do skillfully, and Tom McArdle balances pace excellently with this complex, sensitive story.

But I don’t think McArdle is going to get it. Corwin will for his spasm editing on The Big Short, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s not much of a good thing either though.

Best Cinematography: Poor Roger Deakins. He’s been nominated for the Academy Award for best cinematography 13 times now, ever since he was nominated for The Shawshank Redemption in 1994 (Which was the year he should have won, by the way). He’s going to have to wait even longer. Sicario looked great, but the best-looking film of the year by far is The Revenant, and that’s due to the pure ambition of Emanuel Lubeski’s scope of filming, with the adding challenge of shooting completely in natural light. If he wins the Oscar this year (which he will), it will be very well-earned. Sorry Roger. You know I’ll be rooting for you next year.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: I don’t see how shaving Charlize Theron’s head and by throwing white powder on a bunch of set extras constitutes a best makeup and hairstyling nomination for Mad Max: Fury Road. Yet, that movie is so far the most popular choice for this award. Why? Because a bunch of desert maniacs spray their faces with silver paint? Yeah, that’s award-worthy.

The Revenant, in comparison, had thrusted extensive effort to make Hugh Glass look like a battered, bruised, bloodied, and stitched-up mess after he barely survived an encounter against a grizzly bear. I would like to say The Revenant is going to take home this award, but considering the legwork Mad Max already has behind it, I doubt that will be the case. Mad Max is going to win best makeup, although I hope I am wrong.

Best Costume Design: Sandy Powell has been nominated too many times for best costume design at the Academy Awards. Yes, I know her work is amazing; that doesn’t change the fact that she has become the Meryl Streep for costume design at the Oscars. This year she has not one, but two nominations: one for Carol, and another for Cinderella. It’s safe to assume that the Shakespeare In Love, The Avaitor, and The Young Victoria designer is going to win her fourth Academy Award from this ceremony. The question is for which movie? I flipped a coin, and I’m going with Cinderella. Don’t make me flip again.

Best Production Design: There’s a difference between the best production design and the most obvious production design. The best from this year was The Revenant, as its set design was not only authentic and gritty, but it was also (and this is the important part) invisible. It blended with its environment. You didn’t notice it as much as the other elements in the film, and that’s the point. It’s supposed to provide the illusion that we are in a different place without making it too obvious that that’s the case. Everything in The Revenant breathed of realism and practicality. That is why it’s the best of the year.

The most obvious is… well, duh. It’s Mad Max: Fury Road. And while I applaud the design of its cars and its scenery, it is not the most skilled art direction from the year. Mad Max made great production work and blew it up. The Revenant made great production work and sat on it, reflected on it, and let it breathe in its own space. One such work should obviously be more celebrated than the other, but since the Academy has a history of naming the most obvious production design over the quote-unquote “best”, I’m going with Mad Max: Fury Road. 

On a side note, Academy members should be frustrated at themselves for not nominating Rick Carter and Darren Gilford’s amazing work on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A film hasn’t had such an effect on me since the original Star Wars. To not recognize their work with even a nomination is just plain stupid.

Best Original Song: Well, let’s start with the obvious: the fact that The Weeknd’s “Earned It” got an Oscar nomination over Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s “See You Again” is just plain B.S. Now that I got that out of the way, let’s focus the discussion towards music that’s actually good, shall we? Lady Gaga is undeniably a powerhouse in the music world, but what gives her song “Til It Happens To You” an edge over the competition is how engrained it is in the tragedy of sexual assault on college campuses. It’s combined beauty and sadness creates an urgency of how much of a problem it is we need to fix, and Gaga’s musical influence only doubles its chances of winning. There is a slight chance that Sam Smith can sneak in a win there for Spectre’s “Writing’s On The Wall,” but with only a Golden Globe behind it, that isn’t likely. Go for Gaga.

Best Musical Score: I’m a die-hard John Williams fan. His music is not only the greatest film scores you can listen to, but some of the greatest music, period. He won his first original score Oscar 40 years ago with Jaws, and he’s nominated again for updating his own music in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Nostalgic and beautiful as his music is, however, he won’t win this time, and he shouldn’t either. The most likely and the most deserving winner is Ennio Morricone for his unsettlingly sinister soundtrack for The Hateful Eight. His career has spanned over 60 years, writing scores for The Dollars trilogy, being first nominated for Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, and finally winning an honorary Oscar in 2006. It’s his year to shine. The Hateful Eight’s hauntingly ominous soundtrack still plays in my mind, just as much as Williams’ own wonderful music does.

Best Sound Editing: How do you predict the winner for the Academy Award for best sound editing? By picking the loudest, most obnoxious action picture out of the nominees, that’s how. What nominee is more loud, obnoxious, and action-packed than Mad Max: Fury Road? The answer is none of them. So that’s the one I’m going with.

Best Sound Mixing: Mad Max: Fury Road, for the same reasons as above. 

Best Visual Effects: Before I make my prediction, can I take a second to applaud all of the nominees? Year after year, the best visual effects goes to the movie with the best CGI. With this year, however, all of the nominees had a greater emphasis on practical effects as opposed to computer generated ones. Rotoscoping was used in the place of green screen for Ex Machina. Ridley Scott grew real plants to illustrate photosynthesis during The Martian. Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu filmed The Revenant in natural lighting. 90% of the stunts and visual effects of Mad Max: Fury Road were practical. J.J. Abrams built a real BB-8 droid for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This was a great year for visual effects in film, and that is because of the pioneers in the industry opting for real special effects as opposed to digitally artificial ones. A big salute to all of the nominees, as all of them have pushed the boundaries for what we could achieve visually for films this year.

Now then, predictions. I’m biased towards Star Wars: The Force Awakens for its innovation and invention, but since a Star Wars film hasn’t won an Oscar in over 30 years, I don’t expect the Academy to break the chain now. No, the award will go to Mad Max: Fury Road for its incredible stunt work and ambitious scope of destruction. I guess it pays to be a little mad after all, huh?

And finally, the dreaded short categories. I never have the opportunity to see the shorts, so I’m always completely in the dark on these nominations. I’m just going to throw out the first three titles that I see: Sanjay’s Super Team for animation, Body Team 12 for documentary, and Shok for live action. Good luck to anyone on getting these right.

And those are my predictions. I’ll see you on Oscar night when Chris Rock rips the Academy a new one. If that does happen, at least there’s one good thing that came out of #OscarsSoWhite.

– David Dunn

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Feb 24 2014
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Awards Coverage

OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2013

Ah yes, its that time of the year again, ladies and gentlemen. It’s Oscar time, where forgettable movies to get gold statues, while great movies get ignored.

Calm down, calm down, I’m just kidding. Except not really. People know that I’m openly critical about the Oscars for a number of reasons, mostly because the movies that were nominated were given those nominations by bloviating pundits and not genuine movie lovers. Don’t agree with me? Look at the following movies that weren’t even nominated for best picture: Rush. Harry Potter. The Dark Knight. Pan’s Labyrinth. Black Hawk Down. Fight Club. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rear Window. Psycho. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. 

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy the majority of the motion pictures that are nominated at the Oscars, and I usually agree with their picks of who wins best picture. I absolutely love The Lord of The Rings trilogy, I love Rocky, The Godfather, Slumdog Millionaire, Titanic, and I uphold that Schindler’s List is the best academy-award winner for best picture of all time. Just because those movies deserved it, however, doesn’t mean those other movies don’t deserve mention, and I find it absolutely despicable that the academy snubs pictures that have made a large impact on society. I mean, everyone’s heard of Oliver! before, right? RIGHT?!

Okay, rant over.  This year is a very interesting awards race, with Gravity, American Hustle, and 12 Years A Slave the frontrunners for the best picture race, not to mention all of the other awards in the ceremony. I’ve already written my top ten list of the year, so I won’t bother you with the details of which I think is better. Let’s begin the predictions.

BEST PICTURE: Since Sundance of last year, 12 Years A Slave has been recieving the most steadfast buzz that lasted all throughout the year into this ceremony. While I agree that Gravity is a great frontrunner, I don’t think that consensus is going to change. Plus, look at the academy’s track record. Based off of previous data, the academy loves to give the best picture Oscar to movies based on real events and that statistically grossed less than 100 million. Not only is 12 Years based on the true story of Solomon Northrup, but it also grossed 96 million dollars. I’m sticking to my gut here. 12 Years A Slave is winning best picture. 

BEST DIRECTOR: Everyone seems convinced that Alfonso Cuaron will win the academy award for best direction with Gravity, and that especially seems the case since he won the DGA award as well. I’m not convinced, however, that he’s the most fit for this award. Gravity, of course, was science-fiction perfection, accurately capturing the physics and dangers of space so perfectly that it could have been filmed in space for all we know. Equally as difficult, however, is capturing the cruelty of the slave era in a relentless, gritty, unhinging fashion, and director Steve McQueen did that masterfully all while maintaing his decorum. I won’t be mad if Cuaron wins and McQueen loses, and to be honest, both are very deserving in this award. All I’m saying is that if Cuaron wins, it will be the equivalent of Steven Spielberg losing for Schindler’s List to Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive.

BEST ACTOR: The battle has been in between actors Matthew McConaughey and Chiwetel Ejiofor, both nominated for their roles in Dallas Buyers Club and 12 Years A Slave.I’m going with McConaughey for three reasons. 1) Since his win at the Golden Globes, he’s had a steady winning streak in many award ceremonies, including the SAG Awards. 2) His performance was stunning, sinking into this role of an aggressive party-hard cowboy turned health advocate, and 3) He’s Matthew freakin’ McConaughey. Do I really need to give a further argument?

BEST ACTRESS: Again, this battle is between Sandra Bullock for Gravity and Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine. There are two reasons why Bullock won’t win this year: 1) She won the academy award for best actress a few years ago for her performance in The Blind Side, and 2) I’ve never seen a best actress win for a science-fiction film in any year. So Cate Blanchett is the assumed winner. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: I want every single molecule and fiber of my being to give the award to Michael Fassbender as a hateful slave driver in 12 Years A Slave. His performance was cruel, relentless and teeth-grinding all at once, and was so despicable as a villain that he surpassed Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in Django Unchained. He won’t win it. The dominant opinion has been swayed towards Jared Leto in his transformative performance as a transgender AIDS victim in Dallas Buyers Club. While I commend his bravery and his ability to slip so effectively into this role, it doesn’t change the fact that his performance didn’t shake me as much as Fassbender’s did. Fassbender played the more striking character: he’s the one that’s more deserving in the award.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: This is the only acting category where a consensus is generally already made. Besides Ejiofor, Lupita Nyongo stood out both as a character, as an actress, and as a spiritually broken slave who lost all hope at life and at happiness in 12 Years A Slave. Her performance truly broke my heart, and she deserves no less than the academy award for best supporting actress. 

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: This battle is between writer-director David O’Russell and Spike Jonze, both responsible for their respective films American Hustle and Her. Because it takes a lot more ambition to write about a middle-aged man falling in love with a computer than it does to write a historically based crime-comedy-drama, my best is on Spike Jonze’s Her. Just because its a smarter story, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a better one.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: If 12 Years A Slave is going to have any chance in the best picture race, it needs more of a push than best supporting actress. It’s going to get that extra push in this category. Not only is it among the year’s best, but it is one of the most spellbinding stories of the year, only barely straying from the original text that Solomon Northup wrote all those years ago. Not only will John Ridley win for 12 Years A Slave: he deserves it. 

BEST ANIMATED FILM: I’m one of the relative few that did not enjoy Disney’s newest feature Frozen, a story based on the “Snow Queen” fairy tale about two sisters trying to save each other in a crumbling kingdom. While the characters were fun and energetic, they were equally annoying and ditzy, especially whenever the stupid trolls were on the screen. While I’m less enthusiastic about it, however, it obviously hasn’t disappointed its mainstream audience, garnering a 90% on rotten tomatoes and a rare A+ on cinema score. There’s no question on who’s winning this: Frozen will win the best animated feature award.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: I’ll give Frozen this: it had wonderful music. It deserves no less, then, to win the academy award for best song for their brilliant track titled “Let it go.”

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: A few years ago, The Social Network won best original score for its energetic beats and its fluid synthesized sounds. For these reasons will Steven Price not only win the Oscar for Gravity, but deserve it because his music added tension, edginess and paranoia to Gravity’s already heart-pounding premise. 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Emmanuel Lubewski lost years ago with The Tree Of Life against Robert Richardson for Hugo. The Academy will make that up to him this year for giving him the academy award for best cinematography for Gravity, although I’m still sad that Roger Deakins is getting left behind for Prisoners. 

BEST FILM EDITING: Let me say something here: great visual effects doesn’t make for great editing. Likewise, a masterful editor knows not only when to cut away from a shot, but also on how long to stay on one as well. Although Joe Walker is more that deserving to win for capturing the tragic essence of 12 Years A Slave, I believe it will go to Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Sanger for Gravity due to its technical achievements. 

BEST SOUND EDITING: “In space, no one can hear you scream?” Yeah right. I heard a mother in mourning screaming in space for 120 minutes and I was absolutely petrified.There’s no question on which movie this award deserves to go to: Gravity. 

BEST SOUND MIXING: Gravity for the same reasons as above. 

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Gravity. End of discussion.

BEST MAKEUP: Dallas Buyers Club is going to win. If the academy dares to give the award to either Jackass: Bad Grandpa or The Lone Ranger, I’m going to invite them inside my personal port-a-potty and wait for them to realize that its the poo cocktail from Jackass 3.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: I’ve flipped sides on this one a few times now. First I thought The Great Gatsby’s flashy and colorful costumes were going to take home the award. Then I considered American Hustle for its stylish, contemporary costumes. Now, after giving it a second look, my mind is made up: 12 Years A Slave is going to win for best costume design.
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: I was hesitant to name this at first, because honestly anyone can take this one home. The set pieces and designs for all of the film were spectacular in the least, ranging from the financially corrupt society that American Hustle portrayed, to the bleak, barren landscapes of 12 Years A Slave, all the way to the surreal, futuristic Stanley Kubrick-style buildings in Her. I’m ultimately going to guess that The Great Gatsby wins best production design only because it is excellent at displaying the roaring twenties as well as being the most diverse out of any other nominee. 

BEST DOCUMENTARY: This category started off controversial, leaving off one of the most critically-acclaimed documentaries Blackfish off of its list of nominees. Disregarding that, however, look at the other nominees. Out of any of the other selections, which one was talked about the most? Which one is the most controversial? Which one gave a clear, unbiased perspective of a serious issue and let the film show reality as it is?

Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer was praised all around for his film The Act Of Killing, a story about a former soldier revisiting his dark past and facing the truth about the lives he took long ago. It ended up taking many number one spots on many top ten lists, including Sight and Sound’s poll for best of the year. It’s no contest for me. The Act Of Killing is taking this Oscar home. 

BEST FOREIGN LANGAUGE FILM: The more I look into this category, the more I notice that The Hunt has been getting more and more buzz with moviegoers about the Oscars, and is the only nominee to be on IMDB’s top 250 films of all time (although, oddly enough, its listed for 2012 instead of 2013). Despite how praising the word of mouth has is, however, I’m convinced that it won’t win. The Great Beauty has been getting the most buzz out of any other nominee, and that buzz usually isn’t wrong. Plus, my ex-film professor loves it. That’s when you know two things: that it’s a bad movie, and that it’s going to be an Oscar-winner.

And here it is, at last, my three (least) favorite awards categories: the short films. Why do I say that? With the exception of one, I haven’t seen any of them. Nobody has seen them. Point me to one normal moviegoer who has seen any of these shorts, and I will pay him $100 to smuggle in DVD-ripped copies of them to my home theater.

Blehhhhhhh. Let’s finish this.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM: The only one I’ve seen out of any of the films in any of these categories is Disney’s Get A Horse, a buoyant and clever combination of classic 1930’s Disney animation with that of today’s three-dimensional standard. I got this category right last year, but that doesn’t mean I will do it again this year.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM: Cavedigger, because it has the coolest title. 

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM: Helium, because I can’t breathe. 

What are your predictions? Do you think Gravity is going to take the big picture home, or am I shortchanging 12 Years too much? Comment below, let me know.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go write the president of AMPAS an angry letter about why Rush wasn’t nominated for anything.

-David Dunn

Correction 2/25: On the “best production design” category, ‘American Hustle’ was inaccurately identified as being “the roaring twenties that American Hustle portrayed”. The description was intended to go towards ‘The Great Gatsby’ and has since been corrected. 

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Jan 16 2014
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Awards Coverage, Trending

Where Did These Nominations Come From, Kemosabe?

Today is the day. I was looking forward to this all of yesterday, and its finally here. I can hardly contain my excitement: the nominations for the 86th Academy Awards have been announced.

What, you didn’t think I was talking about Librean President Ellen Sirleaf’s anniversary, did you? Of course not, I only focus on things that are important. And what could be more vital, necessary, and inaccessive than handing out a slew of golden statues to over 24 nominees?

All sardonicism aside, I am excited about the nominations this year. I always am. While I am constantly critical about the Academy Awards and the films they snub and spoil consistently, I always look forward to predicting the winners with my family and always beating them out 18 to one. I get even more excited when a movie that wins best picture actually deserves the win. For example: Schindler’s List or Argo.

The nominees are in, and just like last year, there are nine films up for the award for best motion picture, among other awards. The first film that’s up for grabs is David O’Russell’s comedy-crime-drama American Hustle, a smart, surprisingly witty exercise that looks at the financial situations of characters and how it affects their morality. Besides best picture, American Hustle has also been nominated for awards including best film editing, best costume design, best production design, best original screenplay and direction for David O’Russell and all of the nominations for his cast. Seriously, check the list. Just like last year, all of his leads got nominations in every single acting category, with Christian Bale for best actor, Amy Adams for actress, Bradley Cooper for supporting actor, and Jennifer Lawrence for supporting actress. Geesh. Conceited much, O’Russell?

Just kidding. The film is good, and O’Russell is deserving in most of the nominations, although I think ten in total is a bit of a stretch. Tied with Hustle’s nominations is a film that deserves every single one of them is Gravity, a moving, enthralling picture that plays out as a heart-pounding race of survival in outer space. Gravity’s total nominations besides best picture includes best direction for Alfonso Cuaron, best sound editing and mixing, best production design, best cinematography, best film editing, best visual effects, and best actress for Sandra Bullock. Gravity and American Hustle have ten nominations each, making them the films with the most nominations out of any other picture.

Coming up with nine nominations is my favorite picture of the year, 12 Years A Slave, a motion picture that is devastating, cruel, heartbreaking, and thought-provoking all at once. This drama-driven biopic is directed by filmmaker Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame), and its easily his best one yet. 12 Years is nominated for best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best production design, best costume design, best film editing, and best acting nominations for Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbenber, and newcomer Lupita Nyongo, who is the most deserving out of any other nominee in the supporting actress category. Out of any of the other best picture nominees, 12 Years has been getting the most buzz and talk about the Oscars the entire year. I would pay attention to this one if I were you.

Tied with six nominations each is Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, and Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, a story about a dismal father who wants to go to Nebraska to collect a sweepstakes prize that he supposedly won. Nebraska was also nominated for best cinematography, best acting nominations for Bruce Dern and Kate Grant, and best directing and writing nominations for Alexander Payne. He won his second academy award a few years ago for The Descendants with his first being Sideways, so for his sake I hope he doesn’t win again so his head doesn’t get too big.

Dallas Buyers Club is also nominated for best makeup and hairstyling, best film editing, best original screenplay, and best acting awards for Matthew Mconaughey and Jared Leto, who are currently the frontrunners in both categories. Captain Phillips is nominated for best picture, best film editing, best sound editing and mixing, best adapted screenplay, and best supporting actor for newcomer Barkhad Abdi. Surprisingly, Tom Hanks wasn’t nominated for a best actor nomination, and I can’t help but feel really frustrated by this. If you saw the film, you would understand why.

Her and Wolf Of Wall Street both have five nominations, including best picture. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, Her is a light science-fiction romantic dramedy about a lonely older man who falls in love with a computer program. Yes, I know it sounds weird. I still encourage you to seek it out. While it isn’t as straightforward as other movies, Her is an experimental film in every right trying to say something about love and the reliance on technology. Her is nominated for best original score, best original song, best production design, and best writing and picture awards for director Spike Jonze. Even though it has lesser nominations, I’m definitely going to pay close attention to this film.

Wolf Of Wall Street is easily the most controversial out of any other best picture nominee. The opening shot is Jordan Belfort snorting cocaine out of a hooker’s arse, for crying out loud. Regardless, that obviously didn’t slow the picture down. Wolf is nominated for best adapted screenplay, best acting awards for Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, and best picture and direction for filmmaking legend Martin Scorcese.

And lastly, the final best picture nominee is a humble little picture called Philomena, a true story about a struggling writer chronicling the story of an older mother trying to reconnect with her long-lost son. Out of all of the best picture nominees for the Oscars, this one was the least expected and one of the few that I have not seen. Besides best picture, Philomena is nominated for best original score by Alejandre Desplat, best actress for Judi Dench, and best adapted screenplay by Jeff Pope and Steve Coogan, who also starred in the movie.

Also nominated for the evening is films including Blue Jasmine, The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Frozen, Inside Llelyn Davis, The Great Gatsby, and… The Lone Ranger? 

Yes, dear reader, Lone Ranger is nominated for not one, but two academy awards, although I have no idea why. I haven’t seen the film, but reception has been polarizing from both critics and moviegoers, so I can’t imagine anyone being happy about this. It’s nominated for best makeup and hairstyling and best visual effects, which the second one irreverently ticks me off because neither Pacific Rim or Man Of Steel is nominated. Did I also mention that The Lone Ranger was also nominated for five raspberry awards, including Worst Picture?

Other surprises includes Blackfish and… Bad Grandpa? Yes, Jackass: Bad Grandpa is nominated for best makeup, but why the heck is it nominated for an academy award? That makeup looks about as realistic as a halloween mask. I certainly didn’t expect it, and I don’t think many others did either. The seaworld documentary Blackfish, which has been talked about all year, also did not get nominated for best documentary, even though it grossed more than any of the other nominees, save for 20 Feet From Stardom. Why the snub? I have no idea, but it certainly deserves a nomination over Bad Grandpa and The Lone Ranger.

Overall, I’m satisfied with the nominees. There’s a few weird inserts here and there, but generally, most of the nominees are very deserving. My only complaint is that the Ron Howard-directed Rush, a true story about two racers and the rivalries that they shared with each other, was nominated for nothing, not even best makeup, which certainly deserved it more than Bad Grandpa did. The heck man?

On the bright side though, Ellen Degeneres is hosting. Tune in on March 2nd, and you might see Dory make a cameo appearance.

-David Dunn

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Dec 20 2013
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Reviews

“AMERICAN HUSTLE” Review (✫✫✫)

FBI trying to hustle politicians by hustling con artists.

“We’re always conning other people,” says a slurred, yet sure voice in the background. “It’s in our nature. We even con ourselves.” These words are coming from the mouth that belongs to Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), a con artist who quickly learned what it meant to grow up and survive in a harsh economy. Irving is the sort of guy you wouldn’t want to interact with out in public. He is grossly out of shape, he smells of old hairspray and cologne, his crafty eyes hide behind a dark pair of shades, and his diet consists of nothing but beer, fast food and cigars. From an outward appearance, Irving doesn’t really make a good impression. But man, can that guy talk a good game.

After rushing through Irving’s very brief childhood, we are quickly introduced to Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), a woman in her mid-thirties whose beauty is both ageless and captivating. Despite his nauseating physical appearance, Sydney almost instantly falls in love with Irving, and Irving falls in love with her too. So much so that he discloses his illegal business with her, asking her to become a part of him scamming other people out of their hard-earned cash and checks.

That’s all I’m going to get into as far as the plot synopsis goes. Believe me, I haven’t even gotten to the surface of it. There’s an FBI agent trying to catch them named Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), there’s a New Jersey mayor played by Jeremy Renner somewhere in the mix, Irving has a son and a wife he’s committed to named Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence). There’s even a mobster somewhere in this movie where an actor makes a cameo appearance, but I won’t spoil the surprise by revealing who it is (hint hint: He’s got some bad ideas in his head).

Point being: this is a smart movie. It’s funny, original, intelligent, and thoughtful, an observant portrait that looks at the moral and financial struggles of these characters and what impact their actions have on the people in their lives. Part of this, no doubt, is because of the cast’s mastery at delivery. Part of it is also because its writer-director is equally as funny, original, intelligent, and thoughtful as the story is. David O’Russell, who was nominated for best directing and writing Oscars for the past few years now (For Silver Linings Playbook last year and The Fighter in 2010), returns yet again with the same wit, charm, and complexion that made his previous films both unique and entertaining.

The dialogue is authentic, almost like it pops off of the pages of the screenplay just as much as it does in the movie. How though? This is, after all, a work of fiction, right? Wrong. The plot is just is like Irving’s deceptions: they’re only half fake. The movie is based on the real-life ASCAM sting operations of the late 1970’s, in which the FBI arrested over 31 individuals of congress and 7 were convicted of bribery and conspiracy. That sort of realism translates brilliantly to the screen, and makes the conversations characters share feel so personal. Make no mistake, fellow reader: this is, in every definition, a heist picture, because everyone is all after something and are willing to manipulate everyone in order to get to it first.

The cast is unforgettable. So much so that I can’t even pick a favorite among them. Bale is as talented as ever in this movie, a brilliant and dedicated method actor who has immersed himself so much into a role that its hard to imagine that at one point he was Patrick Bateman or Bruce Wayne. Lawrence and Adams are excellent female leads, and are great at expressing how conflicted Irving feels towards the both of them as lovers. Renner is great as the New Jersey mayor, a loving and kind-hearted man, father, and husband who just wants the best for everybody, but ends up making the wrong decisions in trying to do so. If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be Bradley Cooper, only because he is so passionate and wacky that he could have been redone as a cartoon character. Like I said though, I can’t pick one. This cast is so talented and skilled in their roles that to pick one performance over another would be considered a sin. They are just as responsible for bringing this story to life as David O’Russell is.

This movie has all of the elements of being Oscar-worthy material: a great story, dialogue, characters, direction, and a great cast that fills these figures with vibrant energy and personality. The only real problem with this movie is the setup, and that’s unfortunate because that’s one of the most important parts of any movie.

Let me provide an example: when I first watched Goodfellas, what absorbed me into that picture was the first 15 minutes, a little italian boy learning about the mafia as a child, and the first narration we hear being “Ever since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster.” Another one? In the opening scene of There Will Be Blood, we see a touching yet tragic portrait of a man seeing one of his workers die in an oil deposit, leaving behind an infant who can’t even speak, and Daniel Plainview deciding, against his better judgement, to adopt him as his own. Do I even need to mention Up?

All of those pictures started off with a bang because they gave us a perspective into the character’s history before getting into the meat of the story. Not that there needs to be a “How-to” guide for making opening sequences, but American Hustle literally flashes Irving’s childhood for about a minute before throwing us into the plot. I’m all for “show-don’t-tell” stories where they’re all situational, strictly limited to being set in their own present (Such as The King’s Speech or Black Hawk Down), but this one felt too much like being thrown into cold water when you can’t even swim.

Despite my views, I know critics already have their opinions established on this movie. They’re going to say its a masterpiece. That it is masterfully written and acted (which it is) and that it is going going to be nominated for multiple Academy Awards (which it will be as well). What critics won’t realize is the movie itself might be a con, making people believe that it is better than it actually is.

Well, if it is a scam, and David O’Russell is the con artist, then all I’m going to say is that he did a damn good job at it.

Post-script: For you irresponsible parents that are considering taking your teenagers to see this movie, don’t. The MPAA rated this movie R for “pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence.” The violence is very brief and honestly not a large problem. The sexual content, however, is profuse because of Irving’s two sexual partners, and the movie has no shame for showing us any of it. I noticed over 100 F-words.

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Jul 16 2013
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Reviews

“AMERICAN PSYCHO” Review (✫)

Sex, murder, and the decrease of the human condition.  

American Psycho is a vile, sickening experience, a gruesome and aching film incapable of human thought, feeling, comfort, or emotion.  This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise considering the book in which it is based on inspired this same controversy.  Regardless, its achievement cannot be denied: the filmmakers have somehow concocted an experience as brutal, uncomfortable, disturbing, half-lapsed, misogynic, and morally reprehensible as this that they’ve come to completely disconnect with their audience.  I rarely feel this upset about a movie like this.

American Psycho follows the story of Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a successful businessman who works in his high-level office by day and parties fiendishly with his friends by night.  On the surface, Bateman looks like a normal upper-class bachelor.  He eats out at expensive restaurants, drinks exquisite martinis, has sex with beautiful women, enjoys swearing gleefully with his friends, and listens to a variety of experimental music.  In appearance, Bateman is the visible representation of the upper class: stoic, upright, eloquent, fashionable, and spoiled.

As the plot progresses, however, we come to understand more about the darker side of Bateman’s personality.  He doesn’t just have sex with beautiful women: he mutilates them.  He tortures them and fantasizes about killing them in horrible ways and playing with their bodies after he’s done dismembering them.  His kitchen pantry contains axes, blades, and tools he uses for his killings.  He draws his victims in a notebook he leaves at work.  A female head sits next to his ice cream in the freezer.  If there wasn’t wine in his alcohol bottles, it would probably be blood.

Ugh.  Just talking about the premise nauseates me.  Why do we need to experience this?  Bateman is a sickening character, a man who would dismember the head of one unfortunate female and chew off the genitals of another.  Why?  For what purpose?  His motivations are never explained in the movie and his reasonings for murdering women are a mystery to us.  Is there a reason for this?  Is there a reason for being so non-inclusive with your audience? Why must everything be shrouded in secrecy?

This is the film’s biggest problem, besides the violence and the sexuality: Patrick Bateman is a deplorable character, difficult to understand and impossible to sympathize with.  You might think its impossible to sympathize with a murderer of women anyway, but it isn’t really.  We’ve ben asked to sympathize with deplorable characters before, including a psychotic war veteran in Taxi Driver to ruthless murderers and drug dealers in Goodfellas.  Sympathy and interest worked with those characters because one character was struggling to find a line of morality and righteousness to follow, and another was hesitant and even regretful over the actions that he’s done.

Bateman doesn’t regret his decisions nor chooses to change them.  He kills instinctively, almost like he’s trying to prove some territorial point to the people around him.  To put it out there in gruesome, violent fashions like this though is just torturous.  Who wants to sit there, eyes on the screen, watching him laughing as a petite blond girl in front of him cries pleading for her life?

But American Psycho isn’t just sickening, repulsive, and pungnent: the film’s logic is half-lapsed, incomplete, and flawed, incomprehensible to the viewer and extremely frustrating to those trying to figure out.

I’ll give you an example.  There’s one scene where’s Bateman is chasing one of his victims through the hallways of a hotel, half naked, screaming manically, and revving his chainsaw like Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Someone explain to me how no one from the hotel hallway heard the ruckus from outside their rooms, or anyone from the two floors above and beneath him?  Here you have Jack Torrence running through the hallways screaming at the top of his lungs with a lawn mower, and nobody even bothers to call the police.  What?  Are the wooden doors sound-proof?  Who knows, maybe they’re afraid of poking their heads out the door so that they won’t get their heads chopped off.

Due to a revelation revealed later on in the plot, one could argue this is a “dream sequence”, or a “vision” Bateman had.  But how is there any way to know?  With Bateman’s maniacal, wretched mind, dreams feels like reality and reality feels like dreams.  How is there any way to read the subtext when you’ve made your narrative so damn hard to figure out?

And this is a movie that is being hailed as a dark comedy.  A comedy for what, exactly?  The film is two graphic hours of bloody, sickening, gruesome violence and pornography.  When, at any point, is it set up to inspire laughs?  In movies like Pulp Fiction and Fight Club we are at least given subtle moments of clever dialogue to clue us in to the humor, and even though stomach-curling things are happening on screen, we are able to suspend that  briefly in order to enjoy the humor.

American Psycho is not subtle, smart, clever, humorous, or any of the related adjectives.  There’s a point director Mary Harron is trying to express through the film, but that point is convoluted, vague and shockingly illiterate.  As a result, what we’re ultimately watching is an idle, pointless, and misconstrued film, and our reward for watching is hours of punishment, nudity, sexual immorality, blood, torture, macabre violence, and sickening indecency.  To be fairly honest, I probably need a second viewing in order to fully understand the picture, but the plain fact is that the movie doesn’t deserve a second viewing.  If I end the film feeling as punished and as mutilated as Bateman’s unfortunate victims, why on earth would I want to subject myself to that again?

At the end of the film, Bateman himself admits that he finds neither closure nor catharsis for his bloody, violent, sexually immoral and murderous journey.  For that matter, neither do we.

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Jul 02 2013
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The Scope

DC Versus Marvel: Why “The Justice League” Will Not Be As Successful As “The Avengers”

Well, this’ll ruin your morning coffee.  Due to recent developments, I am now convinced that no matter what DC does, that the much-speculated Justice League movie will not be as unique or outstanding as Joss Whedon’s The Avengers was, is, and always will be.  Why all the pessimism?  Call it intuition.  Before The Avengers cinematic universe was conceived, Marvel had a wider grasp of successful projects to boast of, including (but not limited to) Spiderman, X-men, Blade, Wolverine, Kick-Ass, and Men In Black.  DC, in comparison, only has Superman, Batman, and arguably RED and Watchmen as their most successful properties.  Also, I have an unhealthy amount of OCD.  Just thought you should know.

Believe me, I would like nothing more than to see a well-made Justice League movie hit the horizon.  There are as many characters that are as creative and dynamic in the DC universe as there are in the Marvel universe, many of them with memorable stories and villains of their own.  While I want to see a movie eventually, I now believe it will not happen, and if it does, it will not hit the mainstream success that The Avengers did.

Why am I so convinced of this?  DC has every inconvenience against them, and they have to deal with issues Marvel never had to face while producing The Avengers.  I’m not saying Marvel had it easy while making The Avengers.  Lord knows you’ll have a fair amount of doubt and backlash when you try to combine five comic-book properties into one high-adrelanine, action-packed adventure.  Regardless, DC is facing a lot of issues Marvel didn’t have to worry about, including competitive release with The Avengers in itself.

Let’s face facts: When The Avengers was released, we didn’t know what to expect.  All we knew was that it was incorporating six superheroes into one movie, they would be mostly featuring the same actors, the writer/director of “Firefly” was at the helm, and we were hoping it wouldn’t turn into the Saturday Morning Power Hour.  It didn’t, and now we have the exciting, exhilerating, witty, and entertaining Hulk-box-office-smash that The Avengers was.

This is the biggest issue that DC has over Marvel: the comparison game.  If DC would have thought of a plan similar to this ahead of Marvel and released Justice League incorporating elements from multiple DC universe movie properties at once, they would then have had a substantial edge over Marvel and would give them reason to compete for their box office revenue.  But the plain simple fact is that Marvel beat them to it, and now we have something to compare to when Justice League hits the theaters.  How big of a catastrophe is that?  What could possibly compete with The Avengers as far as box-office superheroes go?  I’ll name a few just for facetious effort: X-men, Fantastic Four, and Watchmen.  Now be honest with yourself: do any of those movies stand out in your mind at the level of enjoyment as The Avengers does?

If you’re being honest, it probably doesn’t, and what’s worse is that DC is now pressured into that because Marvel did it first.  But like I said, DC has a lot of issues against them, and many of them have to deal with their very own properties.  Take the following franchises as an example:

THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY

If we were talking about the movies by themselves, there’s no reason for concern.  The Dark Knight trilogy is among the greatest trilogies ever released into theaters, and it not only pleased long-time fans of the caped crusader: it pleased moviegoers who were not associated with the comic books.  The Dark Knighttrilogy isn’t only one of the best comic book movies of all time: they one of the best movies of all time, period.  Very few bad things are said about that franchise as a whole.

Which would enhance excitement to the fans when they think this same character will be incorporated into the Justice League, right?  Wrong.  Producer/Director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David S. Goyer have stated multiple times that the Batman in the new Justice League is not associated with Nolan’s trilogy.  The quote from Goyer pulled from IGN says it all:

“…Zack has said that Bruce Wayne exists in this universe. It would be a different Bruce Wayne from Chris’ [Nolan] Dark Knight trilogy, and it would be disingenuous to say that Zack and I haven’t had various conversations on set, around ‘what if’ and ‘moving forward'”.  

On top of that, Christian Bale himself admitted to Entertainment Weekly that not only will he not be portraying Batman in the upcoming DC team-up film: he doesn’t even know about a release date.

“I have no information, no knowledge about anything. I’ve literally not had a conversation with a living soul. I understand that they may be making a Justice League movie, that’s it”.  

So what is their plan?  End a movie series in 2012, release a Superman movie in 2013, and reboot the character only a few years later?  Don’t they remember how many people saw those movies?  How much people praised them?  How those movies stuck out in people’s minds when someone mentioned the word “Batman”?  What are they thinking?  How on Earth do they think can they replace that?

Now, someone could offer the argument by saying Nolan’s universe was meant to be seen as realistic, whereas the rest of the DC universe wouldn’t be.  To which I respond that as hogwash.  Snyder also saidMan Of Steel was meant to be seen as realistic too, but we all know how realistic it is for an alien from outer space to get super powers on earth, or having a guy dress up in a halloween costume to beat criminals to near death.  The thought of superheroes in itself is fictitious, with powers or without.  So why are we trying so hard to differentiate in between reality and fiction?

Another possible argument someone could make is that The Dark Knight trilogy has ended, and there would be no way to revive the character for the Justice League.  To which I would say you are half right.  If we are talking about the Batman after The Dark Knight Rises then yes, that Batman is no more with us. But what about the Batman in between movies?  There is a two-year split in between Batman Begins andThe Dark Knight, and a five-year split in between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.  Surely, someone could find room to fit Nolan’s Batman into the JL somewhere in that time stamp?

So, already you have your greatest property and you’re sending it out the window.  That’s great.  What else could go wrong?

MAN OF STEEL

I’m just going to go ahead and say this: Man Of Steel was a great film.  It had depth, it had character, it had development, and it had plenty of high-octane turbulent action.  It was a great reboot for Superman, and it was a great jump-off point for a possible Justice League series.  That much I will give to Snyder and his crew.

The complications with the Justice League universe, however, are plenty.  The biggest issue right now is their speculated release dates.  As many of you might expect, Warner Bros. has been trying to push for the Justice League movie to be released in 2016, to be released competitively with The Avengers 2 andStar Wars: Episode VII.  The original plan was to release Man Of Steel this year, release a possible sequel in 2014-2015, and then release the Justice League movie

That puts a great amount of pressure on Man Of Steel, and I don’t think it can handle it.  Again, not to play the comparison game with Marvel (even though I am), but like Man Of Steel, Iron Man was a great jump-off point for The Avengers, even though it was more charismatic and down-to-earth than Man Of Steel was.  It was a great film.  Great enough to jump right into The Avengers though?  Absolutely not.  It had to release four more movies before the buildup to the Avengers was complete and the excitement was at its highest.

Like Iron Man, Man Of Steel is a great film to set up its expanded Universe.  Enough to jump right into aJustice League movie though?  Not even close.  Another sequel, maybe, but to jump right into the DC-team-up film would be suicide.  The announcement of a JL movie that this point wouldn’t be an anticipation: it would be a surprise.  How is that a good setup for a box-office smash?

Also, many other audience members felt the tone was too serious and did not fit into the joyous, silly veins of the original Christopher Reeve series.  To which I would say quit being a stooge and enjoy the movie for what it is.  People who wanted Green Lantern to be fun and silly got what they asked for, and look at how that movie faired with the moviegoing audiences.

Speaking of which…

GREEN LANTERN

Many people hated this movie, and their hate was warranted.  Green Lantern was silly, stupid fun, and that’s all it needed to be.  I for one enjoyed the movie and appreciated it for its confidence, its stellar visual effects, and its smirking charisma.  Others, however, obviously do not share my opinion, and ultimately their opinion as a whole matters more than mine does.

To which I know disregard and ask this: what are you going to do with him now for the Justice League?  They can’t bring this same character in and have him do the same thing he did the first time: that will resurrect everything audiences hated the first time they watched the Martin Campbell film.  What are they going to do then?  Are they going to revamp him?  Recast him?  Reboot him?  Maybe even cut him out entirely?  Batman has a great story behind his success and Superman a great following.  Green Lantern has none of that.  So what can DC do to the character to give him a new spin and a spirit on the franchise?

The list of issues goes on and on.  How are they going to incorporate Wonder Woman into it?  What about the Flash?  Martian Manhunter?  Who would they cast?  Who would be the villain?  And how on Earth are they going to make Aquaman not look stupid???  

Bottom line: Justice League will not be as good as The Avengers.  DC just isn’t prepared for it.  There is the off-chance that it can still be good, exciting, and entertaining blockbuster fun, but I’m convinced that there’s no way that DC can give these characters the same treatment Whedon did for The Avengers solely because they won’t be as recognized as those characters have.  Even if you do give each Justice Leaguer his own movie and give time to set up each character: how do you know you’ll be as successful as The Avengers was?  Won’t you be following a formula at that point?

Of course, there is the off-chance that I’m completely wrong and that the Justice League will be vastly more successful than The Avengers will be.  I’m going to see it regardless of what RottenTomatoes says, and I hope it’ll at least be as good as Man Of Steel is.  But that’s unlikely, and no matter how it turns out, lets just be grateful that Robert Schwentke won’t be directing, writing, or having anything to do with the movie.  The last thing we need is a PG-13 version of RED.

Oh, wait a minute.

Source: EMPIRE, Entertainment Weekly, IGN
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