This is quickly turning into an exciting, unpredictable summer: somewhat because of the films that are more and less interesting than you'd suppose, and especially because the box office is behaving like it had a massive stroke and is throwing out successes and failures in random, even arbitrary ways. That's not exactly something we should have to care about as cinephiles, but as somebody who wants to be a fan of big popcorn movies but very often finds them to be too buffed and test-marketed to be at all interesting or unique, I consider anything that forces to studios to concede that they don't actually know as much about creating simplistic mainstream fare as they like to pretend to be an absolute good. More random personal projects, fewer franchise entries, please.
And having said that, the two wide releases I'm looking forward to this month are franchise entries. But then, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
7.6.2013
In case you were wondering: neither of those movies - emphatically comes in this traditional dead zone of a release weekend, though if I were forced to pick, I'd say that The Purge, with a strange but unique sci-fi/horror premise is going to be objectively better, and more up my own alley. Because The Internship, in which Google product placement money pays for Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn to recite jokes that might have been socially relevant as recently as five years ago, doesn't like like any kind of competition whatsoever.
12.6.2013
Speaking of things not up my alley: This Is the End is notable primarily for how many people in the Seth Rogen-Evan Goldberg sphere of influence appear as fictional versions of themselves. Given that the total number of people in the ensemble that I'm still excited to watch doing anything at all doesn't add up to a full integer, I have to confess myself wholly out of the movie's target audience or even the audience adjacent to it, and move on.
14.6.2013
I am not dumb. I swear it. But I am failing, with increasing desperation, to keep myself from getting excited about Man of Steel, the new Superman movie, with the absolute no-two-ways-about it best ads and trailers of any comic book movie for a couple of years or more (the posters have almost uniformly sucked; that's helped keep the edge of). The presence of an untrustworthy actor as the iconic central figure, and even more the fact of Zack Snyder's directing the project - you'll perhaps recall that this blog is a vigorously and redoubtably anti-Snyder zone - should be bigger problems than Amy Adams as Lois Lane and Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent are pluses; yet they are not. Increasingly, I find myself giving up and assuming that I'll totally love the shit out of it, so watch this space for a thoroughly disappointed blogger the following Monday.
21.6.2013
Zombie movies are getting over-exposed; zombie action movies really never worked in the first place. I usually trust Brad Pitt, but no, World War Z does not feel like a film of any presumptive merit.
But the other wide release: ay me. Cue to usual hand-wringing about how Pixar ain't what it used to be, and Prequels, why are they making prequels now, and The trailers are just so bland, don't you think? The fact will remain that Pixar is making Monsters University, and that theoretically means that sight unseen, Monsters University has a better shot at being the best wide release film of the summer than anything else. Even now, they still have the benefit of the doubt from me - that's all there is to it.
28.6.2013
The Heat certainly should be good. Melissa McCarthy has a good sense of comedy, so does director Paul Feig, and Sandra Bullock is at her best when she's being the most silly. But I cannot persuade myself that anything that has been thus far shown from The Heat is going to be good; it looks like a totally generic cop comedy, with the strait-laced prig and the loudmouth wreck, and the blind of swapping out genders is not enough to make this seem any less paint-by-numbers.
Meanwhile, Roland Emmerich continues his multi-decade quest to do terrible things to the White House in movies, with White House Down. Emmerich is as reliable a so-bad-it's-good blockbuster director as we've got right now, and while I'm not expecting 2012-level inanity, I feel like Emmerich and Channing Tatum is a pairing of filmmaker and star that I can ironically support with maximum enthusiasm.
03 June 2013
24 comments:
Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.
Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.
"this blog is a vigorously and redoubtably anti-Snyder zone"
ReplyDelete*glove to face* I DEMAND SATISFACTION!
Just kidding. I'm getting excited about Man of Steel too, despite my serious dislike of Superman. After reading a few interviews with Zack Snyder about where he's taking the character, it sounds like he's coming from a very cool place. Let's hope he finally kicks the speed ramping habit, eh?
And I still keep up hope that Snyder could be one hell of a visionary director, once he matures a bit and maybe gets one or two recognized successes under his belt. All of his films to date, good or not, have been contentious at least, and until he gets that Sixth Sense or Boogie Nights out that lets the suits say "Hey Zack! Here's a shitload of money and freedom!" he will remain a bit held back by the blockbuster arena in which he works.
Also, I really want White House Down to be hilarious.
ReplyDelete"Sir! Terrorists are stealing America!"
"Not on my watch... *cocks gun*... *cocks gun again because, you know, it can only help*"
I'm unabashedly hyped for Man of Steel, I'll admit it. Every trailer and TV spot makes me MORE hype.
ReplyDeleteSnyder...well, he did do that pretty good Dawn of the Dead remake didn't he? He's not adapting other work or writing it himself, so I think we're well clear of Sucker Punch/dat fucking CGI owl movie territory at least. He usually gets good performances and interesting visuals out of his actors, he just needs some guidance on the script from Nolan's crew of Goyer/Johnathan Nolan, and he's getting it. I honestly think this can be the movie of the summer(not counting Before Midnight because it doesn't open in my area and I'm very, very upset about that)
My roommate got tickets to a sneak peek screening of This is the End. I found it merely annoying and gross up until the third act, when it became actually offensive from a Christian standpoint, and I'm not even a Christian, that's how bad it was. One's enjoyment of it depends entirely on one's fondness for the performers and a disregard for story and character to anchor the humor, as opposed to mere vulgarity and shock value.
ReplyDeleteOne thing's for certain- Emmerich will make Channing Tatum look AMAZING.
ReplyDeleteHmm, now I feel like there's something wrong with me... I pretty much love Snyder's work - most of it - excluding, of course, the fucking awful dualogy of Legends of the Guardians and Sucker Punch.
ReplyDeleteI still stand by and defend my opinions of his Dawn of the Dead remake being better than the original (which I never much cared for, to be honest. And yeah, social commentary on consumerism bla bla, I took English and A+'d that shit. The remake is better); 300 was an amazing watching experience thanks to the theatre I was in, which literally stood up, clapped and cheered at various kick-ass moments of the film, and I still love it despite it never quite reaching that pinnacle for me again. Finally, Watchmen, I will contend, is actually better than the comic (in the Ultimate Edition, which I own), largely thanks to the absence of that awful fucking giant squid.
So yeah, I'm very excited for Man of Steel, despite not liking Superman as a character very much. Anyone that has to have arbitrary handicaps routinely introduced against him to make the story last longer than the two seconds it would take for him to fly to *insert destination here* and shoot *insert villain here* in the face with eye-lasers is, frankly, a shitty, ill-conceived creation.
I'm was so with you on the DotD remake thing, then you had to blow all your goodwill on that Watchmen movie > comic part
ReplyDeleteYOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE
WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU
Your opening paragraph made me think you were making a reference to After Earth, so I looked up it's opening weekend numbers (something I almost never do)...
ReplyDelete...and holy shit the movie about magicians made more money than a big 'ol summer blockbuster starring Will Smith. I guess it didn't matter that they kept M. Night's name off of this thing. Oof.
I really hope this puts an end to Will Smith's quest to shove his kid down the public's throat.
When I saw the trailer for The Purge I was willing to bet money that it was directed by the same guy that did The Strangers. But nope. Regardless, the trailer doesn't make me very optimistic for this one.
A little off topic, but, speaking of summer horror films, have you seen the trailer for The Conjuring? That one intrigues me (at least the first trailer I saw; they could have released another one since then that is awful).
The Watcher - I'm with ya on Snyder. I like him. I really, really liked Watchmen, warts and all. The only one of his that I don't know that I can be sold on is Sucker Punch. But I like him enough to give it another shot someday.
You all are crazy. I can't believe the Snyder love. I want to punch him in the face repeatedly for making me waste precious hours on my life on, bar none, one of the worst films ever, EVER, in Sucker Punch.
ReplyDeleteThe trailers for Man of Steel are flashy but I literally have no faith in the creative team behind the camera. Directed by Zack Snyder? With a screenplay by David S. Goyer? If it's good I'll eat crow but I have grave reservations about it.
@KingKubrick THEN I SHALL FIGHT YOU SIR!
ReplyDeleteHehehe. Actually, what's hilarious is that my love for Zack Snyder is almost entirely based in my love for Sucker Punch. I loved Watchmen, but it was too long. There's only so long my ass can stay in one place unless you're a better filmmaker than he. A miniseries, perhaps? I bought it on Blu-ray, unaware that it only contained the Director's Cut and Kee-ripes it was long. At a certain point they mentioned the Comedian and I was like "Oh yeah, he was in this movie wasn't he?". Great movie overall though.
I haven't seen 300, Owls of O'Houlihan, or Dawn of the Dead (I liked the original too much).
As for Sucker Punch, I will only say that the theatrical cut should never have been released, and the Extended Cut is one of my favorite films.
I'd argue that anyone who doesn't like the giant squid kinda misses the whole point of the "superhero satire" layer of Watchmen. Ozymandias claims to be the smartest man on earth...but he's still stuck thinking in superhero cliches, to the point where he gets the idea for how to end the cold war out of a comic book, and that simplistic, goofy idea of his is plainly and obviously pointed out as being a complete failure (the two most blatant ways in which it is shown to be a failure, not a success, are obviously the final page, as well as Ozymandias's "I did it!" victory hand-raise, where the arms combined with the yellow spotlight over him demonstrates that the time till nuclear apocalypse is still 10 to midnight). The point here being that superhero methods are useless for solving real-world problems.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Zach Snyder is hideously bad. I wonder who directed Dawn of the Dead under that Zach Snyder pseudonym.
@KingKubric - Sure, but that's only one movie. Hell, if you want to discard filmmakers for making one bad film, then I guess the Coen brothers, Woody Allen, Scorsese, George Romero, Carpenter, Cronenberg, et. al, all have to be ignored from now on, right?
ReplyDeletePardon the hyperbole, but that's the kind of strawman your argument seems to imply.
@David Greenwood - You have only the director's cut, my friend. Your version is 186 min, mine is 215 (though the only difference is the inclusion of TotBF).
I love this line here :
ReplyDelete"Given that the total number of people in the ensemble that I'm still excited to watch doing anything at all doesn't add up to a full integer..."
More snide film criticism in the form of a question on a Non-Calculator Higher Maths paper, please.
Note to self: when you need a big explosion in the comments, name-drop Zack Snyder.
ReplyDeleteI've found the trailers for Man of Steel to be ugly and cynical to a one, and aside from the supporting cast I can't muster any goodwill towards the project at all.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost there for World War Z, though, because I suspect it's going to be the flop of the summer. A PG-13 zombie movie that Damon Lindelof had to reshoot the last 40 minutes of because Marc Forster delivered an incoherent wreck? It's got "spectacular botch" written all over it.
My take on Zack Snyder is that he's a naturally talented director who has thus far, in his short career, failed to articulate his potential. I confess to being incredibly, unashamedly hyped for "Man of Steel" - the trailers I've seen and the word of mouth I've heard so far point to it being extraordinary. Snyder and Goyer's track record be damned - maybe it's the hand of Nolan at work behind the scenes alchemising the proceedings. Whatever, I believe the evidence of my own eyes, and what I see looks fucking awesome.
ReplyDeleteI'll gladly eat my hat if the final product proves me wrong, mind you.
Every time Snyder comes up, my film geek cred gets threatened, because (with the exception Legend of the Guardians, which I haven't seen) I've pretty much loved every movie he has ever made.
ReplyDeleteNobody except maybe James Cameron films action as well as Snyder.
Personally, Nolan's involvement worries me more, as nothing in his canon makes me think he's a good choice for anything involving Superman.
@KingKubrick I am well aware that there exists a version of Watchmen even more stupefyingly long than the Director's cut. I've still got to get the rest of the way through Satantango, so I'm afraid that's waaaay down on my queue.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I can't get excited about "World War Z". George Romero by way of 9/11, starring the digital mutants from "I Am Legend", with a PG-13 rating? Meh. The fact that they slapped that rating on it pretty much tells me all I need to know about how much faith the studio has in it.
ReplyDeleteIf I want a gripping, take-your-breath-away look at the start of the zombie apocalypse, I'll pop in the first 10 minutes of Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead" remake (to bring it back to the thread topic). That opening is still the single best thing in his whole career.
@ The Watcher,
ReplyDeleteSnyder hasn't just done one bad film though. Dawn of the Dead is good in the sense of a well done piece of genre filmmaking but nobody, even its most ardent defenders, call it great cinema. 300, I was stoked for when it came out as I was around 20 years old and the trailer was one of the best ever, but is anyone going to honestly say it's aged particularly well? Aside from that, I thought Snyder acquitted himself well with Watchmen (missing the primary thematic goals of the source material) mainly because he rendered entire panels, shot for shot, from an all-time classic comic book. But to compare Sucker Punch to the worst film produced by the Cohen, Cronenberg, Woody Allen, Scorsese, and Carpenter is ludicrous, borderline heretical. All those filmmakers were geniuses before they produced misfires while Snyder is mediocre at best. Also, none of the worst of their worst comes even close to the terrifying lows of Sucker Punch. I mean, I respect all of your opinions, and you are entitled to them, but let's get real for a moment. A couple well edited trailers from a CGI heavy summer popcorn movie made on a big budget and I'm suppose to forgive Snyder's many failing all of a sudden? Sorry, I can't take that leap.
Like I said before, this film may well be excellent, and I'll apologize for doubting Snyder if it is. But I highly doubt it. I'm fine with the fact that others find Sucker Punch a fine film with redeeming qualities but I didn't and haven't found a compelling argument to make me do so.
@David - I think you meant to reply to me, mate
ReplyDelete@Kubrick - See, the difference here is that, now, you have clarified that you aren't a fan of him in general, and that's a lot better than what you stated before, which is that we should all tell Snyder to go fuck himself because Sucker Punch, thereby implying that he deserves to be discounted because of one bad movie, notwithstanding all the others. That's the reason why I called your argument a strawman and went all hyperbolic in here.
I disagree with you, and your respectful opinion. In my mind, Snyder's version of Dawn of the Dead is the superior film, likewise for Watchmen being superior to its graphic novel origin. 300 is a cool little flick, which, while not having aged as well as it could, doesn't take away from its impact back in 2006, which I distinctly remember.
You have all the right in the world to dislike whatever you choose, of course, but saying those who you disagree with are crazy may not be the best foot forward in a discussion. It instantly makes everyone else defensive.
@Watcher,
ReplyDeleteThe "you all are crazy" remark was just meant to be a little cheeky, I didn't literally mean everyone was crazy for liking Snyder. My apologizes if you took it that way.
You can like the movie better than the book if you like, I guess, mindboggling as that seems to me. But I don't think you can claim that they're remotely about the same thing. Alan Moore's Watchmen is about how fucked in the head you'd have to be to dress up in silly costumes to fight crime. Zack Snyder's Watchmen is about how ultraviolence is fucking sweet. I mean, okay, whatever floats your boat, but there's just no justifiable way you can claim that Snyder does what Moore does but better--because he's simply not DOING what Moore is doing.
ReplyDeleteHere's a different experience with Snyder: I thought 300 was pretty goofy and don't remember it particularly fondly. I got extremely excited for Watchmen, saw it and liked it, then gradually came to feel it had missed the point of the novel severely and downgraded it. I have never seen Dawn of the Dead, Owls: The Movie With the Owls, or the extended cut(s) of Watchmen.
ReplyDeleteThen I heard about Sucker Punch, thought it looked kind of goofy, read a bunch of reviews attacking it for all sorts of horrible things, figured I ought to see it just to be in on the conversation, and lo and behold, I liked it. Really liked it, even though I can easily admit to all sorts of flaws and ethically dodgy things going on in it. Liked it so much that it's made me want to go back and watch all of his previous work to understand him better. There is a love of all-encompassing grandeur, ridiculously heightened situations, and gorgeous images set to stunning music there that I just couldn't resist.
Also, I'm a huge fan of Superman. So needless to say, I'm having to continually temper expectations out of fear I will ruin the whole experience for myself.