Everyone Must See This: A Review of GomBurZa

 directed by Pepe Diokno

written by Rody Vera, Pepe Diokno, Ian Victoriano

Prior to watching this, I had not set foot in a movie theater since August, to watch Sony Pictures video game adaptation Gran Turismo.  To put it simply, I had simply given up on movies. Having consumed a pretty steady diet of franchise films over the last several years, I had found myself increasingly worn down by the endless stream of sequels, remakes and reboots, even of film series that I enjoyed, and although there was the occasional original gem like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once to keep me going to the theaters, the expense of going to see a movie as well as the lure of sitting at home and streaming decent movies onto my television became too hard to resist.

And then, like a breath of fresh air came the historical drama GomBurZa, a film based on the events that led to and culminated in the martyrdom of three Filipino Catholic priests, which in turn provided the spark for the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

The story begins when the Spanish friars belonging to the Order of the Recoletos move to take control over several parishes being run by secular priests, men of the cloth born in the Philippines to Spanish fathers and native mothers, whom the "pure-blooded" Spanish friars regard with disdain.  The film begins with secular priests Mariano Gomez (Dante Rivero) and Pedro Pelaez (Piolo Pascual, in a substantial supporting role) and seminarian Jose Burgos (Cedric Juan) discussing this alarming development over breakfast. Pelaez and Gomez have long been advocates for equal treatment for friars and secular priests, and Pelaez in particular, the direct mentor of the young Burgos, makes his thoughts known in the local newspaper, much to the fury of the friars. 

Then, disaster strikes, and the newly-ordained Burgos finds himself without a mentor. Keenly aware of the ever-encroaching influence of the friars and of the discrimination he faces as a half-Spanish secular priest, Burgos finally writes his own manifesto and submits it to the newspapers, albeit anonymously, in which he passionately advocates for the rights and the better treatment of the secular priests born in the islands to mixed parentage, whom he dubs "Filipinos."   

Little does Burgos realize that his lone manifesto sets off a seismic chain of events, sparking the flame of resistance among the young men he teaches law at the University of Santo Tomas, and even among a posse of gentlemen who, like him, are of mixed parentage, and who are tired of the power-hungry friars.  They even adopt the term "Filipino." Things seem to look better when a supposedly liberal Governor General Carlos Maria de la Torre assumes leadership of the Philippines Islands. 

But when De la Torre is replaced with the draconian Rafael de Izquierdo, things take a truly dark turn when a series of draconian policies he imposes spark a mutiny among soldiers based in Cavite, the blame for which is inexplicably placed on Burgos, Fr. Gomez, and compulsive gambler Fr. Jacinto Zamora (Enchong Dee) who had nothing to do with Burgos' progressive leanings but who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Philippine colonial history knows how this particular story played out, but Diokno, his cast and crew have done a remarkable job of making this story accessible to the uninitiated almost purely through dialogue. His eye for atmosphere is astonishing; it really does feel like we're witnessing something happening in the 19th century, and he extracts such stunning performances from his actors that even my two young daughters raised  on a steady diet of franchise movies found themselves thoroughly engaged in the narrative.  Remarkably, however, the film never talks down to its audience, which is a temptation that a lot of historical dramas bearing messages are unable to resist.

Cedric Juan, in particular is simply riveting as Padre Burgos. He delivers dialogue in three different languages: Tagalog, Spanish and even Latin, and though I'm hardly an expert in the latter two I dare say he delivered his lines with utmost conviction and credibility. The supporting cast delivered similarly compelling performances but it was Juan who truly stood out.

The overall production value was outstanding as well. I'd like to give special mention to the musical score by Teresa Barrozo and the gut-wrenching sound design by Albert Michael Idioma, Louie Cadag and Melvin Rivera.

This film brought me back to a time when the Metro Manila Film Festival was something to look forward to, a time when Filipino movie producers put their very best work on display at a time when they would have movie theaters all to themselves for two weeks.  In the late 90s the MMFF featured memorable films like Jose Rizal and Muro Ami, among others, and so I'm glad this year's edition seems to have brought back the tradition of featuring quality films and not just box-office fodder.

10/10

This is How You Sell a Video Game: A Review of Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story

directed by Neill Blomkamp

written by Jason Hall, Alex Tse and Zach Baylin

On paper, the idea of adapting the Sony Playstation game Gran Turismo into a feature film is downright ridiculous. Unlike a huge percentage of Sony's game catalog, Gran Turismo, a driving simulator by nature, does not have any story elements whatsoever. Fortunately for Sony, though, they had an ace-in-the-hole that enabled them to crack this particular nut: the incredible true story of Jann Mardenborough, a kid from Cardiff, Wales, who won their GT Academy contest and actually went from being a gamer to an honest-to-goodness race car driver. Jann's story is very loosely adapted in this film by director Neill Blomkamp of District 9 fame. 

In the film Gran Turismo (Based on a True Story) Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), an expert player of the Gran Turismo game, lands a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when he gets to join the GT Academy, an elaborate marketing stunt dreamed up by Nissan marketing exec Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) to boost the sales of Nissan's cars. The idea is to recruit the world's best Gran Turismo players and turn one of them into a real racecar driver. Of course, the idea is insanely dangerous, and so Danny has recruited one-time racing prodigy Jack Salter (David Harbour) to oversee the training of these hopefuls, who hail from all over the world. Jann joins the contest over the objections of his father Steve (Djimon Hounsou) a former football player who thinks the whole endeavor is a waste of time, but Jann is determined to pursue his dream of becoming a racecar driver...no matter the risks.

Last year, I watched the adaptation of Uncharted starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg and basically hated it.  It was an Uncharted film in pretty much name only, retaining none of the charm of any of the four games on which it was based, and quite frankly, didn't do the game any favors. 

In contrast, this film, which is more a sports movie than an adaptation of the game which, as I mentioned, doesn't have any story to adapt, trots out nearly every cliche imaginable in sports movies, especially underdog stories, but my goodness, it works.

Thanks to a winning cast led by David Harbour and relative newcomer Archie Madekwe, who share fantastic chemistry as mentor and student, and some eye-popping racing sequences which make very creative use of drones and cameras mounted on really fast cars, Gran Turismo manages to be a wild ride from nearly start to finish.  It admittedly takes a little while to get off the ground, but when it starts, the action doesn't stop. 

Ironically enough, for a film based on a computer game, it makes minimal use of computer-generated imagery for its racing sequences, save for some pretty interesting visuals showing a car "assemble" around Jann as he drives in his game.  The car racing scenes here are, I daresay, on par with the racing scenes from acclaimed motorsport-themed movies like Ron Howard's Rush or James Mangold's Ford v. Ferrari, in terms of camerawork, cinematography, sound-editing and just overall craft. They are genuinely spectacular and are, I would argue, the film's main draw.

A criticism often levelled at the film is that it is a plug for the game, and while I wholeheartedly agree that it is a plug, I don't consider this a bad point.  It absolutely is a plug for the game, because  that's the whole point of its existence. That is the whole point of the studio's existence, in fact: to get more people to buy the games.  The filmmakers aren't chasing after Oscars or making deep commentary on the human condition; they're basically just making entertaining romps designed to whet people's appetite for video games and this film, in my opinion, fulfills its purpose. 

I just consider myself lucky, as a viewer and a gamer, that I got a decent story and some pretty memorable action sequences in the bargain.

8/10 

Loads of Pink Fun: A Review of Barbie

 directed by Greta Gerwig

written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

It took me a while to catch the biggest live-action movie of 2023 in theaters, but as a father of three daughters, all of whom own or have owned Barbie dolls, I was not about to skip this one.  Fortunately, it was worth the trip, and the price of admission.

Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives the perfect life in Barbieland along with many other Barbies, who basically run the place, and the Kens who live there but don't really do anything but hang out at the beach.  Foremost among the Kens is the one played by Ryan Gosling, who basically lives for Barbie's affirmation, even though she barely even acknowledges his presence. 

Then, rather abruptly, Barbie's perfect existence is disrupted when strange things start happening to her; she starts thinking about death, her perpetually tiptoed feet are suddenly flat, and she finds that she has (gasp) cellulite. On the advice of the other Barbies, she pays a visit to weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who lives on the edge of Barbieland. Weird Barbie tells Stereotypical Barbie that the reason she's experiencing these things is that the person playing with her in the real world is undergoing these experiences and advises Stereotypical Barbie to go to the Real World and work things out with her "player." Stereotypical Barbie makes the trip to what turns out to be Los Angeles, only to discover that Ken has stowed away. 

What greets Barbie and Ken as they arrive in a real world is an experience that will change both their lives forever.

I had a good time with this one, I have to say.

This movie is, in my opinion, neither the masterpiece its most ardent fans proclaim it to be nor is it the apocalyptic disaster that right-wing haters decry it to be. It isn't "mid" either but a genuinely enjoyable, funny time at the theaters. I enjoyed the visuals, Margot Robbie's and Ryan Gosling's acting, and even the performances of the peripheral characters like Ariana Greenblatt's rebellious teenager, Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie and Simu Liu as a "rival" Ken.  Gosling, for me, was the absolute star of the show with his comedic chops on full display as well as his show-stopping musical number, which, notably, only he had.  

I honestly didn't give too much thought to the supposed "woke" or feminist subtext because if I'm honest I don't feel the movie took itself nearly as seriously as its most rabid critics claim. I can write a whole other post about why those on the right are being complete idiots about this film (and probably will).  

That said, it does have its faults. For example, co-writer Noah Baumbach stinks up the dialogue every now and then with his pretentious, verbose dialogue, such as when Barbie, out of nowhere, spouts  out some self-aware quip with words whipped out of a thesaurus. It was funny enough as a joke one time, but it happens two or three times in the film.   I found it mildly annoying.

The real crime for me, though, was how the filmmakers cast Will Ferrell but barely gave him anything to do. We're talking about a generation's funnyman, but he barely has anything funny to say or do. They could have easily cast anyone else in the role and it wouldn't have made any difference.

All told, though, I had a lot of fun watching the movie and was glad to have had some quality father-daughter time with my girls.   

8/10

All Too Familiar: A Review of Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part I

 directed by Christopher McQuarrie

written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendersen

Tom Cruise is a wizard.

Around December 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a story that went around the entertainment press about the troubles facing the production of Mission: Impossible 7 which was taking place in London at the time.  The trouble was that members of the crew had been caught violating the ultra-strict COVID-19 safety protocols and as a result, star and producer Tom Cruise, still in costume, went ballistic on the crew in an expletive-laden rant. There was  a picture of him, dressed in character, wearing a mask, holding a megaphone and looking very much like the man in charge he was. That story dominated the conversation about this movie for years until the marketing began in earnest, and all they could talk about was the stunt of Tom Cruise jumping off a cliff with a motorbike. 

And now, the movie came out after literally years of people talking about its production...and it's...okay.

After a lengthy prologue in which a Soviet submarine is sunk by its very own targeting system, which is operated by an Artificial Intelligence, the Impossible Mission Force contacts Ethan Hunt (Cruise) with a mission: recover a cruciform key to unlocking the very A.I. that sunk the Soviet submarine. It is an extremely potent AI, capable of basically taking over the world, so naturally ever other government in the world wants its hands on that key, as does the AI itself. Knowing what it does, which is apparently nearly everything, the AI also has another ace up its sleeve; it has engaged the services of Gabriel (Esai Morales) a highly effective assassin with a bit of history with Hunt; he murdered his girlfriend years  ago, which spurred Ethan to join the IMF. With an adversary this formidable, will Ethan and his allies Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) be able to save the day? And how will the intervention of master thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) affect everyone's plans?

I'll say it again, Tom Cruise is a wizard....because he has somehow convinced over ninety percent of critics polled by Rotten Tomatoes, as well as several other people, that this film is a high watermark of action filmmaking.

Now, don't get me wrong: it's a very competently made action thriller, but the problem I have with this film is that so much of what supposedly makes it special is stuff that we have already seen before, whether in previous installments of this very series or in rival franchises like the John Wick films. 

Take, for example, the gun battle in the beginning of the film; it feels like warmed-up leftovers after the madness of John Wick 4 earlier this year. None of the hand-to-hand fights in this film even begin to compare to the show-stopping men's room fight in Mission Impossible: Fallout which featured Cruise's Ethan Hunt, Henry Cavill's August Walker (complete with his now-iconic "arm reload") and an extremely formidable opponent.  The car chase through Rome feels like something that's been done too many times before, whether it was in John Frankenheimer's Ronin, Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity, Sam Mendes' Spectre, or even Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.  Finally, the film's signature stunt, the motorcycle jump off a cliff, felt like a retread of Fallout's HALO jump.  

Once upon a time, the M.I. guys, when it came to practical, flesh-and-blood stunts, were pretty much the only game in town. Other blockbusters had already started leaning heavily on computer-generated imagery for their action sequences, but Tom Cruise and his indefatigable stunt team, bless their hearts, kept things real. This was  endearing to critics and audiences, and it made each new installment, starting with Brad Bird's sublime Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol feel like an event. 

Unfortunately, in the twelve years that have passed since Ghost Protocol, stuntmen like Chad Stahelski and David Leitch have started directing and producing movies, bringing their distinct sensibilities with them and suddenly, we have movies like Nobody, Kate and of course John Wick filling our screens, big and small, with white-knuckle, heart-stopping action sequences that feel as real as they possibly could without causing the stars of the films serious injury. It's become a very crowded marketplace, in short.

I'm looking forward to the end of this series, because as with Indiana Jones, I think this franchise has pretty much run its course. I just hope they go out in style. 

7/10

 

Sending Indy Off...Again?!? A Review of Indiana Jones: the Dial of Destiny

 directed by James Mangold

written by John-Henry Butterworth, Jez Butterworth, David Koepp and James Mangold

I'll be blunt; I despised Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As far as I was concerned, the franchise ended with Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones literally riding off into the sunset with his dad played by Sean Connery and his friends played by John Rhys-Davis and Denholm Elliott in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  The fourth Indiana Jones movie felt distinctly tacked on, and worse still, as I watched it, I got the distinct impression that nobody involved, from Harrison Ford to Steven Spielberg, really wanted to be there. 

As a result, when they announced a few years back that they were actually developing a fifth Indiana Jones movie, back then with Spielberg still slated to direct, I honestly did not mind.  I didn't even mind when they announced that Spielberg had stepped back from directing duties, with James Mangold, director of Logan and Ford v. Ferrari, both movies that I loved, taking over.

I only started getting worried when I read about its lukewarm reception from critics and audiences, as well as the plethora of right-leaning critics dogpiling the film as "more woke trash" thanks to the prominent role of British writer/actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge.  

Still, I persevered, and watched it, and you know what? In spite of everything, I actually liked it, despite its bloated running time, Bridge's admittedly obnoxious character and some pretty chuckle-inducing CGI at key moments. 

The film starts in 1945 in the dying days of World War II, with Indy (a digitally de-aged Ford superimposed over a much younger body double) and his buddy Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) stealing an ancient artifact called Archimedes' Antikythera, the titular  Dial of Destiny, from the Nazis, headed by physicist Jorgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen).  Indy and Basil jump the Nazi train just before Allied Forces blow it up, and presumably all's well that ends well.

Flash forward to 1969. The moon landing has just taken place, and Indiana Jones is old and embittered due to a personal tragedy that ruined his marriage to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and is basically going through the motions of his teaching job until his retirement, when he is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of two different people: Basil's daughter and Indy's goddaughter Helena (Waller-Bridge) and Voller, now going by the name Schmidt and flanked by several U.S. government agents, having been recruited by the U.S. government after World War II to help them win the space race. Both parties want one thing that Indy has stashed away in the university where he works: Archimedes' Antikythera. The madcap adventure that follows leads Indy halfway across the world, from Morocco to Sicily as he races against time to prevent Voller from using the dial for a truly nefarious purpose.

To be clear: if this movie had come out as a direct sequel to the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I would probably have despised it.  While it was, if nothing else, a competent action-adventure movie, it really wouldn't have made sense to append it to a trilogy made by a master filmmaker at the very height of his powers.

The fact is, however, that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was so bad it created the need for this film.  There is simply no other way to put it.

On its own, the film has its merits.  The action sequence that opens the movie, as well as the madcap car chase that takes place through the streets of Morocco featuring two cars and a tuktuk, of all things, were genuine fun that, in my opinion at least, captured some semblance of the spirit of the original films, if only just.   The remainder of the action was hamstrung by either too much darkness like the underwater and cave scenes or some very regrettable CGI, like the big climax.  Harrison Ford still cuts an amazing figure even at 80 years, though he was aided and abetted quite a bit by CGI and a body double, especially in the beginning sequence.  Mads Mikkelsen turned in his usual solid performance as Voller, while Boyd Holbrook, who once menaced Hugh Jackman in Mangold's Logan, played yet another homicidal henchman. I actually liked the CIA Agent played by Shaunette Renee Wilson, but she didn't have a whole lot of screentime, nor did Antonio Banderas' diving expert Renaldo. The supposed "new blood" introduced by the movie didn't really do anything for me at all, whether it was Waller-Bridge as Helena, or Ethann Isidore as her sidekick Teddy, who was sort of an updated Short Round with a creepy little moustache.  I would much rather have had a cameo by Ke Huy Quan, to be honest, but that was not to be, unfortunately.  

I'd argue, more than anything, though, that the script was what let this movie down time and again, with its easy reliance on numerous tropes as well as some really sloppy storytelling, like the magical device that enabled the bad guys to know exactly where Indy and company were heading after each escape. While it's easy to bash any movie that features CGI these days, and this film is no exception, I think it's worth pointing out that Industrial Light and Magic did a very decent job de-aging Harrison Ford and mapping him onto a younger actor capable of physical derring-do. Sure, they used the age-old trick of shrouding it all in darkness, but that's their prerogative anyway. 

When the film ended it left me feeling much, much better about the franchise than the last one did, but I will say this: it really is time to let this franchise end. 

7/10

Familiar but Still Kind of Fresh: A Review of Elemental

 directed by Peter Sohn

written by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh (with Sohn)

Elemental marks the first time since 2017 that Walt Disney Pictures has released into theaters on a worldwide scale an original film not based on any previous property like Toy Story or The Incredibles. It carries a heavy burden of a sort, especially considering that Pixar's last theatrical release post-pandemic, the spinoff Lightyear, flopped upon release a year ago, costing the studio millions and the director his job. 

Set in a fantastical world populated by anthropomorphic versions of the four elements, air, water, earth and fire, the film tells the story of fire girl Ember (Leah Lewis) the daughter of immigrants to Element City Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) who run a convenience store which Ember is set to inherit when her parents retire. The only problem is that Ember has a bit of a temper, which makes it challenging for her to deal with the inevitable difficult customer, as a result of which Bernie puts off retiring as long as he can. One day, however, he puts her in charge of a major sale, during which Ember of course loses her temper yet again. As she rushes down to the basement to blow off steam, however, she ends up bursting water pipes that had long thought to be dry, and ends up sucking city inspector and water guy Wade (Mamoudou Athie) into her home. Desperate to prevent Wade from reporting her father's stores various infractions to City Hall, Ember tails Wade and pleads with his boss air lady Gale (Wendy McLendon-Covey), and is given the briefest of reprieves to fix the problems. In the days that ensure, Ember and Wade learn to work together, unbeknownst to Bernie and Cinder, to solve the store's problems and experience the unlikeliest of attractions to each other.

This is Peter Sohn's second feature length film from Pixar, the first being 2015's The Good Dinosaur, a film which, even before Pixar was waylaid in its momentum by the pandemic, had the dubious distinction of being the rare Pixar film that a) bombed at the box office and b) was frightfully boring.

The good news is that Elemental, for all its flaws, is, at the very least, not boring. It tells an engaging story about two generations of immigrants and how the children of immigrants often face the dilemma of living up to their parents' dreams.  Sohn, who came up with the story, draws on his own personal experience as the son of Korean immigrants, and it shines through in the interaction between Ember and her aging dad, which is played very effectively by voice actors Leah Lewis and Ronnie del Carmen, the latter of whom is actually a veteran Pixar animator who has worked on some of their most significant movies like Inside Out and who, in my opinion, deserves to direct his own movie more than Sohn deserved this second crack at directing after the grossly mediocre Good Dinosaur.  Ahem.  Well, at least this movie is not about cowboy dinosaurs like that one was, so the narrative works when it focuses on the parent-child dynamic.

The fire and water love story, however, which was front and central to the film's marketing and is supposed to be a central aspect of the film as well, is nowhere near as compelling as the filmmakers seem to think it is. Sohn mercifully eschews the more conventional aspects of the "meet cute" such as an openly antagonistic relationship between the two characters, but even then he cannot help but have the characters drift into cliche time and time again. It doesn't help that, if I'm frank, Ember can be distinctly unlikeable while Wade, despite his clearly tragic backstory, seems genuinely uninteresting.   In short, fleshing out the two protagonists as individuals, instead of leaning much more heavily into Ember's complicated, culturally-infused relationship with her dad, would have really helped the love story along a lot more. 

The good news, though, is that the film is drop dead gorgeous. Sure, it is highly evocative of the visuals of Zootopia, another movie with diverse anthropomorphic creatures living in a city, but Pixar clearly tried to give this film its own visual identity, including each of the key characters.  

I also appreciated a lively score by Pixar mainstay Thomas Newman, best known for Finding Nemo and WALL-E.  While Newman's signature sound permeates it, there are new elements like new-age, Enya-like vocals supplementing it as well this time.

This is a far cry from Pixar's best work, but I'm grateful for it, and if they are to continue to convince audiences to catch their movies on the big screen instead of at home on Disney+, they need to keep making movies along this vein and, I hope, with better storytelling. 

7.5/10 

Grotesquely Bad Faith: Why the Flash Deserved to Flop

 I generally don't cheer when a movie fails. I've given bad reviews to movies I don't like, regardless of their success or failure, but I don't generally celebrate a movie flopping. 

I will make an exception for The Flash, though, even though I haven't seen it, because more than anything in recent memory, it illustrates Hollywood's unparalleled hubris when it comes to making movies. 

Well before The Flash began principal photography, Ezra Miller was caught on video choking a woman in Iceland in April 2020. I found this news story such an oddity when it first broke, but the world was in lockdown then and there were other things to worry about, so I forgot about it.   Warner Brothers was fully aware of this and yet pushed through with Miller, shooting their blighted movie a year later, in April of 2021.  Incidentally, around the same time, they fired Johnny Depp from another movie because of his legal troubles (that he eventually overcame), but more on that later. 

When Warner Brothers finally dropped a trailer for The Flash in early 2022, I suddenly found myself remembering that April 2020 news report and asking, "whatever came of that?" I even posted a vlog entry about it on my now dormant YouTube channel. The story had been quite effectively buried; I couldn't find anything more substantial about it than people sharing opinions on message boards.  Not a lot of people watched my video, but some of the few who did reacted dismissively, saying that I was making a big deal out of nothing, with at least one commenter saying "dude, it was a joke" with no real evidence to back up this assertion.  I wanted to make it a jumping off point for discussing how hypocritically selective Hollywood's cancel culture is, considering what had happened to Johnny Depp, but as a talking point it kind of went nowhere.

It's pretty common knowledge what happened after that; Miller's legal troubles came to light, one after the other, Warner Brothers embarked on a bizarre marketing campaign that excluded Miller, but included random celebrities like Tom Cruise and Stephen King, and the film went on to flop in the most spectacular fashion imaginable, with its second weekend box-office drop being the worst in the history of the now doomed DC Extended Universe. 

I'd like to reiterate: Warner Brothers had a pretty good hint of the s**tstorm to come when Miller choked that woman in Iceland a full year before a single frame of The Flash had even been shot. With shooting halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, they had a full year to recalibrate, including the opportunity to recast the role with someone who wouldn't have been a lightning rod for controversy, like Grant Gustin for example. For reasons only they know, though, they thought they could magically make their problems go away by pretending Miller's shenanigans never happened. 

It is debatable whether or not Miller's legal problems were what effectively kneecapped The Flash's box-office prospects, but what I respectfully submit is not up for debate is that this was entirely and completely avoidable. Warner Brothers could have fired Miller the same way they fired Johnny Depp, but they chose not to, and I wonder if we'll ever find out why.  Whatever they would have lost in buying out Miller's contract, assuming they even had to, could not possibly compare to the tens--possibly hundreds--of millions they are now destined to lose on this movie.  I find myself cringing at the arrogance of the Warner Brothers execs who greenlit this movie thinking that what was happening in the real world would not ultimately affect their bottom line. It's fitting that their heads rolled long before this movie was crapped into theaters, though part of me wishes they'd been around to reap the fruits of their hubris. 

Warner Brothers' rivals over at Disney/Marvel would do well to pay attention, given that two of their own stars are now facing legal troubles of their own. Now, while admittedly Jonathan Majors and Tenoch Huerta may triumph over their legal troubles as Johnny Depp did, Disney should, at the very least, tread carefully.

SPOILER DISCUSSION on Across the Spider-Verse

 Again, HEAVY SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.  It admittedly seems silly to still be putting spoiler warnings for a movie that has already been in theaters for around a month, but I want to make absolutely sure nobody stumbles onto this post by mistake. 

One of the greatest virtues of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is, ironically enough, one of its greatest vices as well. It deconstructs the notion of what defines Spider-Man by challenging one of the very central pillars of the Spider-Man story: tragedy.

Miles Morales, the central character of Across the Spider Verse and Gwen Stacy, who is arguably his co-lead in this film, have both experienced their fair share of life-defining tragedies.  Miles' uncle Aaron who moonlighted as the Prowler, died at the hands of the Kingpin, while Gwen inadvertently killed her best friend, Peter Parker, who fought her to the death as the Lizard. 

According to the Spider Society led by Spider-Man 2099, however, this isn't enough; just as Peter Parker, in his many iterations across the multi...err...Spider-verse, has had to suffer the death of Captain George Stacy, so must Miles suffer the death of his police captain father (as he did, incidentally, in the 2018 Playstation 4 game Spider-Man). So committed, in fact, is the Spider Society to bringing about this "canon event" as they call it, that they imprison Miles to make sure he cannot prevent it from happening.

Now, this was a real "wait, what?" moment for me and not for the reasons that I think the filmmakers may have intended it to be.

The idea of imprisoning someone who is out to save his father's life is, to the best of my knowledge as a regular Spider-Man reader for nearly forty years, not something any Peter Parker would agree to, let alone a multitude of them.  This is NOT the same thing as Peter Porker telling Miles he can't save everyone in the first film after his uncle's death at Kingpin's hands, nor is it the same thing as Peter Parker of the PS4 game choosing to save New York with the cure for the city wide pandemic, even if it means that Aunt May dies from the disease in the process. This is hordes of different versions of Peter Parker, agreeing that a precognitive process that is, at best, questionable, should take precedence over the impulse to help people, which is what Spider-Man does. The film is asking us to believe that Peter Parker, or worse, MANY Peter Parkers, would agree to let people die and would even IMPRISON someone out to prevent it.

Suddenly, the Spider Society doesn't feel like a realm full of Spider-Mans nearly as much as it does a realm full of Spider-Man editors, those eternally anonymous, utterly insufferable bogeymen who have, for decades, foisted narrative abominations on hapless readers like "Sins Past," "One More Day," and most recently, "What Did Peter Do?"  These people are the real reason why Peter Parker cannot hold down a regular job, unlike, say Clark Kent, or keep a stable relationship, unlike, say Reed Richards; because his life, like that of an eternal adolescent, has to remain mired in tragedy, trauma and personal setbacks. Peter has actually obtained a graduate degree throughout his sixty years of existence in publication, but depending on which branch of editorial you ask, some would say he hasn't even graduated from college.

Miles is no exception to Marvel's addiction to tragedy; in the early, Ultimate Universe iteration of the book, his mother Rio died from a gunshot wound, which actually caused Miles to quit being Spider-Man. Marvel walked the death back when they transplanted him from the Ultimate to the mainstream 616 universe, but elsewhere, Miles has seen his dad die (the PS4) game, or his uncle (Into the Spider-Verse).

I appreciate the fact that this movie pushes back against that concept and its proponents, and even ends on a cliffhanger that strongly suggests that for Miles to lose his dad would only push him into villainy, contrary to the Spider Society's thesis that he needs the tragedy to become a fully-realized hero.  It's something that needs to be said, after all. There is far more to being Spider-Man than just reacting to personal tragedy.  

My problem is that in trying to make this point, the movie dehumanizes its army of Spider-Men into mindless automatons ready to do Spider-Man 2099's bidding, a whole bunch of sheep who have bought wholesale into this concept of "the canon" without any semblance of critical thinking, which seems problematic when one considers that most incarnations of Spider-Man are supposed to have, as their alter-egos, geniuses. 

I enjoyed the movie, make no mistake, but in trying to make a broader point I feel it undermined its narrative ever so slightly. I don't know if anyone else shares my opinion, but I stand by it just the same. 

Defining Spider-Man: A Review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

 directed by Kemp Powers, Joaquim dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson

written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Dave Callaham

This review, like my viewing of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, is a bit of overdue, in part due to my soon-to-be-ex internet service provider, and in part because I actually struggled a little with what I wanted to say about this movie, which I honestly found brilliant but a significant part of which I actually found problematic. I won't be able to discuss that without spoiling plot points, so I'll keep my review short and post the usual spoiler-review follow-up.

In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which takes place a little over a year after the events of the first film, Into the Spider-Verse, we find Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) adjusting to his life as both Spider-Man and a high school student, when he encounters a new foe, the Spot (Jason Schwartzman) a former scientist who was apparently transformed into a living portal gun by the events of the last film, and who has since turned to a life of crime. Because of the Spot's ability to create portals into other dimensions, he has also come up on the radar of Gwen Stacy, aka Ghost Spider (Hailee Steinfeld) who, in the beginning of the film, joins up with a society of Spider-Men from multiple realities, led by Miguel O'Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac).  She tracks the Spot back to Miles' home universe and cannot resist the urge to meet up with Miles, even as she tries, and fails to catch her quarry.  Miles, who has missed Gwen and his other Spider-friends terribly since the end of the last film, follows Gwen back to the Spider Society's massive headquarters and even accompanies them on their mission to capture the Spot.  When Miles does something that apparently violates one of the central tenets of the Spider Society, things degenerate fast. Will Miles be able to get home in time to stop the Spot from carrying out his nefarious plan?

The film is superbly made and is a visual masterpiece. After changing the game with the first movie, it was hard to imagine how Sony would be able to top themselves, but they managed to just the same, and everyone involved basically brought their A-game, from the directors and animators, to the voice actors like Moore, Steinfeld, and Isaac, to composer Daniel Pemberton. The artistry on display here is simply second to none. It's not just like watching a comic book come to life; this basically feels like an entire art gallery.

That said, well, there was a story beat that I found out of place, but I dare not discuss it lest I spoil several key plot points. It should be said, though that even in the face of this problem I have with the story, I'm only docking the movie one point. It's simply that good.   

9/10 

Bigger and Better: A Review of Extraction 2

 directed by Sam Hargrave

written by Joe Russo

I'll be honest; I thought so little of the first Extraction film that I didn't bother to watch it until nearly a year after its release, content to watch it on my phone while waiting for my wife.  I had no interest in most of Netflix's movies, finding them to be generic, forgettable affairs reminiscent of the straight-to-cable movies of old.  I ended up enjoying it way more than I thought I would, so much so that when the sequel, Extraction 2 dropped last Friday, I made sure to catch it on the biggest screen I had access to, so I plopped in front of my modestly-sized TV and tuned in. 

At the end of the first movie, mercenary/exfiltration expert Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) was shot in the neck and fell off a bridge in India, and as a result, he spends much of the beginning of this movie being nursed back to health by his colleagues Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) and her brother Yaz (Adam Bessa). He is then apparently retired and living in a cabin in Austria when he is approached by a mysterious man (Idris Elba) who has a job for him: exfiltrate the wife of a vicious Georgian crime lord (Tornike Bziava) and her kids from the prison in which he has forced them to live alongside him as he serves his prison sentence.  It's a bit personal for him, as well; the wife Ketevan (Tinitin Dalakishvili) is the sister of Rake's ex-wife Mia (Olga Kurylenko).  What is supposed to be a surgical exfiltration gets extremely violent, and as result, Tyler and his team have the crime lord's entire gang, led by his vengeful brother (Tornike Gogrichiani) hot on their heels as they attempt to flee the country with Ketevan and her kids Sandro (Andro Japaridze) and Nina (Miriam and Marta Kovziashvili).  Will they make it out? 

As an action movie, this film ticks all the boxes for me: just enough story to keep everything that happens coherent, actors with strong screen presence, and tightly-choreographed and shot action sequences with striking visuals and a propulsive soundtrack. This has all the grit of the best movies from the John Wick franchise and, if I'm honest, never feels repetitive the way some films from that franchise often did. Sure, the plot barely holds the whole thing together and would probably not stand up to anything even resembling scrutiny, but director Sam Hargrave, his cast and crew keep things moving along so briskly that it isn't worth taking the time to wonder if things make sense. It's just a rip-roaring, good time in much the same way the first one was, only this time the storytelling feels even tighter. 

Outside of his tenure as Marvel Studios' Thor movies there is not a whole lot that I have liked Australian actor Chris Hemsworth in, but at least that list has grown. I thought he was great as James Hunt in Ron Howards' criminally-underappreciated Formula One film Rush, and now, well, I think he's great here. I also especially liked Golshifteh Farahani's Niki, a hard-boiled, ass kicking woman that puts to shame a great majority of the so-called "strong female characters" infesting too many movies these days.  There's not much to say about the cookie-cutter bad guys, but the hell they put our heroes through made for some incredibly engaging viewing. 

My only real gripe with this movie, if I'm perfectly honest, has little to do with its craft and everything to do with Netflix's insistence to keep a film like this, which would be perfectly at home on the big screen making big money, away from movie theaters. It is honestly frustrating to see a wide-screen adventure like this confined to a platform which quite frankly diminishes the viewer's experience, and yes, I have to take that against the filmmakers who agreed to make this movie under those conditions.

It seems that a third installment of this franchise has already been greenlit, and I, for one, would honestly love to see it up on a movie screen.  

8/10 

The Film that Marvel Studios Needs to Make

As of writing, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has grossed around $660 million at the global box office and is still going strong. While Marvel fans everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief, I, for one, am not convinced that they are out of the woods yet.

 

 

Obviously, the issue audiences had with the last few Marvel movies was never really the so-called "superhero fatigue" and it was always clear that people would come to see a movie if it was good, i.e. if it told a compelling, entertaining story. That said, it has to be acknowledged that superhero movies, particularly those of the Marvel variety are prone to several tropes that can often limit the filmmaker’s ability to tell the best story possible. Whether it's the overabundance of humor, generic villains or the perception of low stakes, the presence of one or more of these tropes often makes it hard to convince viewers that Marvel isn’t telling a story as much as they are selling a product. Guardians transcended that with some pretty well-written and hard-edged storytelling that, among other things, managed to convince the audience that the characters were in actual peril.  Almost all of the marketing focused on how this film was the “last ride” of the Guardians, with the implicit threat that one—or even ALL—of them could die before the movie was over. After all, Marvel had already killed off a couple of its marquee characters in Avengers: Endgame. This created an urgency to watch the movie, and infused the story itself with a bit of urgency.  Not all of Marvel’s upcoming movies are going to be like this, and it’s probably safe to say that most of them won’t be like this.

 

Now, emphasizing a character’s mortality is far from the be-all and end-all of engaging storytelling. There are plenty of terrible movies out there in which important characters die left and right. That said, when a storyteller creates likeable, relatable characters, then introduces the very real possibility that they won’t make it to the end of the story, then it becomes that much easier for the audience to get invested in these characters’ fates.   To be fair, Marvel has shown willingness to kill off some of its key characters, albeit under specific circumstances, like big event movies like Avengers: Endgame.  

 

Here's a thought, though: What if, at the very outset, Marvel told a story which introduced likable, relatable, compelling characters who were not guaranteed to make it to the end of the movie? To make it even more extreme, what if the question Marvel posed was not which of the characters would die before the end of the film, but rather, which of would actually live to see the end?  What if I told you all that there is a thirty-plus year old Marvel comic book out there that has told stories exactly like this, solidly entertaining but with the added element of impending peril for its heroes?

 

Strikeforce Morituri, created by Peter B. Gillis, Brent Anderson, and  Whilce Portacio was a monthly series published by Marvel comics from 1986 to 1988 which featured an alternate Earth that was distinct from the “616” Earth that is regarded as the mainstream Marvel Universe. In this version of the Marvel Universe, the usual Marvel superheroes only exist as fictional characters, and the Earth has been conquered by marauding aliens known as the Horde.  The planet’s only hope is a select group of people who have been endowed with fantastic powers through a process developed by a Finnish scientist which, morbidly enough, has been dubbed, the Morituri process. Unfortunately for these brave volunteers, within roughly a year from the time they get their superpowers, they are destined to die because of them. 

 

You read that right: this book tells the story of characters whose deaths are basically guaranteed.  When one looks at all of the characters on the cover of the comic book, the question that comes to mind isn’t whether or not any of them will die, but how long they’ll make it before the Morituri process claims their lives.

 

Now, Gillis didn’t create these characters to be glorified Star Trek red shirts or eventual zombie victims in the Walking Dead.  Each character gets their due. There isn’t a lead character who serves as the story’s anchor while everyone around them drops like flies. No, to Gillis’ credit, he gives each and every member of the team defined characteristics well beyond their superpowers and the certainty of their deaths.

 

The first six members of the team in the early issues are a remarkably diverse bunch for a  comic book was spawned in the 80s, back when the word “woke” referred to getting someone out of bed.  They are Harold Everson, aka Viking, Lorna Raeburn, aka Snapdragon, Louis Armanetti, aka Radian, Jelene Anderson aka Adept, Robert Greenbaum aka Marathon, and Aline Pagrovna, aka Blackthorn. This, clearly, is not a male-heavy group (or one with especially inventive codenames). Other characters would eventually be introduced as members of the original six would die off one by one as the story lived up to its premise.  

 

Ironically, this comic book was a commercial failure; its publication run lasted under three years, and apart from three collected editions of its thirty-tree issues, it’s gotten very little love from Marvel on the whole. It’s never even been rebooted. To my mind, however, the reason why it failed as a form of serialized storytelling is the very thing that makes it potent material for a film adaptation: its characters’ stories inevitably end.

 

Imagine not having to lock actors into multi-film contracts or having to figure out how to retire characters when a big storyline ends. Imagine being able to just focus on the here and now of telling a gripping story about heroes fighting off an alien invasion.  Marvel could actually focus purely on telling the story, without having to worry about what comes next. And as Marvel stories go, this one is full of richness and nuance, like the very best that 80s comics had to offer.  Between the heroes' constant struggle with their accelerated mortality to the fact that the aliens have actually become Earth pop-culture junkies, there are amusing commentaries on consumerism and the military-industrial complex. There's even a little bit of geopolitical commentary mixed in there somewhere, and all without the beat-you-over-the-head self-indulgence of much of today's "woke" storytelling.  

 

It may not be the most kid-friendly storytelling, but Marvel’s core demographic of 18 to 34 year-old males will almost certainly eat all of this up if the movie is directed by the likes of the Russo Brothers or James Gunn.  Also, thanks to the whole multiverse concept that Marvel has now embraced, there won’t be any problem telling a story set in a separate reality from the one viewers are familiar with, and it wouldn’t affect the bigger MCU.

 

It's not all good news, though. From a visual perspective, the story and characters would require quite a lot of reworking, and not just because this story was created in the 80s. The costume design and overall look of the heroes is generic at best, but the real problem is the design of the pink-skinned horde aliens, each of whom walks around with what appears to be a very prominent scrotum for a chin. Suddenly, that joke from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 doesn’t seem quite so ridiculous anymore.

 

At the end of the day, the fact remains that Marvel needs new material, and I, for one, hope they show willingness to think outside the box. 

In my humble opinion, a film or series of films based on this short-lived series could help Marvel get back to their roots and rediscover what has made their films a global phenomenon. 

Why James Gunn's Departure to DC Doesn't Hurt The Way Bryan Singer's Did

 So with Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, we have come to the end of an era that was kicked off in 2014, back when a quirky independent filmmaker with a mostly horror-movie background took a bunch of D-list Marvel characters, who included a talking raccoon and a walking, talking tree, and turned them into a global box-office sensation.   Writer-director James Gunn has very publicly declared that this is his last Guardians of the Galaxy film and that he has crafted this story to serve as an ending for these characters, and to be fair, he has completely delivered  on that promise.  He has also decamped from Marvel Studios, the studio that gave him his big break, and is now presiding over DC Studios, who have had a considerably more troubled time than Marvel getting their film slate off the ground. Gunn's first film for DC?  A new Superman film tentatively titled: Superman: Legacy.  

To those old enough to remember, or who have a fondness for reading about these things, there might be something vaguely familiar about how this has played out.  Maverick filmmaker with strong indie background gets a big break to direct a property based on Marvel Comics characters, then gets poached by Warner Brothers to direct a Superman movie?  This has happened before, only the filmmaker involved was Bryan Singer. 

This time, though, it's different, and I'm happy to talk about why. 

Back in 2003, Bryan Singer was red-hot following the release of X2: X-Men United, which made a then-stellar $407 million at the global box-office off a $120 million budget, got great reviews and was regarded by many fans as a high watermark in superhero movies. Unfortunately, though, even with this success, Singer's clout wasn't nearly enough to get the suits at Twentieth Century Fox, led by Tom Rothman, to agree to the kind of budget that Singer felt was necessary to execute his vision for X-Men 3.  After all, it wouldn't be for another five years that a comic-booked based movie, The Dark Knight would gross a billion dollars, and it wouldn't be for another nine years that a movie based on a Marvel Comic book, The Avengers, would gross that much. Comic book movies based on Marvel properties were, at the time, far from the sure thing at the box-office that they became during the heyday of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Singer haggled for more money, but Fox management was intransigent.

Suddenly Warner Brothers came along and offered Singer a blank check and the opportunity of a lifetime: to revive their dead Superman franchise, which had not been seen in theaters since 1987.  Singer left the X-Men franchise to do Superman Returns, which infamously flopped at the box-office. Fox went on to do X-Men: The Last Stand without Singer, ironically handing a budget of $210 million to the eventual director Brett Ratner. That movie didn't necessarily flop financially, but it went on to live in infamy as the film that derailed the X-Men franchise, irreparably damaging it. 

Singer and Fox would eventually mend their fences, and Singer would go on to direct X-Men: Days  of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse for them. The first of these two movies was a hit, but the second one wasn't, and for the second time, their relationship would end in tears and would leave the X-Men film franchise with even more scars which, as of date, have yet to heal. But that's another story. 

The Singer/Fox breakup, with Warner Brothers swooping in to play the third party, was an especially ugly story, but even though, on the surface, James Gunn's split with Marvel resembles it, it was, in reality, much easier to accept for a number of reasons.

 For one thing, when Singer left, the X-Men franchise was on the verge of truly taking off, with Singer having lined up the seminal Dark Phoenix story for his next film. Fans were robbed of what this story could have looked like in the hands of a competent director, and if I'm perfectly honest, the X-Men franchise as a whole never fully recovered from that. Singer would eventually come back to Fox thanks to Superman Returns flopping, but the damage had been done and things were never the same again.

In contrast, James Gunn has been able to comprehensively share the tale of the Guardians of the Galaxy, with a great deal of love for the characters and a keen eye for excellent storytelling. We had ten years to savor the work he's done for Marvel, compared to the paltry three we had with Bryan Singer before he was whisked off to DC.  We got to enjoy the best Gunn had to offer Marvel, whether it was his films or his input on the various scripts that Kevin Feige threw his way. This guy truly helped build the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a true  powerhouse of cinema.  Fans don't have to wonder about what could have been, like they did with Singer, because they got to see Gunn's work in all its glory. 

On a related note, back when Bryan Singer left the X-Men, there were only two movies in the franchise.  In contrast, the MCU was a fully-fleshed out universe by the time Gunn announced his departure from Marvel, with three whole phases having been completed in fine style thanks to Avengers: Endgame. In short, there's nothing to regret. Whatever the state of the MCU may be right now, there are, at least, glory days to speak of, unlike the then-burgeoning X-Men franchise, which basically felt like it had been killed off in its infancy. 

Finally, whatever may be going on behind the scenes, there is no open acrimony about Gunn leaving, even though Marvel basically precipitated this by firing James Gunn in the first place due to old, admittedly inappropriate Tweets. This paved the way for Gunn working over at DC and producing The Suicide Squad and, perhaps more importantly, the much-beloved Peacemaker series.  Fortunately, Kevin Feige never gave up on his buddy and got the big brass at Disney to take him back and let him wrap up his trilogy. Singer's parting from Fox, as I understand it, wasn't exactly amicable, and as I wrote before, everyone, from Fox to WB to the fans, lost in that scenario. In Gunn's case, I'd say everyone wins: Gunn learned a valuable lesson about the internet being forever, Marvel got a heartfelt, well-crafted finale from Gunn for the Guardians of the Galaxy, and DC Studios now has serious hope for the future with Gunn in charge. 

Does it hurt that Gunn is leaving? Oh, absolutely, especially given the visible decline in quality of the MCU's releases post-Phase III.  Apart from Spider-Man: No Way Home, there has been very little to really cheer about in Phase IV of the MCU, and Phase V started off an a truly embarrassing note with the critical and commercial failure of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, so the high quality and success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, while most welcome, are also a sad reminder that we won't be seeing James Gunn's work on a Marvel movie again any time soon, if at all.  But if he has left for good, then at least he's left in the best way possible: on a high note.  

Quo Vadis, Guardians? A Spoiler-Heavy Discussion of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

WARNING: HEAVY SPOILERS FOR GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3

When James Gunn started hyping up Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, which is his third Guardians movie and his last work for Marvel Studios for the foreseeable future as he now heads off to run DC Studios, he promised an ending for the franchise, and he delivered one.  Nobody died a la Vision, Natasha Romanoff or Tony Stark, but just about every key character arc of each of the individual team members was quite neatly and definitely concluded. As trilogy cappers go, it was reminiscent of some pretty satisfying third installments from different franchises, like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or The Bourne Ultimatum.  I specifically mention those two movies because the very good work they did in wrapping up their respective trilogies was unceremoniously undone by ill-advised follow-ups which left both critics and audiences cold.  With so many of their Phase Four releases floundering and with Phase Five having gotten off to a very wobbly start with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Marvel might be tempted to lean on a property that, with its box office success, seems to have  thrown a lifeline to a mega-franchise that has lost its way.  Bitter experience, however, has shown that this might not be a very good idea.  Still, money is money and it's virtually inevitable that someone, somewhere down the line, will want to greenlight another Guardians of the Galaxy movie. 

When that day comes I sincerely hope that Marvel is able to answer, among themselves, the following questions, or something like them:

1.  How do they address Adam Warlock's god-like powers?

Much ado was made about the casting of one-time child actor Will Poulter as the iconic Marvel character Adam Warlock, whose appearance in this film was teased in one of several post-credit scenes in the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  To be fair, Marvel made good on their promise, but the problem is that they've created a character so powerful that he had to be removed from the story for prolonged chunks of time, kind of like Captain Marvel in Avengers: Endgame.  The guy is basically indestructible, and even though this aspect of his character is played for laughs, it obviously posed a few story problems, and since Warlock ends the story as one of the good guys, Marvel are now faced with the problem that would have confronted the Captain Marvel film franchise if it weren't overshadowed by what a PR nightmare Brie Larson proved to be.  It's the Superman conundrum.

The only way to pose a threat to Warlock is to confront him with a bad guy who is tougher than he is, or who can negate his power advantage somehow, and while it shouldn't be that hard to find a character that fits that description in Marvel's 5,000+ catalog of characters, this still highlights why it's important to have characters with defined vulnerabilities, because it makes the hero's journey all the more compelling. Marvel has to figure out how to handle this in a way that doesn't make their hypothetical sequel into a pissing contest about who's more powerful.  Also, I hope they don't nerf him because that kind of sucks too. Remember how Bucky was virtually invincible as the Winter Soldier but was conspicuously less formidable in Falcon and the Winter Soldier against he likes of John Walker? Marvel should avoid that. 

2.  With the group broken up, will any of the original actors come back for any follow-ups?

It made perfect sense to leave the Guardians deep in space, far removed from the problems of the more Earth-bound Marvel heroes like Captain America or Spider-Man and to therefore insulate them from any potential overlap. So many post-Avengers solo Marvel movies where the hero faced problems on their own suffered from the awkward question "but where are the Avengers?"  With the exception of Peter Quill, whose return in at least one more movie has been explicitly announced after the final post-credits scene, there is no need for any of the other characters to return as they can solve problems in their corner of the galaxy. 

If they did revisit that corner, though, would they be able to get any of the original cast members back? Most of the actors involved have declared that they're done with their characters. It quite honestly wouldn't be the same recasting them as a key part of the chemistry between these characters was the actors' performances.  Sure, they've brought in a bunch of new faces, but none of them have any defined personality or interactive chemistry yet, so they'll probably need familiar faces (or voices, in the case of Groot and Rocket) to anchor future stories, which means they'll either need to bring back some of the originals or (gasp) recast. On a related note...

3.   Will they ever transition to new leadership for the team?

Of the new characters who comprise the Guardians during the first post-credits scene, the only one who's had any meaningful screen time is Adam Warlock, but it might be a little challenging to have him anchor the series moving forward, not just because he's hyper-powerful but because he is basically an infant in a hyper-powered adult's body.  He's actually no different from Kai Zen's Phyla, the white-haired kid who has joined the team in the post-credits scene.  Someone's got to be the adult from among the new members.  

More importantly, though, and let's be honest here, from a commercial perspective one would need someone charismatic to anchor a huge franchise moving forward, someone like Robert Downey, Jr. or Chris Pratt, and right now they don't have that from any of the actors playing the new characters. 

4.   Is Marvel ready to plumb the depths of its cosmic corner?

While the first Avengers movie featured a full-on alien invasion, it wasn't until the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie that conversations about the cosmic portion the Marvel Universe, i.e. the whole chunk of Marvel's stories set in deep space, could begin in earnest. It introduced key characters like the Kree, the Nova Corps, and, of course Thanos, and laid the foundations for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.  The only other film so far that has dared wade into that corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been Captain Marvel, but despite the literal billions that the Guardians movies and Captain Marvel have collectively made at the global box office, Marvel doesn't seem all that keen on exploring that part of its universe.

It's notable that, ten full years after the first Guardians movie, Marvel has yet to introduce major space-based characters like Nova or the original Quasar (though Phyla is one of the latter Quasars).  My hot take is if they do go back, they should be ready to introduce these new spacefaring characters and get serious about their deep-space worldbuilding.  

5.   Exactly what kind of adventures can Star-Lord have without the Guardians?

The irony of this question is that Star-Lord was conceived as a solo character by Steve Englehart and Steve Gan in 1976, so it theoretically shouldn't be hard to tell solo stories with him. In reality, though, he only really shot to prominence when he assumed leadership of the Guardians of the Galaxy...and that was in the comics. In the movies, his whole identity is tied into how he interacts with the other Guardians...in space.  With him on Earth and away from his crew/family, Marvel will either have to write Quill very differently or find another ensemble for him to play off of in this planned solo film or film series. The problem with the latter solution is that any such team will no doubt feel like Guardians-lite.  

The good news for Marvel is that Chris Pratt has proven to be a box-office draw outside of the MCU so he could probably sell whatever movie it is they're going to cook up. But it just seems to me that they've created a bit of a problem for themselves here. Only time will tell if they made the right call.

If Bob Iger is to be believed, Marvel probably won't be revisiting this property for a while, which is probably a good thing given the state of the the MCU brain trust right now, and given that the man responsible for this particular corner of the MCU has left the building, but to my mind, it's inevitable that they'll look in this direction every now and again, so I hope they consider points like the ones I raised above before they greenlight anything.  

A Loving Send-Off: A Review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

 written and directed by James Gunn

After a series of movies over the last couple of years that ranged in quality from decent (Shang-Chi) to creative misfire (Eternals) to complete and utter clusterf**k (Thor: Love and Thunder) Marvel Studios has finally managed to rediscover the mojo that made its movies both critical and commercial successes for the better part of a decade. With Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, Marvel brings to a close at least one iteration of one of its  most remarkable individual franchises, built entirely off D-list characters, and as sendoffs go, they do not get much better than this.

The Guardians of the Galaxy, namely Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Groot (Vin Diesel),  are pretty much settled in at their new headquarters of Knowhere, when they are attacked by the extremely powerful Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) the champion of the race of golden people known as the Sovereign, headed by Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) of whom they ran afoul in the last movie.  Warlock attacks for a different reason, though: to capture Rocket.

The Guardians are able to repel the attack, but not without cost; Rocket has suffered grave injuries, and when Peter and Mantis attempt to treat him, they discover that he actually has a kill switch built into him.  The Guardians realize they need to track down the person responsible for putting the kill switch into Rocket in order to turn it off, and that puts them on the path to the ruthless, evil and powerful scientist known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwudi), the man who took Rocket when he was a hapless, helpless raccoon, along with several other animals and cut them up and subjected them to unspeakable cruelty to achieve his goal of a perfect society. He's also the very person who dispatched Warlock to get him in the first place, as he covets Rocket's highly-developed brain.  It's a tough challenge up ahead, even with the help of alt-Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who comes from a different timeline from the Gamora the Guardians knew, and whom Peter loved.  Will the Guardians be able to save their friend before it's too late?

Back in the first movie, when Peter Quill got thrown into space jail along with his future teammates Rocket and Groot, James Gunn teased a glimpse of what Rocket had been through by showing metal bits sticking out of his furry back. Later in that same movie, Rocket hinted at his horrific past by mentioning that he was taken apart "over and over." In part two Rocket had a bit of a heart-to-heart with Yondu (Michael Rooker) about his attitude towards family. In short, it's fairly clear that Rocket's story is one that James Gunn has been waiting to tell for a long time, and with this film, he finally gets to do exactly that.  As his friends rush to save him, Rocket, on the brink of death, finds himself remembering his painful origins, when he was trapped in a lab with other animals whom the High Evolutionary had also mutilated in his endless experiments. He befriends three animals, an otter named Lylla (Linda Cardellini), a walrus named Teefs (Asim Chaudhry) and a rabbit named Floor (Mikaela Hoover), and their hushed exchanges of dialogue are some of the richest character moments of the entire trilogy of films, as brief as they are.  Marvel has gained quite a bit of infamy for their shoddy treatment of visual effects artists of late, and this has tended to show in their movies, but in this film the animators behind Rocket and his furry friends are very clearly at the top of their game, bringing these cute and at the same time horrifically disfigured animals to life just as surely as their skilled vocal performers do. 

While Rocket's story is clearly the core of this movie, Gunn does not, by any stretch, neglect the rest of the cast of characters, and even though it takes an extra bit of runtime, it's worth pointing out that every major cast member, from Quill to Mantis to Drax to Sean Gunn's Kraglin, gets their moment to shine. Quill may have taken a back seat to Rocket this time, but Chris Pratt still gets to flash that winning charm and swagger that catapulted him to Hollywood's A-list. As expected from these films, there's a hefty dose of humor, and not all of the jokes hit, but this film's heart and the sincerity of its characters more than makes up for a few gags that fall flat.  It also helps that Gunn really does know how to shoot his action sequences, which is exemplified by a real showstopper of a battle at the film's climax.  If I were to have any nitpicks, it would be that the series' previous composer Tyler Bates wasn't brought back to end the trilogy, having been replaced by John Murphy, who references the theme, but who doesn't really contribute anything meaningful to the soundtrack, and whose work is largely overshadowed by the overstuffed catalog of music from Gunn's favorite playlist of old songs. In particular, though, I liked the use of Radiohead's "Creep."

With its emphasis on character-driven storytelling and its heartfelt moments, this truly feels like the kind of film that's been missing from Marvel's catalog of late, and I, for one, am really grateful that they delivered on this. 

Farewell, Guardians of the Galaxy, and thanks for the awesome ride. 

9/10

Cotton Candy for Gen-Xers and Their Kids: A Review of the Super Mario Brothers Movie

 directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic

written by Matthew Fogel

As a direct result of the disastrous 1993 live-action adaptation of the Super Mario Brothers game, it would be nearly thirty years before Nintendo ever let Hollywood near any of its properties, let alone the jewel in its crown.  That has finally changed with the release of The Super Mario Brothers, a new animated film produced by the money-printing juggernaut that is Illumination Studios.

Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are Brooklyn-based plumbers who have just quit their jobs with Spike (Sebastian Maniscalco) much to the disapproval of their father Giuseppe (Charles Martinent) and the derision of other family members. When their first gig as self-employed plumbers goes awry, Mario is downcast, but when he sees a plumbing crisis on the news, he rushes Luigi there in the hopes of fixing it and boosting their business, only to find themselves sucked into a mysterious portal down in the sewers all the way to a whole new world, a magical but terrifying world in which the evil King of the Koopas, Bowser (Jack Black) wishes to marry Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) of the Mushroom Kingdom and is willing to destroy her kingdom and a whole bunch of others in the world if she doesn't consent.  Mario and Luigi are separated on the way here, with Mario ending up in the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi ending up Bowser's territory. Mario asks for help from Peach, who in turn needs to enlist the Kong army if she hopes to defeat Bowser.

The movie is very much a love letter to the wildly popular video game series that started back in the 1980s, with references galore to them, so many that even I, who have barely played the games, got more than one reference. It's also, with its bright colors, broad humor and fast-paced (90 minutes) storytelling that really doesn't stand up to any measure of scrutiny, the perfect example of Illumination's tried-and-tested kid-bait.  It's a fun movie that sets very simple goals for itself and accomplishes them with a little bit of flourish but really, nothing more than that. Chris Pratt and Charlie Day are well cast as the title characters, and even though the script gives them next to nothing to work with they really give it their best. The same can be said for supporting players like Jack Black, Anya-Taylor Joy, Keegan Michael Key who plays Toad and Seth Rogen who plays Donkey Kong. To be fair, nobody is phoning it in here, but with a script as devoid of any substance as this, how could they have screwed it up?

While this was a fun movie in its own right, people really shouldn't wonder why critics and awards giving bodies continue to keep animation as a medium of cinematic storytelling stuck in a ghetto  considering how Illumination studios has dominated the box office in the post-pandemic era with stories like this which barely even bother with basic things like character development or even a meaningful story.  I mean, this is a studio that built its fortune on tiny people who speak gibberish so I guess this is the most we can expect from them.  

People cheering for the success of this movie and the box-office failure of outfits like Disney may not realize it but when the market is later flooded with brain-dead video game adaptations, they may come to miss the kind of movies that Pixar or even Dreamworks used to offer like Inside Out or How to Train Your Dragon.  Granted, Disney has only itself to blame for losing its way recently, but really, audiences should demand better than this. 

By now, the film has made over a billion dollars at the global box-office so we should really expect more of the same of this in three years or so and another two or three years after that...at least until the audience gets tired of consuming what is essentially the equivalent of cinematic cotton candy. 

7/10

 

Falling Into Place: A Review of Tetris

 directed by Jon S. Baird

written by Noah Pink

Right about now, people around the world are going bananas over the latest big-screen adaptation of Nintendo's "Super Mario Brothers" game.  Perhaps lesser-known, however, is another story involving a different game that Nintendo made famous on its first-ever handheld platform, the Gameboy, namely Tetris.  

The film Tetris isn't about anthropomorphic blocks seeking their purpose in life. Rather, it's about how struggling Dutch-American businessman Henk Rogers (played in the film by Taron Egerton) upon learning of the existence of this obscure but utterly addictive game went all the way to Soviet Russia to secure the rights to publish and distribute the game, roping in no less than video game giant Nintendo in his scheme. In his quest to secure the rights, he deals with Russian bureaucrats Trifonov (Oleg Shtefanko) and Belikov (Igor Grabuzov) and their goons, a corrupt English magnate Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) and his irritating son Kevin (Anthony Boyle) as well as an underhanded wheeler-dealer Robert Stein (Toby Jones).  Not only that, but the creator of the game Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) wants nothing to do with him. 

So certain is Henk of the mass appeal of Tetris that he has literally bet his home on it, taking out a lone with his Tokyo apartment as collateral, much to the consternation of his wife (Ayane Nagabuchi).  His dealings behind the iron curtain hit quite a few setbacks, and Henk gets threatened, beaten up and given the run-around so many times that it's kind of a wonder that the heads of Nintendo in America (Ken Yamamura and Ben Miles) even want to deal with him.  Will he prevail?

I often enjoy movies based on true stories, even those that take considerable liberties with historical events. This film is overtly light-hearted and comedic in its general tone, but at the same time the undercurrent of menace remains ever present, as well as the tension that accompanies Rogers' race to secure the rights before Maxwell and Stein. It's a given that there was a lot of embellishment here, but winning performances by Egerton and Efremov as Rogers and Pajitnov basically sell the story, even when Shtefanko's corrupt Trifonov threatens to derail the fun with his cartoonish villainy. Heck, even the bad guys, most of whom are fictional (except the Maxwell father-and-son duo) are fun to watch, with Allam (and his massive prosthetics), Boyle and Jones providing some excellent antagonists whose faces you really would want to punch. 

One challenge to enjoying films based a true story, especially a success story, is suspending disbelief considering that I already know how things turn out, but this movie still managed to engage me for its relatively short running time. About the only thing that had me rolling my eyes towards  the end was an entirely fictional car chase to the airport that looked like it had been ripped straight out of Argo, but set as it was to a Russian-language cover of the Bonnie Tyler hit "Holding Out for a Hero" and stylized with pixellated 80s graphics, it still managed to entertain.    

I'd be shocked if this were up for any serious awards about a year from now, but it was a genuinely fun watch. 

7.5/10

2023's Biggest Surprise (So Far): A Review of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

 directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley

written by Goldstein, Daley, Michael Gilio, and Chris McKay

Twenty-three years after the first-ever film adaptation of the beloved Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game opened to terrible reviews and dismal box office, Paramount Pictures is now unleashing an all-new, big budget adaptation with a new cast of characters, a lively script packed with Easter Eggs, and a Marvel movie's worth of computer-generated effects. The result is...surprisingly good.

The film begins with buddies and partners in crime Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) busting out of prison during their parole hearing.  We learn that they landed in prison after a heist that they were staging with Edgin's partner Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) and a sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) went terribly wrong. They had been sent by the mysterious Sofina (Daisy Head) to steal a mysterious artifact from the Harpers, a sort of society of protectors to whom Edgin used to belong before his wife Zia (Georgia Landers) was killed by the dreaded Red Wizards. In fact, Edgin had only agreed to this particular heist to get a magical tablet with which to bring his Zia back. Edgin and Holga discover that Forge has somehow become Lord of a town called Neverwinter, with Sofina close by as his adviser and Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) now living under Forge's care. It turns out their imprisonment wasn't exactly an accident, and now Edgin and Holga determine that they need to both rescue Kira and get the tablet back from Forge. They'll need help, so they track down Simon, who in turn recruits the shapeshifting Doric (Sophia Lillis), and they approach the paladin Xenk (Rege Jean Page) who leads them to a magic artifact they'll need in their quest. Will it be enough to help them prevail? 

Full disclosure: I am not a D & D geek by any stretch of the imagination. I played the game once or twice as a kid with my cousin who had a couple of the basic books, and only sporadically watched the 1980s cartoon that ran in the mid-80s.  I also admired the iconic artwork by artist Larry Elmore whose name D & D fans will surely recognize instantly. I knew next to nothing, in short, about the source material, and I had caught some of the risible 2000 movie on cable TV, so that kept my expectations to an absolute minimum.

I was not expecting to have nearly as good a time as I did. This movie is a blast. 

 Writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who comprised half of the quartet of screenwriters behind Spider-Man: Homecoming, have done a great job of creating a world that is both accessible to outsiders like me and a real treat for those with some inside knowledge.  They've crafted a story that is easy to follow and populated it with likeable, deeply flawed characters whose story arcs help ground the film, even in its most fantastical moments.  Their storytelling is rock-solid, and it helps that they have a surprisingly good eye for staging some pretty kick-ass action sequences. 

It helps that they are working with a truly stellar cast. As the bard Edgin, Pine effortlessly brings in the roguish charm that he shot him to stardom in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies, and considering that starship appears to have sailed it appears he may have a new home here. As the barbarian Holga, Michelle Rodriguez, a veteran of multiple action franchises, brings serious action chops as expected, but also lends a surprising amount of heart to her character.    As the bumbling Simon who wrestles with his own insecurities as the latest in a long line of sorcerers, Justice Smith does a commendable job fleshing out his character's arc.  Sophia Lillis may not have the strongest character moments as Doric the druid, but she definitely has strong screen presence, and thanks to some pretty solid VFX works she delivers quite a few of the movie's moneyshots, including a "oner" that really showcases her abilities. Hugh Grant, who's garnered attention lately for his curmudgeonly attitude on the red carpet, is well and truly having a blast here as the villainous and hilarious Forge, a welcome foil to the super serious arch-villain of the story, Daisy Head's Sofina. Rege Jean Page cuts a fine figure as an action hero (with an awesome fight scene to boot), but perhaps more importantly, as a straight man who basically sets up the jokes for the rest of the cast to knock out of the park.  All told, this is an acting ensemble that really works well together.

The filmmakers have been pretty open about their influences, naming The Princess Bride and the Indiana Jones movies as among their main ones, and to be fair they really have captured the proper blend of humor, charm and action from movies like that, and yes, from the earlier Marvel movies as well.  The Marvel references, if I'm honest, seem quite overt in Doric in particular, who quite honestly looks like she was designed as an homage to Black Widow, and who also manifests quite a bit of Hulk very, very late in the film (no spoilers here).  The good news, though, is that as fashionable as it is to hate Marvel nowadays, D & D: HAT takes what used to be good about those movies and puts it to very good use, including, dare I say it, the computer-generated imagery, which is used rather judiciously here. So yes, it is a bit derivative and unapologetically so, but at least it makes its borrowed elements work really well. 

Time will tell if this movie gets a sequel, but speaking for myself, I'd be happy to take another roll of that 20-sided dice with these folks. 

8.5/10

Bigger Than Ever: A Review of John Wick 4

 directed by Chad Stahelski

written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch

The action saga that kicked off in 2014 when a retired hitman avenged his the killing of his dog and the theft of his car by murdering an entire Russian crime family has returned with easily its biggest installment yet. 

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is still on the run, having been marked for death by the High Table of assassins over two films ago, but this time he's decided to take the fight to the High Table with the intent of killing them all, with the help of his allies, the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), Winston (Ian McShane) the manager of the New York Continental Hotel, and Charon (the late  Lance Reddick), the concierge of the Continental.  The High Table isn't messing around, though; they've tasked a powerful new player, the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgaard) to oversee Wick's elimination. Gramont is a canny player, and to get the job done he Caine (Donnie Yen), an old ally of Wick who also happens to owe the High Table big.  Of course, he also summons a huge army of lethal killers with guns and body armor to the do job, too. No place is safe now, not even the Continental hotel in Japan which is run by Wick's old friend Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama).  Another wildcard in the mix it the mysterious, nameless tracker (Shamier Anderson) a freelance bounty hunter who seeks to drive the bounty for Wick up as high as it can go before killing him.  In short, it all appears to be coming to a head.

Full disclosure: I didn't like John Wick 3: Parabellum, because in my opinion the fight sequences got repetitive after a while. There was every danger of that happening here, especially given the film's nearly three-hour running time, but I persisted because I have followed this franchise pretty faithfully since I saw the first one on DVD years ago.  

I'm happy to report however, that with the exception of the film's first big battle in the Japanese branch of the hotel Continental, which featured a lot of the jiu-jitsu-and-headshot choreography that had been a staple of the first three films, this film really takes its fight sequences to a whole new level, managing to devote generous screen time to every single one of the high=profile action stars it has added to the John Wick family, whether it's Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada or Scott Adkins who puts on a fat suit, and gold-plated dentures to play German hitman Killa.  Yen features most prominently here and nearly steals the show from Reeves with his killer moves and quippy humor, but make no mistake, this is still John Wick's movie, and Reeves is absolutely firing on all cylinders here to bring us the most extreme stunts we could possibly get without Jackie Chan or Tom Cruise showing up. Heck, I'd say Reeves is on par with them after this film.   

Director Chad Stahelski seriously switches things up here, and not just in terms of fight choreography and blocking. The guy has an extraordinary eye for beauty, which he effectively juxtaposes against the extreme violence, and with the story taking John and his pursuers all over the world, from Morocco to Japan to Germany and finally to France, he has ample opportunity to give the audience some real money shots, and boy, oh boy does he deliver. This bodes extremely well for the adaptation of the wildly popular video game Ghost of Tsushima that Stahelski is currently slated to direct. 

Do I have any problems with this movie? Well, as I said, it is rather long, though the time taken to set up the action is pretty well-spent. I had issues with the first major battle sequence, but just about everything after that played out excellently. 

At at a time when it's hard to find movies that feel fresh and exciting in view of the endless onslaught of franchises, it's refreshing that at least one of them manages to get it right. 

8.5/10

10 Thoughts on the Oscars

 So another year of Academy Awards has come and gone (a week ago, as of writing), and at the very outset I'd like to state that in my humble opinion, all of the winners deserved what they got. I found it to be a very satisfying ceremony with heartfelt speeches and lots of feel-good moments, and, just as notably, none of the moments of eye-roll inducing stupidity that left a stain on ceremonies of the last few years like the 2017 "envelope mix-up" or the idiocy of having the Best Leading Actor Oscar announced last in 2021.  

I think everything I have to say about the 2023 Oscars can be distilled in ten points:

1.  I'm just glad to have watched it live for the first time in ages. As early as 2019, there was some strange issue with the channels available to me on cable and for whatever reason a live broadcast just wasn't in the cards. That was a shame because that was Marvel Studios' banner year, with the first Black Panther movie garnering six Oscar nominations, including the history-making Best Picture nomination. From 2020 to 2022, I no longer had cable television so I had to content myself with live updates on websites. It was nice to finally be able to watch the ceremony in real time again. Thank you, Disney+

2.   I LOVE that this was the year of the "has-beens." After the 2022 Oscars, in which Best Leading Actor winner Will Smith showed himself to be the embodiment of privilege by publicly assaulting Oscar host Chris Rock, it was such a welcome change to see actors whom time and circumstance have humbled reaping rewards that they richly deserved. I haven't seen Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, but I have read all about Brendan Fraser's journey in making it, and as a fan of Brendan Fraser all the way back to his Mummy days I was really delighted to see him pick up the Oscar for Best Leading Actor. I was even happier for Ke Huy Quan whom I had only ever seen as a child actor in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, who had been away from acting for much longer than Fraser ever had. His comeback, even without the Oscar, would have been the feel-good story of the year, but now it's simply perfection, and he couldn't have had a better vehicle than the sensational film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (which I HAVE seen...and loved). Speaking of which... 

3.   It was so nice to have a horse in the race again. The last time I could really and wholeheartedly say that was in 2013 when I was rooting for Argo to win (which it did). I mean, I've enjoyed films like Parasite, 1917, BlackkKlansman and, Black Panther among other Oscar Best Picture winners and hopefuls, but Argo was a good, old-fashioned thriller which, for all of its foibles, had loads of charm and told its story very well.  Even though Everything, Everywhere All at Once is a completely different kind of film from Argo, I loved it just the same for almost the same reason: it told its story masterfully, in a way that both charmed me and connected with me. I also cheered for the Telugu language, global sensation RRR when its Oscar-nominated song, "Naatu Naatu" took home the gold.  It feels really good to have an actual emotional connection to the movies that win. That said...

4.  Here's a statistic I find unsettling: the widely despised 2016 DC superhero film Suicide Squad has more Oscars than the 2023 Best Picture nominees Elvis, Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, and Triangle of Sadness COMBINED.   I'd argue that this was an inevitable consequence of expanding the field of Best Picture nominees from 5 pictures back in 2009. Between them, Everything, Everywhere All at Once  and All Quiet on the Western Front, won 11 Oscars, so there was barely anything else left to win.  A whopping 50% of the films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar went home empty-handed.  I know that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes, but I still can't help but feel for the people who poured their heart and soul into those movies.  

5. I loved seeing all the fresh faces. I loved that among so many of the major nominations, from directing to about all of the acting nominations, there were many first time nominees, or people who had rarely been nominated before. About the only familiar face among the nominees was two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, who ultimately lost to Michelle Yeoh.  This is the kind of freshness that, in my humble opinion, will help keep the Oscars relevant in the years to come so long may it continue. On that point...

6.  Diversity is not the poison pill that narrow-minded people insist that it is.  One would be hard-pressed, for example to find anyone who was unhappy when "Naatu Naatu" won the Oscar for Best Original Song. "Diversity" meant that for the first time in 95 years, a song from an Indian movie could win an Oscar, because it forced Academy voters to step out of their comfort zones and look at other movies. It also meant that performances like Michelle Yeoh's and Ke Huy Quan's performances in what is effectively a "genre film" like EEAAO, which would have had Oscar voters turning their noses up not that long ago, could win big.  

7.  No high-and-mighty speeches from winners is a really good thing. There's not much more to add, lest I become guilty of making a speech myself. 

8. Hollywood's love affair with itself was tempered this year. Steven Spielberg's film, The Fabelmans was an early favorite and it kind of fit the mold of films like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Artist and Argo which basically celebrated Hollywood and won one award or another. The shut-out of The Fabelmans from even a single award, to me at least, says that Hollywood is ready to stop fellating itself, at least for now.  

9.  As highlighted by Guillermo del Toro in his acceptance speech for Pinocchio, animation remains in a ghetto just outside "cinema" and that's just wrong. 

Finally...

10.  Though All Quiet on the Western Front would have been a deserving Best Picture winner, I am very grateful that the Oscar for Best Picture went to a movie that spent several months exclusively in movie theaters. Everything, Everywhere All at Once has once again proved that the best place to appreciate cinema is still in movie theaters.