Starting every December 25 since the 1970s, movies houses in Metro Manila, and later all around the country, have shown exclusively Filipino-made movies for a two-week period. I imagine that in the beginning, the idea was to showcase the very best films Filipino filmmakers had to offer, and I can even remember a period of time when this was so.
For many years, however, it seemed that the festival, once meant to showcase Philippine cinema's finest became just a protectionist cash grab designed to benefit whoever was most capable of pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Lately, it seems, the festival has been invigorated with an exclusively "independent" film slate, which means, as it does in Hollywood, a bunch of Filipino movies financed independently of any major studios, and freed of the constraints of commercial filmmaking. In short, these are movies produced by filmmakers driven solely by the imperative of telling the stories they want to tell, and not of cramming as many lowbrow jokes and movie stars mugs into the running time as they possibly can.
For the first time in years, I find myself looking forward not just to one or two films in the festival (because even at its worst, the MMFF has always managed to have a few gems amidst all of the dreck), but to the festival itself. I can also say, with complete honesty, that I am looking forward to at least one movie in this festival more than I was to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. This is a refreshing turnaround from the years in which I groaned at the knowledge that my beloved Hollywood films would be booted out of cinemas to make way for trashy local movies.
Come Christmas Day, I am happy to say this year that I will be excited to go to the movies!
Monday, December 19, 2016
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Disney's Sailing Princess: A Review of Moana
directed by Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall and Chris Williams
screenplay by Jared Bush
Following the fantastic Zootopia, I was expecting very good things from Disney with their animated tale Moana, which tells the story of a chieftain's daughter from the South Pacific who sets sail to appease an angry god and save her people.
Inspired by folk tales from the South Pacific, this film is the story of Moana (Auli'i Cravalho), the daughter of the chieftain of the island community of Motunui, grows up captivated by two things: the ocean, and the stories she hears from her grandmother (Jenny House), particularly the tale of how demi-god Maui (Dwayne Johnson) stole the heart (actually a jewel) from the island goddess Te Fiti (sort of a Mother Earth figure). One day, these two converge as Moana, trying to settle into her role as the next in line to lead her people, is confronted with a frightening phenomenon; her people are unable to catch fish or harvest coconuts or crops. Moana's grandmother is convinced that the world is cursed as a result of Maui's theft of Te Fiti's heart. The Moana must then find Maui and travel with him to Te Fiti's island in order to restore her heart and end the curse, over the objections of her protective father (Temeura Morrison). The question is whether or not Moana can get the egotistical Maui to cooperate long enough to save the world.
There's a lot to love about this movie, from the gorgeous South Pacific island backdrops to the high seas adventure to the catchy songs by Lin Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa'i, to the lead character herself, Moana, and her burly traveling companion, the demi-god Maui, who is Johnson at his comedic best. I doubt if anyone watching World Wrestling Entertainment in the 1990s and early 2000s ever imagined "The Rock" would one day be singing in a Disney film -(and singing well, too!)-but here he is, with a whole song number to himself. The casting of unknown Cravalho was a canny, if not necessarily inspired choice.
Ultimately, though, this was the movie with which Disney followed up Zootopia, and as such it is, well, a bit of a step down.
Moana's journey to redeem her people and find herself feels vaguely like Fa Mulan's journey to preserve her father's honor in 1998's Mulan, albeit without the war and gender-bending. That's not particularly detrimental, but next to Zootopia's decidedly more subversive storytelling it has a slightly well-worn feel to it. Moana's songs are certainly catchier than Mulan's, especially the signature "How Far I'll Go" as well as Johnson's "You're Welcome." Also, as fresh as the movie feels from a visual perspective, a lot of the territory seems distinctly familiar. Zootopia wore its film noir, buddy-cop influences on its sleeve but used them to come up with something surprisingly new. Moana isn't quite as brave. A lot of the homages were distinctly fun, though; the Mad Max-inspired sequence involving demon coconuts was a laugh riot!
The bottom line for me is that this movie is worth the trip to the cinema, but it wasn't quite the home run for me that Zootopia was.
They should have the Oscar for Best Original Song in the bag, though.
7/10
screenplay by Jared Bush
Following the fantastic Zootopia, I was expecting very good things from Disney with their animated tale Moana, which tells the story of a chieftain's daughter from the South Pacific who sets sail to appease an angry god and save her people.
Inspired by folk tales from the South Pacific, this film is the story of Moana (Auli'i Cravalho), the daughter of the chieftain of the island community of Motunui, grows up captivated by two things: the ocean, and the stories she hears from her grandmother (Jenny House), particularly the tale of how demi-god Maui (Dwayne Johnson) stole the heart (actually a jewel) from the island goddess Te Fiti (sort of a Mother Earth figure). One day, these two converge as Moana, trying to settle into her role as the next in line to lead her people, is confronted with a frightening phenomenon; her people are unable to catch fish or harvest coconuts or crops. Moana's grandmother is convinced that the world is cursed as a result of Maui's theft of Te Fiti's heart. The Moana must then find Maui and travel with him to Te Fiti's island in order to restore her heart and end the curse, over the objections of her protective father (Temeura Morrison). The question is whether or not Moana can get the egotistical Maui to cooperate long enough to save the world.
There's a lot to love about this movie, from the gorgeous South Pacific island backdrops to the high seas adventure to the catchy songs by Lin Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa'i, to the lead character herself, Moana, and her burly traveling companion, the demi-god Maui, who is Johnson at his comedic best. I doubt if anyone watching World Wrestling Entertainment in the 1990s and early 2000s ever imagined "The Rock" would one day be singing in a Disney film -(and singing well, too!)-but here he is, with a whole song number to himself. The casting of unknown Cravalho was a canny, if not necessarily inspired choice.
Ultimately, though, this was the movie with which Disney followed up Zootopia, and as such it is, well, a bit of a step down.
Moana's journey to redeem her people and find herself feels vaguely like Fa Mulan's journey to preserve her father's honor in 1998's Mulan, albeit without the war and gender-bending. That's not particularly detrimental, but next to Zootopia's decidedly more subversive storytelling it has a slightly well-worn feel to it. Moana's songs are certainly catchier than Mulan's, especially the signature "How Far I'll Go" as well as Johnson's "You're Welcome." Also, as fresh as the movie feels from a visual perspective, a lot of the territory seems distinctly familiar. Zootopia wore its film noir, buddy-cop influences on its sleeve but used them to come up with something surprisingly new. Moana isn't quite as brave. A lot of the homages were distinctly fun, though; the Mad Max-inspired sequence involving demon coconuts was a laugh riot!
The bottom line for me is that this movie is worth the trip to the cinema, but it wasn't quite the home run for me that Zootopia was.
They should have the Oscar for Best Original Song in the bag, though.
7/10
Saturday, November 5, 2016
How WB/DC Definitively Beat Disney/Marvel
A couple of days ago, Warner Brothers released the second trailer for its upcoming comic-book-based blockbuster-in-waiting Wonder Woman. This is a fully-realized, big-budget feature film by the director of the Academy-Award-winning film Monster (though perhaps notably, not much else), which will be in theaters less than a year from now. And if the trailers are any indication, it promises to be one hell of an action-packed movie.
Now, since Marvel/Disney pioneered the concept of a shared cinematic universe for several of its characters with The Avengers, the studio has gone from strength to strength. Kevin Feige and his army of directors, writers and producers have successfully launched four solo properties (Iron Man, Cap, Thor, Ant-Man), two team properties (Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy) and the first, and so far, only, interconnected cinematic world. Other companies have taken notice, such as Universal Studios, and have tried to replicate the formula, but as the saying goes, "often imitated, never duplicated."
For all of that, however, there has been an underlying "safeness" to a lot of the decisions that Marvel's head honchos have taken in their filmmaking approach, and I might as well get right to it: all their lead actors so far, ALL of them, no exceptions, have been white, straight, Caucasian males. I don't really consider myself a gender or racial equality activist, and I can honestly say I wouldn't raise a hue and a cry if an LGBTQ character never anchors a superhero movie (though Marvel's openly gay Wiccan character is brilliant), but I raise this point to offer a bit of a reality check to this claim that Marvel are somehow especially brave in their filmmaking choices. Once upon a time, that was true, right up until The Avengers scored a record $207 million on its opening weekend at the North American box office. Since then, every single film has been made in accordance with a set of core specifications. The good news is that it's a formula that allows filmmakers quite a bit of creative latitude, and has resulted in several very enjoyable films, but it's still a formula.
What's sad about this is that one can see strong female characters sprinkled throughout the MCU, from Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow to Zoe Saldana's Gamora to Evangeline Lilly's Wasp, and there are hundreds more from Marvel's comics catalog, but thanks to the likes of Ike Perlmutter, who reportedly blocked the idea of female-led Marvel movies for years, citing 1984's Supergirl and 2004's Catwoman as his arguments, they've always remained stuck in the back seat.
Wonder Woman's journey to the big screen has been, as in the case of many high-profile comic-book adaptations, a troubled one. Arguably the most high-profile attempt to bring her to the big screen involved no less than Avengers director Joss Whedon, who had proposed to make the film a period film set in World War II, which didn't pan out. In fact, production for the current iteration of the movie only finally fell into place two years ago, twelve years after Spider-Man became the first movie in history to gross more than $100 million in North America on its opening weekend, six years after Iron Man proved that Marvel could produce a movie without the backing of a major studio (with Paramount only distributing) and two years after The Avengers became the first movie in history to gross more than $200 million in North America on its opening weekend. In short, in the time it took for WB/DC to get their act together and decide to make a Wonder Woman movie, Disney/Marvel could easily have come up with a fantastic movie featuring any of a number of rich, multi-dimensional female characters, but it didn't. With their hard-won clout and credibility Kevin Feige and his crew could easily have beaten WB/DC to the punch at a true landmark: the first female-anchored superhero movie.
To rub salt in the sound, Marvel's first female-anchored movie, Captain Marvel, is over two years away, even though the actress who will play her, Brie Larson has already been cast.
People will debate the quality of Disney/Marvel films versus the quality of WB/DC films; art is an inherently subjective experience shaped by experiences and biases, but it cannot be debated that WB/DC beat Disney/Marvel to a significant comic-book-movie milestone.
What hurts me, as a Marvel fan, is that they had every opportunity to do it first but because of a nauseatingly sexist head honcho (or a bunch of them), it didn't happen.
I'm happy to report to those that don't know that Perlmutter is no longer running the movie division of Marvel Studios.
Now maybe we can see some real diversity, and not just some contemptuous tokenism.
Now, since Marvel/Disney pioneered the concept of a shared cinematic universe for several of its characters with The Avengers, the studio has gone from strength to strength. Kevin Feige and his army of directors, writers and producers have successfully launched four solo properties (Iron Man, Cap, Thor, Ant-Man), two team properties (Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy) and the first, and so far, only, interconnected cinematic world. Other companies have taken notice, such as Universal Studios, and have tried to replicate the formula, but as the saying goes, "often imitated, never duplicated."
For all of that, however, there has been an underlying "safeness" to a lot of the decisions that Marvel's head honchos have taken in their filmmaking approach, and I might as well get right to it: all their lead actors so far, ALL of them, no exceptions, have been white, straight, Caucasian males. I don't really consider myself a gender or racial equality activist, and I can honestly say I wouldn't raise a hue and a cry if an LGBTQ character never anchors a superhero movie (though Marvel's openly gay Wiccan character is brilliant), but I raise this point to offer a bit of a reality check to this claim that Marvel are somehow especially brave in their filmmaking choices. Once upon a time, that was true, right up until The Avengers scored a record $207 million on its opening weekend at the North American box office. Since then, every single film has been made in accordance with a set of core specifications. The good news is that it's a formula that allows filmmakers quite a bit of creative latitude, and has resulted in several very enjoyable films, but it's still a formula.
What's sad about this is that one can see strong female characters sprinkled throughout the MCU, from Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow to Zoe Saldana's Gamora to Evangeline Lilly's Wasp, and there are hundreds more from Marvel's comics catalog, but thanks to the likes of Ike Perlmutter, who reportedly blocked the idea of female-led Marvel movies for years, citing 1984's Supergirl and 2004's Catwoman as his arguments, they've always remained stuck in the back seat.
Wonder Woman's journey to the big screen has been, as in the case of many high-profile comic-book adaptations, a troubled one. Arguably the most high-profile attempt to bring her to the big screen involved no less than Avengers director Joss Whedon, who had proposed to make the film a period film set in World War II, which didn't pan out. In fact, production for the current iteration of the movie only finally fell into place two years ago, twelve years after Spider-Man became the first movie in history to gross more than $100 million in North America on its opening weekend, six years after Iron Man proved that Marvel could produce a movie without the backing of a major studio (with Paramount only distributing) and two years after The Avengers became the first movie in history to gross more than $200 million in North America on its opening weekend. In short, in the time it took for WB/DC to get their act together and decide to make a Wonder Woman movie, Disney/Marvel could easily have come up with a fantastic movie featuring any of a number of rich, multi-dimensional female characters, but it didn't. With their hard-won clout and credibility Kevin Feige and his crew could easily have beaten WB/DC to the punch at a true landmark: the first female-anchored superhero movie.
To rub salt in the sound, Marvel's first female-anchored movie, Captain Marvel, is over two years away, even though the actress who will play her, Brie Larson has already been cast.
People will debate the quality of Disney/Marvel films versus the quality of WB/DC films; art is an inherently subjective experience shaped by experiences and biases, but it cannot be debated that WB/DC beat Disney/Marvel to a significant comic-book-movie milestone.
What hurts me, as a Marvel fan, is that they had every opportunity to do it first but because of a nauseatingly sexist head honcho (or a bunch of them), it didn't happen.
I'm happy to report to those that don't know that Perlmutter is no longer running the movie division of Marvel Studios.
Now maybe we can see some real diversity, and not just some contemptuous tokenism.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Sorcerer Supreme? More Like Pretty Cool Conjurer: A Review of Doctor Strange
directed by Scott Derrickson
written by Jon Spaihts, Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill
When I learned two years ago that Marvel Studios had cast British actor Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange, I considered it a casting coup on par with their casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, a decision which, as every self-respecting Marvel fan knows, kick-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Having seen Doctor Strange, I am happy to report that Cumberbatch does not disappoint in the least, and neither does the visual effects crew that have produced the most eye-popping, mind-bending sensory experience to come out of the Marvel Studios stable to date.
Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is a brilliant but arrogant neurosurgeon whose hands are severely injured in a horrific car crash. Desperate to recover the use of his hands, Strange spends every last penny on expensive, experimental treatments and ultimately finds himself in Nepal, where he comes face-to-face with a mysterious guru known only as the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who, with the help of her disciple Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a curmudgeonly librarian Wong (Benedict Wong), shows him a different path in life from that which he has been following so far, and he begins the process of learning an altogether new art, a far more ancient and powerful one than the one he used to practice. This happens not a moment too soon, as one of the Ancient One's former disciples Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) has stolen pages out of her mystical books for a ritual that could result in the total annihilation of the whole world. Strange has a lot to learn about the mystic arts, but unfortunately not a whole lot of time to learn it.
This film exemplifies several of the qualities that have made Marvel Studios films consistently entertaining if not always outstanding: an all-too-human, well-realized hero with complexities, frailties and insecurities, incredible production value in the form of meticulously-realized sets, costumes and locations, and state-of-the-art visual effects. Cumberbatch in particular was the absolute star of the show, which was no mean feat considering the weight of expectations he bore upon entering into the production as, arguably, the highest-profile star ever to throw his hat into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the MCU revived Downey Jr.'s career, Cumberbatch took this on while his was very much on the upswing, which made it a bit of a risk for him, albeit one which has definitely paid off in spades.
I'm happy to note that we've come a long way from the Nevada desert doubling for the Middle East (Iron Man), or Cleveland doubling for Germany (The Avengers). I loved that the film was actually shot in Nepal, Hong Kong, New York and London. It's also worth noting there's a bit of "house style" as evidenced by the presence of Director of Photography Ben Davis and Costume Designer Alexandra Byrne who, between the two of them, have worked on eight Marvel Studios films, which is over half of the entire catalog of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Little details like this, as well as the references to the Avengers in the script, are a subtle way of reminding the audience that this film still forms part of a bigger tapestry, even as it stands quite well on its own. Another regular Marvel collaborator, Industrial Light and Magic, turns in sensational work here, deftly mixing and seriously upgrading earlier reality-bending effects from films like The Matrix and Inception. These sequences looked great in IMAX 3-D.
All that said, the film suffers from some of Marvel's frequent shortcomings, starting, unfortunately, with their virtually-trademarked cookie-cutter villain, with Kaecilius' only truly remarkable feature being his wildly colorful eye make-up. It's sad to think that the reasonably talented Mikkelsen passed up the chance to play one generic Marvel bad guy years ago in Thor: The Dark World, only to play another one three years later. Equally listless here is Rachel McAdams as Strange's throwaway love interest Dr. Christine Palmer, who at the very least fares better here than in the last movie in which I saw her, Antoine Fuqua's Southpaw (in which her sole purpose was to catalyze the hero's journey towards redemption by dying), but that doesn't say much at all.
To be honest, I think Marvel should really make it a point to hire scriptwriters who specialize in creating memorable villains, as this has really been a glaring deficiency in their storytelling. To be fair, apart from Heath Ledger's Joker, the folks at Warner Brothers/DC have not exactly come up with a particularly memorable heavy, but Marvel Studios' inability to come up with a truly menacing villain (apart, perhaps from Loki), has practically become the stuff of legend (or internet jokes) by now. Marvel villains are not only not memorable, by now many of them have a distinctly generic feel to them. It's a serious structural flaw in their storytelling that needs to be remedied, especially considering their rather formidable rogues' gallery from the comic books. Also, the script made a couple of annoying shortcuts, notably Strange's immediate acquisition of serious mystical skills, as well as some logical gaffes in the climactic sequences of the film.
It's not all bad news, though. I had originally written off Ejiofor's Baron Mordo, based on what I had seen in the promotional material, as yet another black sidekick in the mold of Don Cheadle's War Machine, Anthony Mackie's Falcon and Idris Elba's Heimdall, but as it turns out Mordo undergoes his own journey in the course of the film, one that, in a way, parallels that of Strange, and is notable for the fact that he ends up somewhere very different from where Strange does. Swinton, for all of the bellyaching that her casting spawned, is marvelous in her role as the Ancient One, and Benedict Wong, as Wong, essentially the film's deadpan comic relief, is also a welcome presence. Marvel geeks will recognize the weapon he wields in the film's climax as the Wand of Watoomb, among several other Easter Eggs liberally sprinkled throughout the film.
It's still, overall, a very safe Marvel film, and one can almost see the boxes the producers ticked when they made it, but the good news is that there was room for quite a bit of extra imagination here, and for a newly-minted Marvel superstar to flex his thespic muscles. Another plus for this film is that it features a genuine rarity in Marvel Studios productions these days: an outstanding music score, courtesy of Oscar winner Michael Giacchino.
Still, one would think that after fourteen movies, Marvel would finally have gotten a handle on their more conspicuous problems like mediocre villains and love interests who are basically just attractive wallpaper. Had this been one of the earlier films in their catalog I would almost certainly have given this movie a higher score, but after all this time, Marvel should really know better.
7.9/10
written by Jon Spaihts, Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill
When I learned two years ago that Marvel Studios had cast British actor Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange, I considered it a casting coup on par with their casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, a decision which, as every self-respecting Marvel fan knows, kick-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Having seen Doctor Strange, I am happy to report that Cumberbatch does not disappoint in the least, and neither does the visual effects crew that have produced the most eye-popping, mind-bending sensory experience to come out of the Marvel Studios stable to date.
Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is a brilliant but arrogant neurosurgeon whose hands are severely injured in a horrific car crash. Desperate to recover the use of his hands, Strange spends every last penny on expensive, experimental treatments and ultimately finds himself in Nepal, where he comes face-to-face with a mysterious guru known only as the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who, with the help of her disciple Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a curmudgeonly librarian Wong (Benedict Wong), shows him a different path in life from that which he has been following so far, and he begins the process of learning an altogether new art, a far more ancient and powerful one than the one he used to practice. This happens not a moment too soon, as one of the Ancient One's former disciples Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) has stolen pages out of her mystical books for a ritual that could result in the total annihilation of the whole world. Strange has a lot to learn about the mystic arts, but unfortunately not a whole lot of time to learn it.
This film exemplifies several of the qualities that have made Marvel Studios films consistently entertaining if not always outstanding: an all-too-human, well-realized hero with complexities, frailties and insecurities, incredible production value in the form of meticulously-realized sets, costumes and locations, and state-of-the-art visual effects. Cumberbatch in particular was the absolute star of the show, which was no mean feat considering the weight of expectations he bore upon entering into the production as, arguably, the highest-profile star ever to throw his hat into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the MCU revived Downey Jr.'s career, Cumberbatch took this on while his was very much on the upswing, which made it a bit of a risk for him, albeit one which has definitely paid off in spades.
I'm happy to note that we've come a long way from the Nevada desert doubling for the Middle East (Iron Man), or Cleveland doubling for Germany (The Avengers). I loved that the film was actually shot in Nepal, Hong Kong, New York and London. It's also worth noting there's a bit of "house style" as evidenced by the presence of Director of Photography Ben Davis and Costume Designer Alexandra Byrne who, between the two of them, have worked on eight Marvel Studios films, which is over half of the entire catalog of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Little details like this, as well as the references to the Avengers in the script, are a subtle way of reminding the audience that this film still forms part of a bigger tapestry, even as it stands quite well on its own. Another regular Marvel collaborator, Industrial Light and Magic, turns in sensational work here, deftly mixing and seriously upgrading earlier reality-bending effects from films like The Matrix and Inception. These sequences looked great in IMAX 3-D.
All that said, the film suffers from some of Marvel's frequent shortcomings, starting, unfortunately, with their virtually-trademarked cookie-cutter villain, with Kaecilius' only truly remarkable feature being his wildly colorful eye make-up. It's sad to think that the reasonably talented Mikkelsen passed up the chance to play one generic Marvel bad guy years ago in Thor: The Dark World, only to play another one three years later. Equally listless here is Rachel McAdams as Strange's throwaway love interest Dr. Christine Palmer, who at the very least fares better here than in the last movie in which I saw her, Antoine Fuqua's Southpaw (in which her sole purpose was to catalyze the hero's journey towards redemption by dying), but that doesn't say much at all.
To be honest, I think Marvel should really make it a point to hire scriptwriters who specialize in creating memorable villains, as this has really been a glaring deficiency in their storytelling. To be fair, apart from Heath Ledger's Joker, the folks at Warner Brothers/DC have not exactly come up with a particularly memorable heavy, but Marvel Studios' inability to come up with a truly menacing villain (apart, perhaps from Loki), has practically become the stuff of legend (or internet jokes) by now. Marvel villains are not only not memorable, by now many of them have a distinctly generic feel to them. It's a serious structural flaw in their storytelling that needs to be remedied, especially considering their rather formidable rogues' gallery from the comic books. Also, the script made a couple of annoying shortcuts, notably Strange's immediate acquisition of serious mystical skills, as well as some logical gaffes in the climactic sequences of the film.
It's not all bad news, though. I had originally written off Ejiofor's Baron Mordo, based on what I had seen in the promotional material, as yet another black sidekick in the mold of Don Cheadle's War Machine, Anthony Mackie's Falcon and Idris Elba's Heimdall, but as it turns out Mordo undergoes his own journey in the course of the film, one that, in a way, parallels that of Strange, and is notable for the fact that he ends up somewhere very different from where Strange does. Swinton, for all of the bellyaching that her casting spawned, is marvelous in her role as the Ancient One, and Benedict Wong, as Wong, essentially the film's deadpan comic relief, is also a welcome presence. Marvel geeks will recognize the weapon he wields in the film's climax as the Wand of Watoomb, among several other Easter Eggs liberally sprinkled throughout the film.
It's still, overall, a very safe Marvel film, and one can almost see the boxes the producers ticked when they made it, but the good news is that there was room for quite a bit of extra imagination here, and for a newly-minted Marvel superstar to flex his thespic muscles. Another plus for this film is that it features a genuine rarity in Marvel Studios productions these days: an outstanding music score, courtesy of Oscar winner Michael Giacchino.
Still, one would think that after fourteen movies, Marvel would finally have gotten a handle on their more conspicuous problems like mediocre villains and love interests who are basically just attractive wallpaper. Had this been one of the earlier films in their catalog I would almost certainly have given this movie a higher score, but after all this time, Marvel should really know better.
7.9/10
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Brave, Tragic and Utterly Beautiful: A Review of Kubo and the Two Strings
directed by Travis Knight
written by Marc Haimes, Chris Butler, and Shannon Tindle
Since they burst onto the scene seven years ago with their acclaimed adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Dave Mckean's modern classic children's book Coraline, Laika Productions has produced consistently astonishing movies featuring off-beat stories and unusual heroes. Kubo and the Two Strings continues that proud tradition, and I dare say, on both a technical and storytelling level, it is their best work yet.
Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson) is a one-eyed Japanese boy who lives on a cliff with his mother, a half-catatonic woman with a mysterious past who washed up on shore one late evening with her newborn baby whose eye had just been plucked out. Kubo spends his days and earning a living of sorts entertaining people from the nearby village with his storytelling, in which he uses what appear to be magically-animated origami figures and the skillful playing of his shamisen to captivate his audience. He leaves before the sun goes down, however, on his mother's warning not to stay out after dark. Kubo's heart aches, though, because of the absence of his father, whom his mother explains was killed when he was a baby. One day, at a festival for the dead, Kubo stays out late, hoping to commune with his father's spirit, and tragedy strikes. Now, to save himself from dark forces out to harm him, he must find a magical, mystical suit of armor, which he can only do with the help of his friend, a magical monkey sent to protect him (also Theron) and a mysterious warrior beetle (Matthew McConaughey). He'll need all the help he can get against the power of his mother's malevolent sisters (both voiced by Rooney Mara) and the powerful, sinister Moon King (Ralph Fiennes).
Anyone who reads this blog knows I have great affection for Disney's Zootopia, a film I ranked a perfect 10, for its blend of entertainment and its unflinching look at racial prejudice, at a time when a stand on the issue had to be taken. As much as I love that film, though, and as brave as I felt it was, this, in my honest estimation, felt even braver, with its mutilated hero, dark subject matter, and equally unflinching look at the importance of human kindness, which, per this story, must be extended to even the most odious of beings.
Laika's craftsmanship is, as it always has been, vastly impressive, and has significantly improved since the days of Coraline. It's a pretty awesome marriage of the age-old technique of stop-motion animation and modern day technology. Even with all the advances, though, it took a total of five years to make this film.
However sophisticated the storytelling tools, however, they are nothing without a good story to tell (just look at several of Dreamworks Animation's recent offerings), but the good news is that the ladies and gentlemen at Laika have that bit pretty much down pat.
As delightful as it was to hear Oscar-winners Theron and McConaughey voice key characters in the story, it's Parkinson's earnest performance that does the heavy lifting in this film as Kubo is defined by his imagination and ultimately his compassion, all of which come through in Parkinson's voice acting.
I realize I'm venturing into slight spoiler territory when I say this, but this film is quite defiantly not-entirely-kid-friendly with some frightening antagonists (my three-year-old turned away in fear at the ghostly twin ninja sisters of Kubo's mother), and its surprisingly tragic tone near the end. That's what makes it rather endearing in my eyes; the studio could probably have made a couple of more million at the box office with more conventional storytelling, which makes their act of sticking to their narrative guns all the more impressive.
This film is a classic in the mold of a Studio Ghibli production; it's completely uncompromising, and utterly mesmerizing.
10/10
written by Marc Haimes, Chris Butler, and Shannon Tindle
Since they burst onto the scene seven years ago with their acclaimed adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Dave Mckean's modern classic children's book Coraline, Laika Productions has produced consistently astonishing movies featuring off-beat stories and unusual heroes. Kubo and the Two Strings continues that proud tradition, and I dare say, on both a technical and storytelling level, it is their best work yet.
Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson) is a one-eyed Japanese boy who lives on a cliff with his mother, a half-catatonic woman with a mysterious past who washed up on shore one late evening with her newborn baby whose eye had just been plucked out. Kubo spends his days and earning a living of sorts entertaining people from the nearby village with his storytelling, in which he uses what appear to be magically-animated origami figures and the skillful playing of his shamisen to captivate his audience. He leaves before the sun goes down, however, on his mother's warning not to stay out after dark. Kubo's heart aches, though, because of the absence of his father, whom his mother explains was killed when he was a baby. One day, at a festival for the dead, Kubo stays out late, hoping to commune with his father's spirit, and tragedy strikes. Now, to save himself from dark forces out to harm him, he must find a magical, mystical suit of armor, which he can only do with the help of his friend, a magical monkey sent to protect him (also Theron) and a mysterious warrior beetle (Matthew McConaughey). He'll need all the help he can get against the power of his mother's malevolent sisters (both voiced by Rooney Mara) and the powerful, sinister Moon King (Ralph Fiennes).
Anyone who reads this blog knows I have great affection for Disney's Zootopia, a film I ranked a perfect 10, for its blend of entertainment and its unflinching look at racial prejudice, at a time when a stand on the issue had to be taken. As much as I love that film, though, and as brave as I felt it was, this, in my honest estimation, felt even braver, with its mutilated hero, dark subject matter, and equally unflinching look at the importance of human kindness, which, per this story, must be extended to even the most odious of beings.
Laika's craftsmanship is, as it always has been, vastly impressive, and has significantly improved since the days of Coraline. It's a pretty awesome marriage of the age-old technique of stop-motion animation and modern day technology. Even with all the advances, though, it took a total of five years to make this film.
However sophisticated the storytelling tools, however, they are nothing without a good story to tell (just look at several of Dreamworks Animation's recent offerings), but the good news is that the ladies and gentlemen at Laika have that bit pretty much down pat.
As delightful as it was to hear Oscar-winners Theron and McConaughey voice key characters in the story, it's Parkinson's earnest performance that does the heavy lifting in this film as Kubo is defined by his imagination and ultimately his compassion, all of which come through in Parkinson's voice acting.
I realize I'm venturing into slight spoiler territory when I say this, but this film is quite defiantly not-entirely-kid-friendly with some frightening antagonists (my three-year-old turned away in fear at the ghostly twin ninja sisters of Kubo's mother), and its surprisingly tragic tone near the end. That's what makes it rather endearing in my eyes; the studio could probably have made a couple of more million at the box office with more conventional storytelling, which makes their act of sticking to their narrative guns all the more impressive.
This film is a classic in the mold of a Studio Ghibli production; it's completely uncompromising, and utterly mesmerizing.
10/10
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Solid, if Not Quite Magnificent Action: A Review of "The Magnificent Seven"
directed by Antoine Fuqua
written by Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk
I was never much one for Westerns, but I have been more or less consistently a fan of Denzel Washington since watching his Oscar-winning performance in Edward Zwick's Glory back in 1989. In fact, I've watched almost every one of his films this millennium, whether on the big or small screen. This film marks his third collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua, who directed him to a Best Actor Oscar in 2001's Training Day.
The town of Rose Creek is besieged by the murderous prospector Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who, with his thugs, burns their church and beats their Pastor (Mark Ashworth) to within an inch of his life. One of the townspeople, Matthew Cullen (Matt Bomer) speaks out against Bogue and is shot, along with several other townspeople. Desperate, Cullen's widow Emma (Haley Bennett) seeks out men who will help their town, and finds warrant officer Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington). Sam, turn recruits a somewhat motley bunch: gambler Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), Civil War sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and his traveling companion Billy Rocks (Byung Hun Lee), outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), tracker Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), and Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). They are all highly-capable, and make a considerable impression on Bogue's goons when they enter the town. In response, Bogue assembles an army, and the seven get to work training the townspeople of Rose Creek to fight one hell of a battle.
While I never saw the 1960 film by John Sturges which was the direct progenitor of this film, I did watch the 1954 film Seven Samurai, which inspired both of them back when I was in college, and as a result I did have some basis for comparison. Truth be told, I remember very little about that film save for the lovable buffoon played by Toshiro Mifune and the deadly swordsman of the group who could kill an enemy with one sword stroke, who may have been the inspiration for Ethan Hawke's sharpshooter character, but I do remember the climactic battle of the older film, and in that aspect at least, this film compares pretty well.
In terms of setting up the conflict, introducing the seven and leading up to the big showdown at the end, Fuqua and his screenwriters pretty much play the movie by the numbers, but there is some real joy here in seeing the actors who portray the seven play off each other. Washington's Chisolm and Pratt's Faraday have a fairly easy chemistry, as do Chisolm and his long-time friend Robicheaux, perhaps a shout-out to Washington's and Hawke's first on-screen reunion since Training Day. Less well-defined but occasionally amusing is the friendly rivalry between Faraday and Vasquez, which occasionally ventures into vaguely racist quips by from Faraday. Sensmeier's Red Harvest is kind of just...there, while Lee's Billy Rocks character, of unspecified ethnicity (his description as a Chinaman is a bit of deception in the film) gets quite a bit of screen time, mainly to show off his mad skills with knives. I did enjoy D'Onofrio's Jack Horne, though, as he turned in a particularly quirky performance for this character, including an odd bit of falsetto for much of the film. Washington offers another turn as the noble bad-ass he has played to perfection since 2004's Man on Fire, though with a couple of twists this time. Pratt, similarly, is also pretty much the lovable cad from Guardians of the Galaxy. Sarsgaard and the men playing his goons make some effort at being bad but in the end they might as well be villains out of a Marvel movie; they're basically people who do very bad things but fail to come off as particularly memorable, though there is considerable satisfaction when Bogue gets his inevitable comeuppance. Bennett does a creditable turn as one of the film's many innovations over its predecessor: the strong female character.
While some hype has been made about the film's diversity, in terms of actual execution, it feels more like a marketing gimmick than an attempt at meaningful storytelling, and in truth the closest the film ever gets to talking about racial tension is the throwaway jokes between Faraday and Vasquez. This was something that could really have set it apart from its predecessors, whose septets were ethnically homogeneous, and while I understand Fuqua and his writers weren't exactly shooting for Oscar glory here, I really think there were quite a few wasted opportunities, especially since there seem to be vague attempts to liken the bad guy to Donald Trump.
Where the film succeeded for me, though, was the action sequences, and Fuqua, his actors and his stunt crew really pulled out the stops for these scenes, and they are at least as intense as a PG-13 rating (R-13 here in the Philippines) would allow them to be, which, as it turns out was quite a bit. I had approached this film with a measure of trepidation after Fuqua (and Washington) had let me down a bit with The Equalizer, which had the one outstanding action scene and a bunch of lethargic ones, and as a result I was quite pleasantly surprised by how Fuqua put together his vision of the iconic showdown from the first two movies, complete with its blazing gunfights and staggering body count. I found the action quite well-choreographed, and even though some moments (including death scenes) worked better than others, I thought that it played out quite well on the whole. I know stuntmen took over for much of this, but the actors, particularly Washington, got some pretty generous face time during these sequences.
Particularly remarkable for me is how credible Denzel Washington, at the ripe old age of 61, still is as an action hero. For reference, when he was 60, Harrison Ford starred as a submarine commander in K:19 the Widowmaker, not exactly the kind of role that had him running around, and appeared as an old codger of a crime-lord in Cowboys and Aliens. Washington isn't exactly denying his years--in 2010's Unstoppable he played a long-time train operator approaching retirment--but the fact that he can pull off this role by simply dyeing his hair roots a little bit was really something special to behold. I would love for Chris Pratt to rope him into a future Guardians of the Galaxy cameo one day.
Fuqua makes clear his affection for the Western with his sweeping vistas, and while it's hard not to think of what this film could have been I still found myself appreciating it for what it was: a reasonably entertaining romp. Also, while I would have wanted something a little more high-profile as the last project for my favorite composer James Horner, this movie feels like a much better sendoff than Fuqua's boxing drama Southpaw or the little seen mining drama The 33 would have been. Horner's music pervades throughout the film and even though the score was co-composed by frequent Horner collaborator Simon Franglen I really got the sense there was an effort to hew as closely to Horner's style as possible. It's also a bit sad that Horner's music was inevitably overshadowed by Elmer Bernstein's iconic theme, but if nothing else I am grateful that, thanks to this film and much more restrictive bans on tobacco advertising than the ones I grew up with, there is now a whole generation of viewers that will properly identify the theme of The Magnificent Seven with The Magnificent Seven, and not with some cigarette commercial like I did. If for this and nothing else, this movie deserves my genuine affection.
7/10
written by Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk
I was never much one for Westerns, but I have been more or less consistently a fan of Denzel Washington since watching his Oscar-winning performance in Edward Zwick's Glory back in 1989. In fact, I've watched almost every one of his films this millennium, whether on the big or small screen. This film marks his third collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua, who directed him to a Best Actor Oscar in 2001's Training Day.
The town of Rose Creek is besieged by the murderous prospector Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who, with his thugs, burns their church and beats their Pastor (Mark Ashworth) to within an inch of his life. One of the townspeople, Matthew Cullen (Matt Bomer) speaks out against Bogue and is shot, along with several other townspeople. Desperate, Cullen's widow Emma (Haley Bennett) seeks out men who will help their town, and finds warrant officer Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington). Sam, turn recruits a somewhat motley bunch: gambler Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), Civil War sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and his traveling companion Billy Rocks (Byung Hun Lee), outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), tracker Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), and Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). They are all highly-capable, and make a considerable impression on Bogue's goons when they enter the town. In response, Bogue assembles an army, and the seven get to work training the townspeople of Rose Creek to fight one hell of a battle.
While I never saw the 1960 film by John Sturges which was the direct progenitor of this film, I did watch the 1954 film Seven Samurai, which inspired both of them back when I was in college, and as a result I did have some basis for comparison. Truth be told, I remember very little about that film save for the lovable buffoon played by Toshiro Mifune and the deadly swordsman of the group who could kill an enemy with one sword stroke, who may have been the inspiration for Ethan Hawke's sharpshooter character, but I do remember the climactic battle of the older film, and in that aspect at least, this film compares pretty well.
In terms of setting up the conflict, introducing the seven and leading up to the big showdown at the end, Fuqua and his screenwriters pretty much play the movie by the numbers, but there is some real joy here in seeing the actors who portray the seven play off each other. Washington's Chisolm and Pratt's Faraday have a fairly easy chemistry, as do Chisolm and his long-time friend Robicheaux, perhaps a shout-out to Washington's and Hawke's first on-screen reunion since Training Day. Less well-defined but occasionally amusing is the friendly rivalry between Faraday and Vasquez, which occasionally ventures into vaguely racist quips by from Faraday. Sensmeier's Red Harvest is kind of just...there, while Lee's Billy Rocks character, of unspecified ethnicity (his description as a Chinaman is a bit of deception in the film) gets quite a bit of screen time, mainly to show off his mad skills with knives. I did enjoy D'Onofrio's Jack Horne, though, as he turned in a particularly quirky performance for this character, including an odd bit of falsetto for much of the film. Washington offers another turn as the noble bad-ass he has played to perfection since 2004's Man on Fire, though with a couple of twists this time. Pratt, similarly, is also pretty much the lovable cad from Guardians of the Galaxy. Sarsgaard and the men playing his goons make some effort at being bad but in the end they might as well be villains out of a Marvel movie; they're basically people who do very bad things but fail to come off as particularly memorable, though there is considerable satisfaction when Bogue gets his inevitable comeuppance. Bennett does a creditable turn as one of the film's many innovations over its predecessor: the strong female character.
While some hype has been made about the film's diversity, in terms of actual execution, it feels more like a marketing gimmick than an attempt at meaningful storytelling, and in truth the closest the film ever gets to talking about racial tension is the throwaway jokes between Faraday and Vasquez. This was something that could really have set it apart from its predecessors, whose septets were ethnically homogeneous, and while I understand Fuqua and his writers weren't exactly shooting for Oscar glory here, I really think there were quite a few wasted opportunities, especially since there seem to be vague attempts to liken the bad guy to Donald Trump.
Where the film succeeded for me, though, was the action sequences, and Fuqua, his actors and his stunt crew really pulled out the stops for these scenes, and they are at least as intense as a PG-13 rating (R-13 here in the Philippines) would allow them to be, which, as it turns out was quite a bit. I had approached this film with a measure of trepidation after Fuqua (and Washington) had let me down a bit with The Equalizer, which had the one outstanding action scene and a bunch of lethargic ones, and as a result I was quite pleasantly surprised by how Fuqua put together his vision of the iconic showdown from the first two movies, complete with its blazing gunfights and staggering body count. I found the action quite well-choreographed, and even though some moments (including death scenes) worked better than others, I thought that it played out quite well on the whole. I know stuntmen took over for much of this, but the actors, particularly Washington, got some pretty generous face time during these sequences.
Particularly remarkable for me is how credible Denzel Washington, at the ripe old age of 61, still is as an action hero. For reference, when he was 60, Harrison Ford starred as a submarine commander in K:19 the Widowmaker, not exactly the kind of role that had him running around, and appeared as an old codger of a crime-lord in Cowboys and Aliens. Washington isn't exactly denying his years--in 2010's Unstoppable he played a long-time train operator approaching retirment--but the fact that he can pull off this role by simply dyeing his hair roots a little bit was really something special to behold. I would love for Chris Pratt to rope him into a future Guardians of the Galaxy cameo one day.
Fuqua makes clear his affection for the Western with his sweeping vistas, and while it's hard not to think of what this film could have been I still found myself appreciating it for what it was: a reasonably entertaining romp. Also, while I would have wanted something a little more high-profile as the last project for my favorite composer James Horner, this movie feels like a much better sendoff than Fuqua's boxing drama Southpaw or the little seen mining drama The 33 would have been. Horner's music pervades throughout the film and even though the score was co-composed by frequent Horner collaborator Simon Franglen I really got the sense there was an effort to hew as closely to Horner's style as possible. It's also a bit sad that Horner's music was inevitably overshadowed by Elmer Bernstein's iconic theme, but if nothing else I am grateful that, thanks to this film and much more restrictive bans on tobacco advertising than the ones I grew up with, there is now a whole generation of viewers that will properly identify the theme of The Magnificent Seven with The Magnificent Seven, and not with some cigarette commercial like I did. If for this and nothing else, this movie deserves my genuine affection.
7/10
Monday, September 5, 2016
Something Cool Happened While I Wasn't Looking...
A few days ago I was feeling pretty good about myself...somewhat heroic, in fact, and so to reward myself I went onto youtube to listen to my favorite "heroic" themes, such as the main theme from Gladiator by Hans Zimmer and the original Marvel's Avengers theme by Alan Silvestri. While listening to the latter, I found myself scrolling through the comments to find, to my delight, that Silvestri, whom Marvel replaced in last year's Avengers sequel with Danny Elfman and Brian Tyler will be returning as composer for the next two Avengers films. It turns out, this was announced three months ago.
This may not mean much to people who aren't movie nerds, or comic-book nerds, or comic-book movie nerds, or movie music nerds, but Silvestri, along with the likes of Elfman, Zimmer, the late James Horner, Bruce Broughton and a handful of other composers were a staple of the movies I grew up with in the 1980s, many of whom worked with the soaring orchestral sounds perfected by industry legends John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. Silvestri, whose signature soundtrack will, to me, always be his Back to the Future theme, is among the very best of that bunch, and arguably one of the most prolific next to Hans Zimmer.
Anyway, the bottom line is I'll be very happy to welcome Mr. Silvestri back to the MCU!
This may not mean much to people who aren't movie nerds, or comic-book nerds, or comic-book movie nerds, or movie music nerds, but Silvestri, along with the likes of Elfman, Zimmer, the late James Horner, Bruce Broughton and a handful of other composers were a staple of the movies I grew up with in the 1980s, many of whom worked with the soaring orchestral sounds perfected by industry legends John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. Silvestri, whose signature soundtrack will, to me, always be his Back to the Future theme, is among the very best of that bunch, and arguably one of the most prolific next to Hans Zimmer.
Anyway, the bottom line is I'll be very happy to welcome Mr. Silvestri back to the MCU!
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