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Category Archives: Movies
The Simplicity of Predator Is a Blessing and a Curse
There’s a refreshing simplicity to the plot of Predator. You can boil it down to “Alien hunter picks off mercenaries in the jungle.” Technically, there’s a little more to it than that, with the mildest of ruses and a minor mission misdirect to contend with, but the gist of the film fits into an eight-word description. That seems remarkable right now in an age where every blockbuster and explosion-fest needs to have some convoluted conspiracy, twist upon twist, and a grand mystery to keep the audience interested. Predator, by contrast, banks on the basics of its premise to carry the day.
That’s a good thing, because there ain’t much of a story otherwise. As I discussed on The Serial Fanaticist Podcast, Predator offers the wisp of a theme about the military-industrial complex seeing its soldiers as interchangeable parts, while the men themselves view one another as human beings. It gradually parcels out the inevitable deaths of everyone besides its major star (and its token female character) to fill the gaps between explosions and alien encounters. And it teases the appearance of the titular antagonist nigh-perfectly, letting the audience get glimpses of the creature and his work bit by bit before he fully emerges.
Posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Movies
Tagged 1980s Movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Film Reviews, John McTiernan, Predator
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South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut Continues to Give and Point the Finger
Blame TV. Blame your parents. Blame movies. Blame society. Hell, blame Canada. But whatever you do, blame something, and quickly, before someone thinks of blaming you.
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut turns 20 this weekend, and for as much as the movie’s Saddam Hussein-heavy, Celine Dion-referencing take on the world is very much of its time, the film nevertheless captures the ways in which American culture would continue to take deeply entrenched, complex cultural problems, and hunt for convenient scapegoats and easy answers in the years to come. There is no issue too inflammatory, no societal malady too multifaceted, that it cannot be oversimplified and laid at the feet of a readily-available boogeyman.
Posted in Animated Films, Movies, Other Animated Shows
Tagged Film Reviews, Matt Stone, South Park, Trey Parker
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Deadwood: The Movie Returns and Finally Forms a Fucking Government
It’s 1889, and South Dakota is soon to become the nation’s newest state. With that, the onetime hardscrabble camp of prospectors and cutthroats in Deadwood is being ushered into the future, grumbling but prepared. Picking up ten years after the television series left off, Deadwood: The Movie sees local luminaries like the saloon-owning power broker Al Swearengen and the now-Marshall Seth Bullock having settled into their roles in the town on the cusp of the dreaded-but-long-awaited arrival of law, civilization, and progress.
Avengers: Endgame Is an Unprecedented Achievement in Cinema, Not Just Superhero Cinema
Stop and consider the magnitude of this achievement for a moment. Avengers: Endgame is not just a film. It is not just the “season finale” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the culmination of eleven years of multifaceted storytelling, somehow managing to balance dozens of characters, tie off story threads that have stretched and intersected over the past decade, and craft a final challenge worthy of being the capstone to this mega-franchise. That it happened at all, let alone that this saga ends on a note so poignant, funny, and exhilarating, is an absolute miracle — or at least, if you’ll pardon the expression, a marvel.
Posted in Movies, Superhero Movies
Tagged Black Widow, Captain America, Comic Book Movies, Film Reviews, Iron Man, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Superheroes, Thanos
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Trading Places Exemplifies the Eighties Class Comedy, for Better and for Worse
There’s something about class conflicts that lend themselves well to comedy. The snobs vs. slobs dynamic has been a venerable strain of humor on the silver screen, especially in the eighties, and Trading Places aims to take advantage of that. It presents Dan Aykroyd as a snooty stuffed shirt named Louis Winthorpe and Eddie Murphy as a street-wise hustler named Billy Ray Valentine. As I discussed on the Serial Fanaticist Podcast, Having the otherwise disparate worlds of these two men collide is a sound, time-tested recipe to wring some laughs out of the contrast between the well-heeled and the worn-heeled.
Posted in Classic Films, Movies
Tagged 1980s Movies, Comedy, Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Movie Reviews
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The Matrix Was Prescient About the Online World, But Also the Real World
There’s a tension at the heart of The Matrix. The film frames its machine-forged digital ecosystem as a prison, as a lie intended to keep humanity docile. It’s the work of an authority that means to tame us. But the Matrix itself is also a world of unlimited possibility, one where you can look cooler than the real world would ever allow, do what no flesh-and-blood human ever could, and see and feel and experience things that simply aren’t possible outside of this virtual space. The film quickly establishes a tug-of-war between the true but meager subsistence the real world offers and the blinding but comforting falsehood of the world made out of ones and zeroes.
Captain Marvel Is a Throwback to the Earliest MCU Films, Even as It Breaks New Ground
Captain Marvel is essentially a “Phase One” MCU film. That’s not a bad thing! The original dose of pre-Avengers movies hit doubles more often than they hit home runs, but each was enjoyable on its own terms and managed to nicely establish its main character. The journeys in these introductory films are clearly meant to be personal ones, as much about a hero becoming who they’re meant to be as they are about defeating some forgettable bad guy. That’s certainly true for Captain Marvel, where the nominally cataclysmic stakes (already diminished by the period setting) take a backseat to the audience getting to know this new character and her path to self-actualization.
Posted in Movies, Superhero Movies
Tagged Captain Marvel, Film Reviews, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nick Fury
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Captures the Spirit of the Franchise as Captain Kirk Learns to Lose
Star Trek: The Motion Picture might represent the spirit of Star Trek, with its story of seeking out new life and new civilizations, and its heady science fiction rooted in the space between the personal and the unfathomable. But as I discussed on the We Love to Watch podcast, if The Motion Picture captures Star Trek’s spirit, then The Wrath of Khan captures the franchise’s character. The second theatrical Star Trek film conveys the way these friends and allies bounce off one another, the franchise’s Wagon Train to the Stars adventurism, and the larger-than-life personalities that give color to its futuristic world.
Posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Movies
Tagged 1980s Movies, Captain Kirk, Film Reviews, Spock, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
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Green Book Is the Least-Deserving Best Picture Winner in Years
Green Book is quaint. It is the cinematic equivalent of a Hallmark card on race relations, there to make you feel good, reflect the real world in only the vaguest, gentlest of ways, and then be quickly discarded and forgotten. It is thoroughly lacking in any incisiveness or genuine insight, and its take on racism and transcending divisions is as deep as a thimble. The film’s perspective is limited and provincial at best, and often troubling or even insulting in its oversimplifications.
Posted in Movies, Prestige Pictures
Tagged Film Reviews, Mahershala Ali, Oscars, Oscars 2018, Race, Viggo Mortenson
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Defines Miles Morales at the Same Time It Defines Spider-Man
I’ve seen a lot of Spider-Man. From the three versions of the character who’ve graced the silver screen in recent years, to scores of different animated series, to an endless font of video games and shorts and other material, Marvel and its licensees have given us countless versions of The Webhead. Some kept Spidey in New York, while others sent him off into space. Some framed him as an untested kid in high school, while others made him an accomplished young adult. Some narrowed his world to a localized ecosystem of characters and conflicts, and others expanded to encompass the whole of the Marvel Universe.
But all of them starred Peter Parker as Spider-Man. And as I discussed on The Serial Fanaticist Podcast, that process of repeat adaptation can’t help but raise the question — what makes each of these characters Spider-Man as we know him? What is the connective tissue that lets each of these adaptations feel of a piece with one another and recognizable as stories about the same character? Is it just the suit, or the web-slinging, or the quips, or is there something more there?
Posted in Animated Films, Movies, Superhero Movies
Tagged Film Reviews, Marvel, Miles Morales, Peter Parker, Spider-Man
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