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Category Archives: Movies
Return to Oz Picks Mood and Metaphor over Plot and Progression on the Darker Side of the Rainbow
Conventional wisdom holds that stories should be held together by “but”s and “therefore”s instead of “and then”s. Each new scene, each beat in the narrative, should be motivated by what came before, either as cause and effect or as a change and reaction, rather than a random series of events. That approach is supposed to preserve the weight and momentum of your story, giving the actions taken and the choices made more meaning within a greater whole.
Return to Oz, however, is squarely an “and then” movie. As I discussed on the We Love to Watch Podcast, the nearly-half century late sequel to The Wizard of Oz brings back the iconic Dorothy Gale, and it shows her making a few key decisions here and there. But the film is mainly an accumulation of events that simply roll into one another, with minimal connective tissue between them. It roundly violates those dearly-held storytelling principles, which should consign it to the scrap heap of the languid or unsatisfying.
Posted in Classic Films, Movies
Tagged 1980s Movies, Dorothy Gale, Kids Movies, Movie Reviews, The Wizard of Oz
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The Star Wars Holiday Special Should Never Be Forgotten
While the debates among the Star Wars faithful rage on — about how each film should be ranked, which events are canon, or who shot whom and when — one simple truth remains. However high its highs, however great its triumphs, a franchise as long-lived and wide-ranging as Star Wars will inevitably produce a serious amount of utter crap.
Posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Movies
Tagged George Lucas, Holiday Season, Movie Reviews, Star Wars
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Stan Lee Was the Icon We Needed Him to Be
The Stan Lee moment that stands out to me isn’t from one of his many famed cameos, or his legendary backpage columns, or his colorful promotional appearances. It’s from a short-lived television show called Who Wants To Be A Superhero? Stan was the master of ceremonies on the series, an effort to tap into the waning days of the reality T.V. show craze. Each week, a coterie of costume-clad hopefuls would compete to have the characters they created and cosplayed enshrined in a comic book by Stan “The Man” himself.
Moana Is a Cheery Throwback to the Heights of the Disney Renaissance
There is a little bit of magic in Disney films of a certain stripe, when the music swells and the counterpoint kicks in and the protagonist hears the call to adventure and your cold, icy heart can’t help but melt just a little as you feel the hero’s same pull toward the horizon and mix of excitement and trepidation over the sheer possibilities. Moana is filled to the brim with these moments, the kind that make the most of the hero’s journey the films sets its eponymous protagonist on. And it capitalizes on Moana’s unique combination of self-confidence, internal conflict, and gnawing uncertainty, that give her layers and make her a compelling figure.
Posted in Animated Films, Movies
Tagged Animation, Computer Animation, Disney, Duane Johnson, Movie Reviews, Musicals, Walt Disney Animation Studios
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The Dark Knight and the Dangerous Legacy of the Charismatic Villain
The Joker had left an indelible mark on pop culture long before Heath Ledger assumed the role. He’s one of the few super villains to be consistently featured on merchandise going as far back as the 1960s. His classic semi-origin story in 1998’s Batman: The Killing Joke spurred a dramatic shift in the medium that left fans demanding more of its darkness in their comics. The Joker’s place in the cultural firmament was enough to lure the likes of Jack Nicholson to portray the character on the silver screen. For decades, despite his myriad misdeeds and sizable body count, The Joker nevertheless garnered a consistent crowd of acolytes who saw him as a sort of harlequin antihero.
Posted in Movies, Superhero Movies
Tagged Batman, Christopher Nolan, Essays, Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Joker
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Deadpool 2 Has the (Blood and) Guts to Be Silly in its Superheroic Spoof
I don’t come to a Deadpool movie for the plot. The first film that featured the “Merc with a Mouth” was a hilarious, take-no-prisoners romp when it was poking fun at conventional superhero flicks, and a duller indulgence when it was aping them. The second film dutifully follows in those same, blood-stained footsteps. Deadpool 2 is a blast when its title character is making mischief or joking around and more tedious when it’s trying to wring some pathos out of his otherwise irreverent tale.
Posted in Movies, Superhero Movies
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Solo: A Star Wars Story Is a Blast as an Adventure Flick, and a Chore as a Character Study
Solo has the scruffy confidence to be its own film. Of the ten Star Wars movies released so far, it’s the only one that doesn’t directly tie into the events of the main saga. That alone makes it interesting and laudable as the first real silver screen step of Star Wars ceasing to be a series and starting to be a “cinematic universe.”
Posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Movies
Tagged Film Reviews, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, Ron Howard, Star Wars, Star Wars Anthology Films
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Avengers: Infinity War and the Choice between Love and Victory
Caution: This review contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War.
Before Joss Whedon made 2012’s The Avengers and changed the caped crossover game forever, he created an arguably even more influential T.V. show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Despite its gothic overtones, Buffy had the rhythms of a superhero story, with special powers, recurring villains, and big deaths and resurrections. And in one particularly significant season finale [spoilers for a 15-year-old episode of television], Whedon gave his protagonist a choice: save the universe or save someone you love.
Buffy’s conflict had the same sort of stakes as Avengers: Infinity War, even if the contours were a bit different. A mad god was on the loose and threatening to destroy all of creation. To bring that apocalypse to fruition, she needed to use Buffy’s sister who was, through some magical mishegoss, the key to this grand undoing. When that threat reached a crisis point, friend and foe alike advised Buffy to make a hard choice and sacrifice her sister for the good of all mankind. But Buffy, undeterred, decided to find another way, to rally her allies and fight this evil, rather than capitulate to it.
Posted in Movies, Superhero Movies
Tagged Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thanos, The Avengers, Trolley Problem
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Krypton 101: A Brief History of Superman’s Home Planet
Andrew joins ace T.V. writer Clint Worthington and Cameron Cuffe, star of the new series Krypton, to discuss the different versions of Superman’s home world on the page and screen over the years.
Black Panther Makes the MCU a Deeper, Richer Place
Black Panther doesn’t have the aura of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. Yes, it features allies and enemies we’ve met in prior outings like Age of Ultron and Civil War. Yes, it has a jovial vibe throughout its cast that buoys heavier moments. And yes, it has the mandatory, climactic third act battle, draped in CGI and stuffed with the usual fanfare.
But Black Panther also stands apart from the rest of Marvel’s offerings on the silver screen. It is unabashedly Afrocentric in its focus and in its approach. It is a forthrightly political film, meditating on the legacy of colonialism, the oppression of people of color around the world, and the push and pull of calls for isolationism and for global activism. Though squeezed into the standard hero movie structure, Black Panther takes its audience to a different space, one untouched by the rest of the world and, in some ways, untouched by the broader cinematic universe the film exists within, which gives the movie its unassuming strength.
